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Larry King Live has a sneak peak at the premier of Michael Moore's new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story.

August 19, 2009 CNN

Part 1

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KING: In Raleigh, North Carolina, Elizabeth Edwards, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, primarily focusing on health care issues. She's the wife of the former Democratic vice presidential candidate, John Edwards, and "The New York Times" best-selling author of "Resilience."

And Madison, Wisconsin, Tommy Thompson, who was the secretary of Health and Human Services under President George W. Bush and is the former Republican governor of Wisconsin.

Elizabeth, in an interview last month, you said you thought substantial -- substantive health care reform would be enacted.

Do you stand by that?

ELIZABETH EDWARDS, SENIOR FELLOW, CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS, AUTHOR, "RESILIENCE": I still do. I'm incredibly optimistic. And I think the American people are still in favor of health care reform, despite the assault they've had of a lot of hyperbole and misstatements. And people know, in their real lives, that -- that they need -- that they're going to need change -- we're going to need change in health care, nationally and in their own communities and in their own families. KING: Tommy, in an interview with Dr. Val Jones, the CEO of Better Health -- that's a medical blog or education network -- in February, you said you can bet your bottom dollar that the health care system that we know today is going to be changed so considerably that I doubt you'd recognize it a year from now.

Do you stand by that?

TOMMY THOMPSON, FORMER SECRETARY HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICES: I stand by it because it already has many changes. In the stimulus package, there was a comparative equivalences. There's $20 billion set aside for electronic medical records. There is a lot of other projects that have been already passed that's going to transform health care in the future.

The truth of the matter is and I think the question you're getting at is what about the Barack Obama legislation and what the Democrats are doing in Congress?

I think the Democrats are going to have a very difficult time passing a comprehensive bill unless they want to bring in the Republicans and scale back and have a really comprehensive bipartisan bill. And that's what I'm hoping they will, because I believe that Elizabeth and I both agree that there needs to be comprehensive health care reform in America.

But the kind of comprehensive health care reform is what really is going to be the most important item. And I hope that it's a bipartisan one that I think can be passed energetically and have a great deal of support in the country.

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Don't ever ask Barney Frank a question if you don't want to know exactly how he feels about something. From Larry King Live, Frank is asked by a woman waving an Obama as Hitler picture at a town hall meeting why he is supporting his "Nazi policy" on health care. Frank didn't mince any words in responding.

Frank: When you ask me that question I'm going to revert to my ethnic heritage and answer your question with a question. On what planet do you spend most of your time?

[....]

You want me to answer the question? Yes. As you stand there with a picture of the President defaced to look like Hitler and compare the effort to increase health care to the Nazis, my answer to you is as I said before, it is a tribute to the First Amendment that this kind of vile, contemptible nonsense is so freely propagated. Ma'am, trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it.

Larry asks Howard Dean what he thinks about what he just watched. As Dean points out, this has nothing to do with health care reform and "this kind of anger politics has been going on for thirty years".

h/t PoliticsNewsPolitics

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Can Dick Cheney take his daughter Liz back to his undisclosed location and keep her there? Why the hell is Liz Cheney so visible now? I can't recall seeing her hardly at all during the eight years of Bush/Cheney and now she is ubiquitous.

And sadly, her entire reason to be on the air is to be a divisive partisan pain in the ass. Her goal is to continually fuel the hatred and suspicions of all those wingnuts barely holding on to their sanity as it is.

When asked about the Birthers and their Obama Derangement Syndrome, rather than take the adult stance of saying that it's a shame that this fringe group isn't willing to accept the reality that the President was born in the US, Cheney gleefully pounces on the chance to slam Obama for being "anti-American" and refusing to stand up for what the US believes in.

CHENEY: I think the Democrats have got more crazies than the Republicans do, but setting that aside, I think that….You know, one of the reasons I think you see people so concerned about this, I think that this issue is …people are uncomfortable with having ---for the first time ever, I think--- a President who seems so reluctant to defend the nation overseas. A President who sits through a completely venomous screed by Daniel Ortega and then his only response—when the United States has been hostilely attacked—is to say “hey, you know, basically, I was only three at the time.” And you know, we’ve seen this….

