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ABC News global affairs anchor Christine Amanpour on Sunday threw cold water on one of her colleagues, Brian Ross, who had reported that Iran could have a functional nuclear weapon in as little as four weeks.

During a panel discussion on ABC, host Jake Tapper asked Ross how quickly Iran could build a nuclear device.

"Four to six weeks away, if they made the decision to do it," Ross claimed. "That’s some of the intelligence. They haven’t made that decision, that’s the key."

"That is so vastly disparate," Amanpour pointed out. "Other's say it could be a year. So, this is a guessing game that's gone on for years."

"It could be two years," ABC Senior Foreign Affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz agreed.

"That's the latest claim," Ross argued.

While Ross has won awards and broken many major stories during his tenure at ABC News, he is also renowned for making some of the biggest and most embarrassing mistakes in mainstream journalism.

In 2001, ABC's senior investigative reporter falsely claimed that Iraq and Saddam Hussein were behind anthrax attacks in the U.S. He reported in 2009 that Ft. Hood shooter Nidal Malik Hasan had made an "attempt to reach out to al Qaeda." Gawker found that Ross had edited footage in 2010 to make spontaneous acceleration in Toyota cars appear worse than it actually was.

Most recently, Ross was blasted by conservatives when he wrongly reported that Jim Holmes -- the 24-year-old accused of a shooting rampage at a theater in Aurora, Colorado -- had been associated with the tea party.

"Brian Ross is responsible for several of the establishment media’s most shameful and reckless journalistic falsehoods of the last decade," The Guardian's Glenn Greenwald told Politico. “His reporting philosophy seems to be to go on TV and say whatever he thinks will garner attention and create ‘scoops,’ without the slightest concern for whether it’s actually true.”

(h/t: Think Progress)

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Our friends over at Media Matters have been following this line of attack by George Will for some time now, so this is nothing new. Here's Will on this Sunday's This Week with Christiane Amanpour continuing to trash the New Deal:

AMANPOUR: You talked about what the government should be doing. So let me ask you, one of the big issues obviously that we have been debating all year is election. This election is jobs, the jobs crisis. There are something like nearly 23 million people who are either unemployed, underemployed or out of the work force. And of course during the Great Depression the government created big programs to get people back to work. Why shouldn't they do right now? Why shouldn't they be that kind of...

WILL: First of all, because it didn't work during the depression. The cardinal aim of the New Deal was to put the country back to work. Unemployment never came below 14 percent until we geared up to be the arsenal of democracy in the Second World War. We have had a remarkably clear test under the Obama administration. They said, pass the stimulus and by 2011, the economy would be growing at 4% and unemployment would be 7.1 percent and falling.

I don't fault the president for having his economic projections wrong. This is a complicated society. John Kenneth Galbraith, one of your liberal friends was once said, that the purpose of economic projections is to make astrology to look respectable.

I don't fault the president for this. I fault the president for thinking that society is transparent and easy to regulate. Just as I don't fault the president for making a slew of horrible investments in green energy and all the rest -- Solyndra and other companies. I don't fault him for that, because no one expects the political class to be good at disposing money in the most productive ways.

Here's more from Media Matters on Will's prior remarks:

Will repeats tired myth that the New Deal failed

George Will Continues His Campaign To Repeal The 20th Century

Asserting FDR "waged ... a jihad against private enterprise," Hume falsely claimed "everybody agrees ... that the New Deal failed"

Conservatives cherry-pick 1930s unemployment figures in continued assault on New Deal

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Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum on Sunday compared his war against reproductive rights and gay rights to the Civil Rights Movement, and attacked Newt Gingrich for putting social issues "in the back of the bus."

"In terms of social issues [Gingrich] has been married three times, he has two divorces, he's admitted to infidelity," ABC's Christiane Amanpour noted during an interview with Santorum. "Should voters hold that against him?"

"I think character is definitely an issue," Santorum opined. "I've been married 21 years, I have seven children. That's a factor that people are going to look at and should look at when it comes to the person you are going to have lead the country."

"Is he a real conservative with the social values?" Amanpour asked.

"I think that Newt has consistently put those, let's say, in the back of the bus," Santorum replied. "He's never really been an advocate of pushing those issues."

Earlier this year, Santorum also likened the the fight against abortion rights to African Americans' struggle for equality. The former Pennsylvania senator pointed to President Barack Obama's stand on the subject.

"I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say, 'We're going to decide who are people and who are not people,'" the candidate told the Christian News Service.

