You can view this video right here by getting the latest version of Flash Player!

DOWNLOADS: (1412)

PLAYS: (5105)

Mary Matalin on John King's State of the Union defends those great champions of what she considers "conservatism" as opposed to "Republicanism", Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. Seems she's not taking too kindly to the "Endangered Species" headline at Time Magazine or to Wanda Sykes smack down of Boss Limbaugh. Bob Corker didn't want to answer whether Cheney's appearances are good for the party or not but Matalin of course thinks her old boss being out front and center defending torture is the greatest thing since white on rice.

We also are getting our first glimpse of how the right wing is going to go after Sykes. Call her stupid and uninformed and carp about how unfair it is for anyone to dare to use a personal attack on Limbaugh. Claim that no one on the left ever attacks Cheney or Limbaugh for their ideas, but instead only make personal attacks. We all know the right wing would never dare to try to call anyone on the Democratic side of the aisle a terrorist. Right Mary? And if you think no one has attacked them for their ideas you're walking around with blinders on.

I wonder if Matalin realizes that her being out there telling lies defending her old boss about how torture worked and saying it's legal when it's not is almost as bad for the GOP as Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh being their P.R. department? Of course given her participation in the White House Iraq Group whose purpose was to sell the invasion of Iraq to the public, this is nothing new for her.

KING: Mary, I want to start with you. If you look at the Sunday talk show landscape this morning, you'll see John McCain, Newt Gingrich, and your friend and old boss, Dick Cheney. And as we showed in our last segment, the cover of Time magazine this week is "Endangered Species." As you know, on the left, they're having a field day with the Sunday lineup, saying, great, if that's the face of the Republican Party, more of it. Let's have more to it, specifically to the point of the former vice president.

You know the debate he has stirred up over the past several weeks, beginning right here on "State of the Union." Helpful or hurtful for the Republican Party for Dick Cheney to be out there so much?

MATALIN: Well, if you consider the -- as I do, as most conservative do -- that Republicanism and conservativism are not necessarily synonymous, that when Republicans aspire and ascend is when they go back to what they do best, which is radical reform and being a party of ideas, as they did post-'64, as they did post-'92. When you have the people who best exemplify and represent those ideas getting (ph) and articulating them, like Newt Gingrich and Vice President Cheney, then that's a good thing.

You'll note whenever the Democrats attack Dick Cheney for being out or what he's saying, they never attack the ideas. There's never an answer for what he's speaking about, it's always just a personal attack.

Specifically, and I'm sure he's speaking even as we speak now about how really damaging and dangerous it was for this president to release the legal memos on the EITs, on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Very dangerous, very bad precedent and will come back to haunt this president.

So rather than have an argument about that, there's a personal attack on Dick Cheney, which means there's no argument against the ideas, which goes to what the Republicans need to do, which is to quit being an echo as Goldwater said, really the godfather of the conservatives and present a clear choice.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOAD (37)

PLAY (74)

Larry Elder makes a fool of himself defending the GOP distributing the racist CD on Anderson Cooper 360.

ELDER: It's much ado about nothing. Let's remember the genesis of this, there was an article Anderson, in the "L.A. Times" calls "Barack the magic Negro." It was not written by a conservative, in which he made the argument that the reason that people appeal to Barack Obama is that he's not offensive, he's not scary, he's not a criminal, and that's why whites like him.

Limbaugh then did a parody to, as you pointed out, "Puff the Magic Dragon," but the parody really was a Sharpton-like singer. And what the Sharpton-like singer was saying is, I'm unhappy that all these white people like Obama, because if Obama wins, what the hell am I going to do for a living? And so that's what this was. If anybody ought to be offended, it's Al Sharpton.

What bothers me, Anderson, is this whole piece. Democrats say things that are racist or at least racially insensitive about Republicans all the time.

Donna Brazile, who works for your network, once referred to the Republican Party as having a white-boy study.

Howard Dean once said, well, if Republicans were here at this convention, Democrats -- blacks were -- Republicans were here, the only blacks here would be serving tables.

Claire McCaskill running for senate said, George W. Bush let people suffer and die on rooftops in Katrina because they were poor and they were black.

Charlie Rangel, the head of the house and ways committee --

COOPER: You're saying a double standard?

ELDER: -- said that Republicans want taxes. They don't say "N" word or "s" word anymore, they just say, let's cut taxes. They make blatant racist appeals all the time that you let a Republican do a parody, and the fit hits the shan (ph). It's nuts, Anderson.

No Larry what's nuts is calling anyone who points out that the Republican party is full of racists "racially insensitive" or making "blatent racist appeals". I'll say it's becoming increasingly unnecessary to point that out to anyone since the GOP is doing a fine job all on its own of making sure that racism is in your face.

ELDER: It was -- Ms. Rosen, it was satire. And I don't think you want to go over the racist history of the Democratic Party; the party that was opposed to the 13th, the 14th, the 15th amendment, the party that founded the Klan. I'm not defending Republicans' insensitivity in the last two years. They were wrong.

ROSEN: What are you defending?

ELDER: If you want to go over the history of the party, the Democratic Party is a party, historically --

Well Larry you also forgot to point out that those Democrats you're talking about became Republicans.

Full transcript below the fold.

Continue reading »