As we already discussed here, Donald Rumsfeld found himself getting a nice softball interview from NBC's David Gregory this weekend on Meet the Press, but not all of his book tour has gone quite as smoothly as the big wet kiss he got from Gregory this Sunday.

Majority FM's Sam Seder walked his listeners though some of the highlights of Rumsfeld's contentious interview with American Public Media's Kai Ryssdal, who, as the KOS diary I linked in the prior post on the subject noted, asked "Rumsfeld some of the questions we've all wanted to ask."

As Seder noted, Rumsfeld might be looking to find himself a new publicist after that one, since he certainly didn't expect anyone to actually hold him accountable for his actions during the Bush administration and our invasion of Iraq. Seder says he hopes that it's not the last time he's subjected to an interview like this one because the government sure isn't going to hold him accountable, but I wouldn't hold my breath on whether he'll let it happen ever again.

Sadly, we're not going to see the corporate media hold him accountable either. We're going to see more interviews like the shameful one we got from David Gregory or we won't see him on the air at all.

One final note on the video above: Seder incorrectly identified Kai Ryssdal as working for NPR. He works for APM.

Here's a short clip from the Majority Report's Sam Seder ahead of this Wednesday's circus in the House, or as Sam called it, Fast & Furious Part Deux.

For anyone that missed it, former Sen. Alan Simpson, one of the co-chairs of the President's now defunct deficit commission, appeared on The Daily Show earlier this month and as Sam Seder rightfully pointed out in the clip above, the interview was just awful. Stewart allowed Simpson to get away with a ton of lies on everything from who owns our debt, to whether we're in danger of becoming like Greece where no one wants to loan us money any more, to the Peterson Foundations' lies about Social Security.

Sam's exactly right here and if Stewart was going to allow Simpson on his show, he should have done a better job doing his homework first. It's really just unacceptable that he allowed his audience to listen to this much garbage out of Simpson without more of it being debunked right on the spot.

It's a little long, but well worth the time if you have it to watch it and I'd highly recommend passing it along to anyone you know who might not realize what a load of garbage Simpson and his fellow fearmongers over the so-called bond vigilantes are peddling. Seder also took Simpson to task for his ridiculous “Gangnam Style” ad he's got out there trying to convince kids to buy into this "The Can Kicks Back" campaign of theirs.

Salon's Alex Pareene did a similar take down of Stewart shortly after his appearance which you can read here: Alan Simpson spins Jon Stewart and they've got the full interview posted as well for anyone that might want to watch it.

From Majority FM: Right Wing: Everything BUT Guns Caused the Newtown Massacre:

Did you know teachers, unions, and the lack of both God and George Zimmerman are at fault for the Newtown school shooting? The Tea Party Nation thinks so! In both a post on their website and in an email from founder Judson Phillips, the group blamed the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on everything BUT guns...

Majority FM's Sam Seder and our friend Digby from Hullabaloo discuss the trial balloon on raising the Medicare age that was thrown out there by the administration this week, whether the administration still wants a "grand bargain" and what a bad idea it would be for them to give in to Republicans and their hostage taking by agreeing to raise that age.

As we've already discussed here over and over again, partially privatizing Medicare and throwing seniors to the mercy of the private insurance industry does nothing but shift costs and as Sam and Digby discussed, it's not even a smart move politically for the Democrats to consider making. They wrapped things up discussing what we might be in for with these debt ceiling negotiations after we get through the current round of hostage taking by Republicans.

From Sam Seder's The Majority Report -- Romney Flails on Pensions, AutoCorrects Himself on Blind Trust:

In an effort to zing Obama on China, Romney is hit back by the President about the size of Mitt's pension. Romney also attempts to continue the meme that he has no control over his blind trust, yet video of Mitt Romney from years ago laughs at that idea from Mitt of today...

From The Majority Report, Sam Seder takes on a goldbug libertarian with fairly humorous results -- Right Wing Libertarian Caller Really Likes Gold :

A listener, who seems to be a right wing libertarian, called into the show and asked Sam if he understood "what money is." The conversation quickly moved into how much this caller loves gold and how we should all revert back to it...