"For decades certain human beings were wrongly treated as property and denied liberty in America because they were not considered persons under the constitution," Santorum wrote in a message to supporters several days later. "Today other human beings, the unborn of all races, are also wrongly treated as property and denied the right to life for the same reason; because they are not considered persons under the Constitution."

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Retiring Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) joked Sunday that he was casting a remake of "The Wizard of Oz" starring Republican presidential candidates.

"I look at the Republican debate -- I've been casting 'The Wizard of Oz,'" Frank told ABC's Christiane Amanpour. "Obviously, Mitt Romney is the tin woodman without a heart, and Rick Perry is clearly the scarecrow."

"Let me just say about Rick Perry: He illustrates the point that what's scary about some people is not what they don't know, but what they know that isn't true. I just heard this ad which he said, some liberals say faith is a sign of weakness. That is just bizarrely delusional."

He continued: "Newt [Gingrich] is the Wizard of Oz. I just think Newt, there's nothing there."

"I think he's ginned up this whole big thing, but when people focus on him, as opposed to him being the not-Romney, this is a man who served as speaker, was a relative insider, he was twice reprimanded by House -- by the way, I was reprimanded by the House, one of the reasons I wouldn't run for president. There was a problem with the marriages. There is this incredible hypocrisy of criticizing Chris Dodd and me because we weren't doing anything about Freddie Mac when we were in the minority. We did when we were in the majority. And he was taking money from them when the Republicans were in the majority to make sure that nothing happened. I just think that he is an obvious weak candidate."

At a press conference announcing his retirement last week, Frank said he welcomed Gingrich's rise to Republican frontrunner.

"I did not think I had lived a good enough life to be rewarded by Newt Gingrich being the Republican nominee," Frank told reporters. "I look forward to debating — to take one important example — the Defense of Marriage Act with Mr. Gingrich. I think he is an ideal opponent for us when we talk about just who it is that is threatening the sanctity of marriage."

Gingrich, who supports the Defense of Marriage Act and opposes same sex marriage, has been married three times himself.

"He would be the best thing to happen to the Democratic Party since Barry Goldwater," Frank concluded.

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While the Sunday talk shows were dominated as usual by Republicans from one end of the dial to the other, ABC's This Week did allow one liberal some air time, actor Matt Damon whose organization, water.org is working to provide clean drinking water to people in developing countries.

Actor Matt Damon's Clean Water Mission:

Actor Matt Damon is on a mission to improve access to one of the world's most precious resources: water.

"It's really hard for people like us to relate to it, because it's just never been something we had to think about," Damon told "This Week" anchor Christiane Amanpour. "Clean water is only as far away as the nearest tap, and there are taps everywhere. There's a faucet everywhere. But the reality is, the water in our toilets is cleaner than the water that most people are drinking."

While water covers 70 percent of the earth's surface, less than 3 percent is drinkable. Beyond the challenges of drought and overuse in some parts of the world, lack of access to clean water has a wide impact.

Continue reading »

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Our friends over at Media Matters picked up on this meme earlier this week and it was repeated over and over again this weekend on the Sunday talk shows as illustrated in the clip above. If the Super Committee fails to reach an agreement, it will because of the hands off approach or lack of President's Obama's direct involvement.

Right-Wing Media Lay Groundwork To Blame Obama If Super Committee Does Not Reach A Deal:

The right wing media have claimed that President Obama is deliberately sabotaging the super committee's negotiations to reach a deal to decrease the deficit in an attempt to strengthen his re-election prospects. But Obama has repeatedly urged the super committee to come to a compromise, while the Republicans on the super committee have refused to compromise, instead proposing massive tax giveaways for the richest Americans and even more massive cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and other programs Americans rely on. Read on...

Personally I think there are worse things than that committee failing, like Democrats agreeing to cuts to Social Security and Medicare and then rightfully being punished by the electorate if they did. That said, it's absolutely ridiculous to claim that Republicans were ever going to agree to any tax increases whether President Obama was directly involved in the talks or not.

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Conservative columnist George Will believes that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain's sexual harassment scandal is a "test" for Republicans.

"A rule is when there are four women, there may be 24," Will told ABC's Christiane Amanpour Sunday. "There's a pattern here. He's says there's no pattern because all four are not telling the truth. Well, we shall see."

"For Republicans, it is a teachable moment because Republicans have said over and over again, character matters in leadership. We have this powerful government. The more power the government has, the more character matters in the chief executive. And this is a test for them."

