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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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While discussing the recently released torture memos, Michael Smerconish tries to dismiss the torture as rare and isolated incidents and gets his talking points shot down from both Chris Matthews and Joe Conason. Matthews tries to explain the relationship him between those two prisons to him and argues that the underlings at those prisons did not come up with those policies on their own. He's right of course, but if he really wanted to drive that point home he should have asked Smerconish if he'd read Janis Karpinski's book. From part of her interview on Democracy Now explaining how Abu Ghraib was "Gitmo-ized":
AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is the former Commanding General of Abu Ghraib. Her name is Janis Karpinski. She was a Brigadier General. She has been demoted to Colonel. She is the only one of the Generals who has been demoted at this point. And she has written a book about her experience. It’s called One Woman’s Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells Her Story. We’re talking about General Miller, General Geoffrey Miller, coming from Guantanamo to Iraq, to the Abu Ghraib prison, the biggest of the prison facilities. You were in charge of it and all of the prison facilities in Iraq.
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: And he said he was there to “Gitmo-ize” Abu Ghraib. We have heard the stories out of Guantanamo. We now certainly know what happened at—some of what has happened at Abu Ghraib, in Cell Blocks 1A and 1B, only because soldiers themselves took photographs, not clear what has been happening throughout Iraq.
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: Is there any reason to believe this hasn’t happened in the other facilities that you oversaw?
COL. JANIS KARPINSKI: Well, there were only—interrogation operations were only taking place—at prisons under my control, interrogations were only being conducted at Abu Ghraib, and they were only being conducted in interrogation facilities built specifically for interrogations at Abu Ghraib. There was what they called “Interrogation Facility Wood” and “Interrogation Facility Steel.” The pictures, although they were—when they were released, it was widely reported that this was during interrogation operations. In fact, it was not during interrogation operations. These pictures were being staged and set up at the direction of contract interrogators, civilian contract interrogators, for the use in future interrogations.
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On Reliable Sources Sunday morning, right wing talking head Michael Smerconish revealed the mind of a Fox News producer when he was approached to go on the air with Neil Cavuto.
Fox News obviously is the worst, but this is something endemic to the entire industry. News is supposed to be news. Having two different points of views, no matter how myopic and slanted one of those sides might be, is the networks' idea of presenting "balance". All it really does is set up antagonistic debate as entertainment, which they then try to justify by claiming that it is news. Well, folks, that hurts the country.
KURTZ: Well, we'll try not to make this interview torture, even though you're tolerant of it. Let's talk about cable news and the way the booking process works. This was just fascinating to me. You have e-mails in this book from a producer who works for Neil Cavuto and his Fox News program. And let me put it up on the screen and share this with our viewers.
The first e-mail, this was last April, just about a year ago.
"Wanted to see if you're available today at 4:05 for Neil's show today. The topic is on Obama and his cockiness. We're looking for someone who will say, yes, he's cocky and his cockiness will hurt him."
And I love your rather brief response. You wrote back, "Thanks for the clarity. I am not your man." OK. Then you get a second e-mail from this same Fox producer. And it says, "What about a debate off the top on the show on whether or not Hillary is trustworthy? We have someone who says she is and we're looking for someone who says she isn't." Now, how common is that in cable news, that you only get to appear if you're willing to take a predetermined, precooked, prepackaged position?
SMERCONISH: Well, I think it's very common. It's exactly what I was just describing. I mean, it's this mentality that says that only good television is television which pits one individual against another and there's a fight that ensues. I just don't believe that.
I mean, what's wrong with a host taking a contrarian point of view in a respectful way? I think the viewers get all that they need. But you're right, in that circumstance -- and I raised it just as one clear example -- my invitation was predicated on my willingness to say that Barack Obama was cocky or that Hillary was untrustworthy. And I was unwilling in that circumstance to say either.
This wanker was also on Washington Journal today and from the little bit I got to hear of it on my XM radio he was just as infuriating there as well. Apparently Stephen Moore got the same memo as Lou Dobbs today on this "grass roots"...cough... rather astroturf tea bag movement from the conservative lobbyists and Fox Noise as to who is driving it. That Rick Santelli is just such a populist don't you know. He represents the people!
At least Matthews, unlike Dobbs was honest enough to show the extent that Fox is promoting this thing even though he plays as though he's clueless during this interview as to where this movement is being financed. I think Matthews knows full well who's funding it but just doesn't want to come straight out and say it.
Bob Cesca summed this interview up pretty nicely here: Ass Troturfing:
The last time we saw Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, he was participating in Glenn Beck's insane "War Room" episode during which he helped to game out Beck's paranoid delusions. And the next day, Colbert discredited the whole ridiculous event -- right in front of Moore's smirky face.
Somehow being a laughing stock on both FOX News and Comedy Central hasn't prevented Moore from appearing on Hardball where he lied about the tea bag parties:
This really isn't something that's being driven, a) by the Republican Party, or b) by the national conservative groups. You gotta give credit where credit is due on this Chris, it really is a genuine kind of grassroots thing that kind of just spontaneously combusted around the country.