CARVILLE: That’s so…

CHENEY: James, don’t interrupt me. We’ve seen this again and again and again, where this President seems to sort of want to create moral equivalence…

KING: Are you saying…it’s because he’s a Kenyan?

CHENEY: No, I’m not saying that. I’m saying that people are fundamentally uncomfortable and they’re fundamentally, I think, increasingly uncomfortable with an American president who seems to be afraid to defend America. Who seems to be afraid to stand up for what we believe in.

Head. Slams. Keyboard. Seriously, Liz, do you really think this is constructive at all immediately following a video of a woman so high strung and so out of touch with reality that she's just a step away from snapping altogether? Is it possible to step out of your friggin' partisan mindset for two seconds and just say that the Birther movement is a bunch of nutcases and they need to come to grips with reality? I'm no fan of Carville, but he nails Cheney for her disingenuous rationale:

CARVILLE: Let me hurl a fact around. These people….these poor, pathetic people believe stuff, just like Ms. Cheney tonight. She refuses to say it’s ludicrous because she actually wants to encourage these people who believe that. It’s just a simple thing: “This is a nutty thing. There’s nothing to this, I disagree with this president’s policy.” They can’t say that. They can’t say that because they’re scared they’ll lose the sort of nut wing of their party.

Well, exactly, James. And as someone who had to suffer through transcribing this mess, I note that Liz Cheney tends to fill time with a lot of "I think"s. Actually, Liz, if this clip shows anything, it's that you don't think.

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The straight talking Jesse Ventura hits the nail directly on the head with the problem Sarah Palin's going to have if she aspires to run for higher office.

KING: All right. Let's move to Governor Palin, the former governor, soon to be former Governor Palin. What do you make of her resigning?

VENTURA: She's a quitter. Let me put it to you this way, Larry; by not being sexist, She could never make it as a Frog Man or Navy SEAL. Because if you utter the words in BUDS training, Basic Underwater Demolition SEAL Training, I quit, you're gone.

I don't remember one person in my class that quit. I remember every person I graduated with. It offends me over the fact that she told the people of Alaska she wanted to be their governor. And she wanted -- and that's a four-year commitment. And now, right in the middle, she quits?

Well, if she's got plans of running for higher office, I would never vote for her, because if it gets too hot in the kitchen, she is liable to quit.

KING: Do you think there's an underlying reason maybe we don't know?

VENTURA: Well, I don't think she was put under anymore scrutiny with the media than I was as an independent. My children were attacked in Minnesota. Everything I did was put under the microscope.

But the point is, Larry, you don't quit. When you make an obligation and you take an oath, doesn't it mean anything anymore?

Apparently not Jesse. CNN left off King's grunt he got in response in their transcript...lol.

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Joe Klein calls out John McCain for his rhetoric on Iran, and notes that the United States needs to be more careful so we're not allowed to be an excuse for the regime to get much more brutal with the protesters than it has already been. It was nice to see someone basically tell McCain and his ilk to STFU and quit making thing worse.

King: President Obama's holding a news conference tomorrow. What do you expect? Do you expect him to respond to critics and get tougher?

Klein: I certainly hope not. I think that his response has been appropriate so far and I think that some of his critics have been very unseemly at a very, very delicate moment when we don't want the Supreme Leader or Ahmadinejad to be able to blame the United States for these protests.

You see what they're trying to do with CNN and with the foreign journalists and to me it's significant that last Friday when the Supreme Leader spoke at Friday prayers....who did he blame? He didn't blame us. He blamed the British, you know the British BBC Persia service is a major factor in getting the information out in Iran.

But the reason why he couldn't blame us is because the people of Iran know that Barack Obama has held out his hand to them. And I think that the President's playing this very correctly because those protesters in the street may be against the regime, but they are also very skeptical about our role in their country for the last fifty years. We've had a pretty checkered past.

King: Senator McCain's going to be here tomorrow. He is one of those critics. What would you say to him Joe?