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile explained that Cain had received a "martyr status" in some Republican circles.

"That may be the wrong message to send to someone who is a novice at presidential politics," she said. "The truth is that he was defined, he was defensive -- four women, two have come out and they went right ahead and started attacking those two women. Two are still anonymous. He attacked former Speaker Pelosi. He made fun of Anita Hill. This is not a good sign of a candidate who would like to remain a frontrunner in the Republican race."

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Apparently someone needs to explain to this former IRS tax attorney what the definition of a "flat tax" is. Michele Bachmann's been tanking in the recent polls for the GOP presidential primary race and I suspect way too many moments like this one have a lot to do with it.

From ABC's This Week:

AMANPOUR: Well, on that issue, thank you for clearing up what you said last week. But let me just ask you one final question about your opponents. You have basically said that Governor Perry is taking and as you said, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, taking your ideas when it comes to his tax proposals. But he's talking about a flat tax and you're not, really. How do you consider that taking your ideas?

BACHMANN: My tax plan is unique in that, unlike any of the other plans, my plan calls for every American to pay something when it comes to federal income taxes, because today 51 percent of Americans pay no federal income tax. This needs to change. We're at a tipping point now. Everyone needs to pay something. And so I take a page from Ronald Reagan and the economic miracle that was wrought in the 1980s. Reagan flattened the tax rates and he simplified them.

Now, because he was working with a Democrat Congress, he couldn't abolish the U.S. tax code. I would abolish the United States federal tax code, and in its place, I would flatten the rates and simplify them. I would not have just one rate, but I'd have several rates, which is a flattened, simple, much fairer system, and one that would be equitable and raise revenues for the federal government as well.

AMANPOUR: On that note, Congresswoman Bachmann, thank you so much for joining us.

BACHMANN: Thank you and good morning.

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the same IRS tax attorney who always puts dollar amounts on "blank checks."

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Another Sunday, another week where we've got John McCain beating the war drums for us to use military intervention in yet another country, this time, Syria.

From The Hill -- McCain says U.S. should consider use of military action against Syria’s regime:

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) Sunday called on the United States to consider military action in Syria, where president Bashir al-Assad’s regime has used violence against anti-government protesters seeking democratic reforms.

“Now that military operations in Libya are ending, there will be renewed focus on what practical military options might be considered to protect civilian lives in Syria,” said McCain, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Jordan.

“The Assad regime has spilled too much blood to stay in power. Its days are numbered, but it will use those days to murder more of its own people,” he said. “In this way, there is no moral distinction whatsoever between the case of Syria and that of Libya. The question is, what can be done about it?”

“The Assad regime should not assume that it can get away with mass murder,” he added. “Qaddafi made that mistake, and it cost him everything." [...]

Speaking Sunday, McCain said that in Syria, there were “growing calls among the opposition for some kind of foreign military intervention.”

McCain's statements represent a shift for the senator. In April, he had downplayed comparisons between the then ongoing-Libyan NATO campaign and the possibility of action in Syria.

"I don't see a scenario right now or anytime in the near future where the injection of U.S. or NATO military action would in any way beneficially help the situation, I'm sorry to say," McCain had said regarding Syria.

McCain was asked about this on ABC's This Week where he softened his stance ever so slightly with host Christiane Amanpour and spent the better part of his time attacking President Obama for not being more aggressive in Libya rather than answering her question about Syria:

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President Obama's top political adviser said Sunday that Republican presidential candidates who want to "roll back Wall Street reforms" obviously don't understand the Occupy Wall Street movement.

"I don't think any American is impressed when they see Gov. Romney and all Republican candidates say the first thing they'll do is roll back Wall Street reforms and go back to where we were before the crisis and let Wall Street write its own rules," David Axelrod told ABC's Christiane Amanpour.

"Is [the movement] beneficial to the president or is it detrimental to the president?" Amanpour asked. "Some of them are saying, you know, the president himself has a lot of Wall Street in his cabinet."

"I don't know," Axelrod admitted. "I don't know how to judge that and I don't know that anybody does, and we tend in this business to try and treat everything as a kind of seminal event. You see some of that around the Wall Street protests."

"I do know this, the American people want a financial system that works on the level, they want to get a fair shake, and they want to know the dealings made are done transparently so if they are problems such as the ones we saw before the crisis, we'll be alerted to them and can stop the whole economy from being turned over."