Lies. FOX News Channel, which could be considered a national conservative group, is promoting the tea baggers. FreedomWorks, a national conservative lobby, is funding the tea baggers. Fine -- whatever floats their boat. But don't say it's grassroots when it's clearly astroturfing of the highest order.
Chris Matthews and Christopher Hitchens take on Michael Smerconish for his pro-torture views. Smerconish uses the "ticking time bomb" scenario which is a ridiculous argument and one better left for the screen writers of 24. Hitchens has really come around on this issue since volunteering to undergo waterboarding himself and if Chris Matthews could stop talking over him every once in a while, he might have had a better chance making his arguments against Smerconish. That said the two of them do manage to make Smerconish look as foolish as he is for taking this stance. Waterboarding does not produce reliable information and it's a war crime and Smerconish is just dead wrong.
John Amato:
Smerconish is also staking out the position that torture is a wonderful thing no matter if the ticking time bomb scenario is in play or not. Whatever it takes is his mantra and I expect as soon as Obama takes the presidency, the right wing zealots will ramp this thing up to insane proportions.
It is truly sickening to witness this in real time. We prosecuted the Japanese for torture on our own troops, but to justify some sick sense of loyalty to the Conservative movement on Smercs part---he's willing to compromise the moral high ground to go on the air and praise the use of torture just shows us how far the Conservative movement has fallen .
From Hardball Dec. 5, 2008, Chris Matthews opines over who should be leading the country right now even though Barack Obama has not been sworn in yet. Michael Smerconish and Phil Bronstein both give the logical answers that he's done about all he can do because we only have one President at a time and that there's not much more he can do without looking like he's meddling. Then Matthews goes here:
Matthews: Well let me put it to you forward looking now Michael and then Phil and ask the question. We had a loss of 533,000 this month, the highest loss in a third of a century. There's all signs that it's going to continue to get deeper and deeper. We're facing what looks to be a very deep economic trench ahead of us right now. Worse than under Reagan, worse than under, well going back, going back to Gerry Ford. It's going to get worse and worse. If the country sees this between now and Jan. 20th or some time in February, no one's our President and acting like it. Are they going to hold it against somebody and that person could be Barack. What do you think Michael? Will they hold them off? Will they hold it against him?
Smerconish: No. I think it's part of the Bush legacy. I don't think it's going to be something that will tar Barack Obama. I think that the public has already weighed in as to how they feel about this administration and it will be part of his legacy and not the incoming President. I'm clear on that.
Matthews: Phil?
Bronstein: Yeah, I mean I think he's got about a thirty second honeymoon and, where he can continue to blame the Bush administration. The problem is, is as Michael suggested, you know he's done a lot of things, he's named his team. It's been met with a lot of positive response, but you know, you can flap your arms and flap your arms and create a lot of wind but it doesn't mean you're going to take off.
Matthews: Yeah.
Bronstein: I think the expectations level will be huge the second he takes office.
They move on to discuss Bush's legacy rewriting he's attempting right now. It's so nice of Matthews and Bronstein to expect Obama to start cleaning up Bush's eight year mess either before he takes office, or after his thirty seconds of good will. And Matthews even has to ask if the American public won't realize who's policies got us into this mess? Who refused to regulate Wall Street and the banking industries? Hell any industry for that matter. The free markets will fix everything won't they Chris? Businesses will just behave on their own if you ask them nicely won't they?
George Bush gave the GOP a chance to take every single Republican ideal and use our country and Iraq to try to prove they work and yes I'm well aware it goes much further back than Bush and didn't start with him, but he got a chance to test those ideals unchecked in a way like none before him without going back to the Gilded Age. Well we now see what that's brought us, again. And you want Obama to fix it in an instant? It's going to take ten or twenty years to clean up Bush's mess, if we're lucky. I think Obama deserves a little more time than just thirty seconds of good will. If the entire country does not come together to fix this mess nothing is going to get better any time soon.
Above all else, Chris Matthews loves the game of politics. As show after show prove, he makes no value judgments, applies no moral compass. Playing the game well is admirable, even if your character is not. But every once in a while, reality creeps into the discussion and Matthews reacts to the net result of treating life as a game of partisan one-upsmanship. Such as it was on Monday, as Matthews spoke to conservative talk show host Michael Smerconish -- who rather surprisingly endorsed Obama last week -- about Rush Limbaugh's racist reaction to Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama.
I don't know how you get into this tribalist talk. We could make all kinds of assumptions, but we have no knowledge of a person's inner beliefs. ... You know what drives me crazy? When somebody says 'well, I know you're Catholic, so you must believe this.' Or 'I know you're Jewish, you must believe this.' Or 'I know you're black, you must believe this.' Give us all a break, Rush. Let us think. Let us think. Let us decide.
I'd like to think that he is waking up to the nastiness of the right but sadly, as my buddies at MM's Country Fair point out, Chris Matthews has a history of "tribalist talk" himself.