Klein: Be quiet. You don't need to do this. You know, what you're doing is a self indulgence at this point. You know, Senator McCain, if he's going to talk about this should also talk about the fact that the United States supported Saddam Hussein in the Iran Iraq war for eight years. Every one of those protesters out in the street, every last one of them believes that the United States did supply Saddam Hussein with the poison gas that debilitated tens of thousands of Iranian men.

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Liz Cheney appeared on Larry King Live with James Carville and when asked about the tragic shooting at the Holocaust Museum, she suddenly has a problem with calling this type of violence terrorism. Now we need to be "careful" with our words.

And of course Cheney thinks this has nothing to do with our political discourse either. Heaven forbid she'd allow any of the blame for whipping up the crazies in this country to be laid at the feet of her buddies over at Fox News.

Anyone want to take dibs on how different a conversation this would have been had this been a foreign terrorist rather than a right wing, white-supremacist, domestic terrorist?

Carville's response is pretty pathetic and he doesn't even try to call her out for being unwilling to call this act terrorism. Despite that fact there was one improvement in this interview from the norm when pundits are debating Liz Cheney. I think Carville took a page from Joan Walsh's book, and didn't allow Cheney to monopolize the debate later on. You can read the full transcript on CNN's site here for that portion of the show.

KING: Our original topic -- and we will get into it -- was the future of the Republican Party. But one cannot go into any discussion tonight without asking about their reaction to today's fatal shooting at the U.S. Holocaust Museum, of all places, in Washington. An African-American guard is killed. The suspect, an 88-year-old white supremacist.

Liz, what do you say?

CHENEY: Well, I think it was obviously a horrific event, Larry. And I think that, as I understand it, they have apprehended the man who was guilty. We know who he was.

I do think people need to be a little bit careful about using words like terrorism before we know exactly -- you know, clearly, he was psychotic. But we don't really know much yet about whether or not he was representing any sort of an organization. I think we need to be a little bit careful.

But, obviously, it was -- it was a horrific event.

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On Larry King Live Jesse Ventura takes on the Bush administration chickenhawks and Rush Limbaugh, and defends Colin Powell. After being waterboarded himself in the SERE program, Ventura makes no bones about it. Waterboarding is torture. I'd like to see Hannity have Ventura on his show to debate the issue.

King's reaction to Ventura's straight talk on how terrible of a President W was is amusing. He's shocked...just shocked I tell you, that anyone would talk so badly about our former President.

KING: Joining us now, Jesse Ventura, former wrestler, former governor of Minnesota, former Navy SEAL, the author of "Don't Start The Revolution Without Me." That book is now out in paper back. Welcome to have you back, Jesse. There you see the cover of the book. How's Obama doing?

JESSE VENTURA, FMR. GOV. OF MINNESOTA: Too early to tell, Larry, really. In my opinion, George Bush is the worst president in my lifetime.

KING: Have an opinion, will you?

VENTURA: I will. I will. And he's the worst president in my lifetime. So Barack Obama, President Obama inherited something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that's borderline depression. So it's far too early to judge him 100 days in. I think if you have me back about two years from now, I can give you a much better of how he's doing.

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From Larry King Live April 28, 2009. While discussing Arlen Specter's defection from the Republican party, David Gergen has to explain to Dana Perino what the term "big tent" means. I love the pinched look he got on his face while she was spouting her nonsense. Hint to Dana...it doesn't mean all moderates. And I hate to break it to you there girly but the idea that there's a chance in hell of your party even becoming slightly more moderate right now looks laughable at best.

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Part of the panel discussion on Larry King Live March 3, 2009. I was really hoping I'd seen the last of former Koch Energy lobbyist and McCain campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer when he lost the election, but sadly not. The discussion starts out with the topic du jour of whether it is effective or not for the Democrats to be tagging Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican party and Arianna Huffington says the important thing to remember is how we got to where we are rather than focusing on Rush Limbaugh.

Pfotenhauer and Larson have their GOP talking points down as usual but this particular statement hit me as one our side needs to be challenging whenever they say it and that didn't happen here.

Pfotenhauer: Clearly we can debate and I would love to how we got to where we are and actually let me answer one of Arianna's earlier points and say that the thing that George Bush did wrong and that Republicans as well as Democrats did wrong is they spent the taxpayers' money carelessly. They were, they were, it was a taxpayer funded party for eight years.