This clip from the Majority Report, live M-F at 12 noon EST and via daily podcast at http://Majority.FM

Sam Seder gives his take on the latest wingnutterty to come out of Pat Robertson's mouth, just two days after appearing on stage with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. I wonder if anyone is going to ask Mittens if he's down with that whole wife beating thing since he was happy to be out campaigning with this crackpot.

Here's more from Right Wing Watch -- Pat Robertson: Since 'We Don't Condone Wife-Beating These Days' Husband Should 'Move to Saudi Arabia' to Beat Her:

Mitt Romney this weekend stumped alongside televangelist Pat Robertson, not minding Robertson’s legacy of incendiary, insensitive, heartless and apocalyptic rhetoric that has gotten him in trouble in the past. Apparently, Robertson’s own CBN has become aware of Robertson’s problematic statements, and may even be editing his controversial claims out of episode archives.

For example, today on the 700 Club’s “Bring It On” segment where viewers ask Robertson questions, one man wondered how he should go about repairing his marriage with a wife who “insults” him and once tried to attack him.

“Well, you could become a Muslim and you could beat her,” Robertson responded. “This man’s got to stand up to her and he can’t let her get away with this stuff,” Robertson continued, “I don’t think we condone wife-beating these days but something has got to be done.”

He later said the woman is a “rebellious child” and pondered if she has psychological problems. Robertson told the viewer that since he “can’t divorce her according to the Scripture, so I say: move to Saudi Arabia.”

And as they noted, CBN edited out Robertson's remarks about Saudi Arabia and the wife beating on their web site. I guess they were hoping no one noticed or was recording them. I'm glad Right Wing Watch monitors this stuff, because sitting through Robertson makes watching Fox look pleasant in comparison.

From Majority FM, Sam Seder reads from some of a recent LA Times article which challenged anti-Social Security crusader and crotchety old man, former Sen. Alan Simpson over his many lies about the program.

Alan Simpson shows his cards to The Times:

Former U.S. Sen. Alan Simpson (R-Wyoming), perhaps our leading avatar of misinformation about Social Security, sent us a lengthy email on Friday responding to our series of posts criticizing his error-rich take on the nation’s preeminent social insurance program.

You can read his entire email here. Be forewarned: It’s a dizzying compendium of ignorance, myths, irrelevancies, and historical revisionism, leavened with a healthy dollop of defensiveness. (Simpson also seems at the outset to have confused columnist Michael Hiltzik, who has been writing about him, with editorial page editor and columnist Jim Newton, who hasn't. But leave that aside.)

Responding to all Simpson's assertions would take a tome, so we’ll simply address two of his main points: That Social Security was never designed as a “retirement system,” and that the original bill’s drafters deliberately set the retirement age at 65 because life expectancy in 1935, at the time of enactment, was 63. In other words, Simpson says it was designed from inception as a rip-off.

You can go read the rest at the link or just listen to Sam read it in the video clip above.

From The Majority Report -- Unions Replace Wisconsin Flag with their Own...or Politico Reporter is Stupid:

Politico has deleted a post by reporter Donovan Slack where his union hate is so blinding, he confuses the Wisconsin state flag with a labor union flag.

Here's more from Gawker who got a screen shot before the post was pulled -- Politico Mistakes State Flag for Union Flag, Idiocy Ensues:

See that flag? It is the state flag of Wisconsin. On the top there is the name of the state, "Wisconsin," and on the bottom is the year that Wisconsin was admitted to the union.

Politico reporter Donovan Slack thought that this Wisconsin state flag was, in fact, a union flag, and that furthermore Barack Obama's choice to stand under this union flag in Wisconsin made it "very clear what side" he's on. Whoops.

Here's the cached version of Slack's story on this important issue—complete with photographic proof—which was posted at 12:02 p.m. yesterday on Politico's website (since disappeared): Read on...