Now my problem is that President Obama is George Bush on steroids when it comes to spending. He has met him and raised him and he's added like I said tax increases into the mix. If he were advocating economic policies that were good for this country I would support him. I supported him when he's talked about things like entitlement reform. But when he advocates things that are bad for Americans it's people's duty to challenge him. That's patriotic.

When any of these talking heads says something like this they need to immediately be called out and asked what Social Security would look like right now if the GOP had had their way and privatized it. How's that stock market looking to you right now Nancy? And they need to be told that NO, the GOP does not want to support anything that the Democrats are trying to do right now whether they think it is good for the country or not. They want Democrats to adopt Republican ideas or they're going to obstruct. And the only new ideas they have are the same ones they've had for thirty years or more.

Stephanie Miller reminds Pfotenhauer just who the tax cuts under Obama's plan will be going to.

Miller: Nancy, Barack Obama's doing the exact same thing he said during the campaign. 95% of Americans are getting a tax cut under this plan. It is the top 1% that's finally paying their fair share. You Larry.

Pfotenhauer: How can they pay more than the 70% they already pay?

It sure sounds like she's trying to leave the impression that there is someone out there in a 70% tax bracket while leaving herself some wiggle room if she's challenged on it later.

A couple of segments from Bill Maher's appearance on Larry King Live, Feb. 12, 2009.

In this second segment, someone tell me what the hell is up with Maher not supporting funding for the National Endowment for the Arts? Are you kidding me? You'd think he'd be the last person saying something like this. Maher always manages to give me a reason to laugh and cheer, and then in the next breath disappoint or vice versa as he did here.

Real Time's new season starts Feb. 20th.

UPDATE below the fold.

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Barney Frank and Marsha Blackburn square off on Larry King Live over the stimulus bill. A few things that struck me about this interview. One, look at the body language with these two...lol. They both look like they don't want to even be on the same planet with each other, much less forced to sit next to each other at the same desk. Given how obvious that makes it that both of them really can't stand each other it's amazing they managed to keep it this civil.

But that leads into my next point. After watching, unfortunately, Marsha Blackburn in action way too often to be good for my blood pressure, she looked a bit reserved and actually a bit timid about showing her normal, acrid personality with Frank sitting right next to her. I can only imagine what this interview would have looked like had it been someone else on the set with her.

And last, John King did his best to shut Barney Frank up when he made a great point about how the Republican Congress actually behaved in contrast to Marsha Blackburn's fantasy about how they would have liked to have behaved and pretending there was someone there who cared about stopping George Bush when they were instead rubber-stamping Bush and his agenda and allowing him to move it along unchecked. Kudos to Frank for not allowing it. Every Democrat who makes an appearance on any of these talking head shows could learn a lesson from Barney Frank on how to not allow a pundit to steamroll you and let a GOP talking point go unanswered.

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Larry King talks to Hanan Ashrawi about what's going on in Gaza right now with the bombing of civilian infrastructure and the possiblity of ground attacks by Israel.

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From Larry King Live Nov. 25, 2008 while discussing the potential stimulus package Obama is proposing, Bay Buchanan suddenly finds religion on government waste, cronyism and corruption.

This Republican cheerleader suddenly doesn't like that these things might go on when she sat silent about them all through the Bush administration. Bay, where were you at while they were playing football with pallets full of our money in Iraq and while Halliburton was blowing up $70,000 trucks at cost plus to our government? Where were you when they were giving no bid contracts for Gulf Coast reconstruction and they used about ten middle men in the process before finally hiring some illegal alien to do the actual work and stealing our tax dollars?

I could go on, and I'm sure the readers here can give a longer list of the things that Republicans have ignored while Bush was in charge of the theft of our tax dollars. To see the feigned outrage from those who cheered Bush along the entire way now that we're in a mess of Bush's making so huge it's hard to imagine how we'll come out of it is nothing short of infuriating. Bay, you're a day late and way more than a dollar short.

Bill Maher stops by the set of Larry King live to give his thoughts on the previous night's historic election.