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As Ed Schultz noted earlier this week, it looks Sen. John McCain, who's done nothing but criticize President Obama at every turn for his handling of the situation in Libya, has a little explaining to do. This Friday, Chris Hayes went after him for talking tough and playing the bully, when in reality he's just another deal making politician who will cozy up with dictators if he feels it's necessary.

Here's more on the leaked cable from Politico --Leaked cable: John McCain pushed to arm Qadhafi:

A leaked U.S. diplomatic cable shows that Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain promised to help Libyan dictator Muammar Qadhafi obtain U.S. military hardware in 2009.

The cable, released by the open information group WikiLeaks, reveals the pledge came at meeting that was attended by other prominent members of Congress, including Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.).

In the meeting, Muatassim Qadhafi, the Libyan leader’s fifth son and national security adviser, requested U.S. assistance in obtaining military supplies, both lethal and non-lethal.

The cable indicates that McCain was the dominant voice among the congressional delegation in a push for military hardware for Qadhafi.

“Sen. McCain assured Muatassim that the United States wanted to provide Libya with the equipment it needs for its … security,” according to the cable.

McCain said that he understood the need for Libya to upgrade its existing ranks of C-130 Hercules aircraft. Libya had bought eight of the military cargo aircraft in the 1970s, but as bilateral relationships with the United States deteriorated, a ban of arms sales prevented the aircraft from being moved to North Africa. McCain pledged to do what he could to move the issue forward in Congress.

McCain stressed that Libya needed to fulfill its commitments of giving up its weapons of mass destruction in order for bilateral engagement to go forward.

Brian Rogers, communications director for McCain, said in a statement to POLITICO that the Arizona Republican never made any promises to Libya and never acted to help the Qadhafi regime.

“At no point did Senator McCain ever promise to help the Qaddafi regime secure U.S. military assistance. Upon the his return to Washington, there were no follow-up discussions and no action taken by Senator McCain or his staff to provide the Qaddafi regime with C-130s or any other military assistance,” said Rogers. “There has been no greater champion than Senator McCain for Libya’s democratic revolution and for the toppling of the brutal Qaddafi regime.”

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After watching Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham come out and criticize President Obama for his handling of our involvement in Libya, as Ed Schultz discussed in his show this Tuesday, he decided to take us for a little trip down the memory hole with Rolling Stone's Tim Dickerson. It seems the only thing consistent about their partisan rancor over our foreign policy is that they'll use it as a chance to bash President Obama.

Here's Dickinson's reporting from this April they discussed during the segment -- Senators Sucked Up to Gaddafi, Now Call For His Head:

In the Senate, those demanding even harsher prosecution of the Libya war include the three amigos. John McCain, warning that "the blood of Americans is on Qaddafi's hands," has called for arming the insurgents, whom Joe Lieberman has praised as "freedom fighters." Lindsey Graham wants to know why we don't just take out the Libyan leader like Reagan tried to do: "Who would be mad at us," he pressed Pentagon chief Robert Gates yesterday, "if we dropped a bomb on Gaddafi?"

Here's the curious thing about their hawkish swagger: In August of 2009 — not even two years ago — McCain, Lieberman, Graham traveled to Tripoli to shake the bloody hand of the freedom-depriving dictator they now want to assassinate. It was the highest-level meeting of Libyan and American officials since Condi Rice's state visit in 2008. (The amigos were joined by Susan Collins who has questioned the wisdom of the war.)

As this WikiLeaked cable details, the three amigos had a chummy visit with the Qaddafi clan: Lieberman expressed delight at the thaw in U.S.-Libyan relations: "We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi," he said to Muatassim, the regime's National Security Advisor. The Connecticut independent praised Libya as an "important ally" in the War on Terror, adding that "common enemies sometimes make better friends."

During the pow-wow, Muatasim pushed the senators for enhanced military assistance. Senator McCain assured Muatassim that "the United States wanted to provide Libya with the equipment it needs for its security," the official notes of the meeting reveal. McCain called the U.S.-Libya military relationship "strong" and said any frustrations on the Libyan side should be weighed against the "officer training" Libyan military brass were receiving "at U.S. Command, Staff, and War colleges." Read on...

And as I noted in the previous day's post from Ed's show on this, Dave Dayden went after them for their hypocrisy as well and I can't think of a better description for McCain and Lieberman than the one he used in his title here -- Neocon Twins McCain and Graham Sad About Troubling Lack of Airstrikes In Libya In February and March.

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Well, if anyone wanted to know what the spin from the right is going to be on the recent events in Libya now that it looks like Tripoli may be falling to the rebels, and that Gadhafi's son has been arrested, here's some of the initial reporting from Fox "News."

Fox's Gregg Jarrett brought on former Bush UN Spokesman Richard Grenell for some "fair and balanced" discussion on whether President Obama will be given any credit if Gadhafi goes down. Naturally he said no, because those on the right are never going to give the president credit for anything. Instead Grenell said this would be a huge victory for France and for French President Nicholas Sarkozy.

I wasn't happy about our decision to go in there in the first place because of how many things could go wrong and I didn't want to see us end up occupying another country when we're going after the social safety nets for Americans because of the claims that we're supposedly broke (which we aren't), but said at the time if things worked out well, I'd be more than happy to be proven wrong. I don't think we'll have an answer to that for some time to come since no one knows how this is ultimately going to turn out for the Libyan people even if they do get rid of Gadhafi.

In Fox World however, everything is always bad for President Obama and the Democrats no matter what happens though. That's just the way they roll. If this were the Bush administration and it looked like we might finally be rid of Gadhafi, they'd be cheering him on like they did during the invasion of Iraq and there's not a chance in hell they'd be giving the French credit for anything.

It's so nice to see them getting some "unbiased" opinion on the matter from someone who worked for George W. Bush when we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq on our current foreign policy.

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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) got her facts confused Sunday while objecting to President Barack Obama's decision to participate in the military action against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

The Minnesota congresswoman told Fox News' Chris Wallace that NATO airstrikes had killed up to 30,000 civilians in the country.

"People should be outraged at the foolishness of the president's decision," she said. "He said he wanted to go in for humanitarian purposes and overnight we are hearing that potentially 10 to 30,000 people could have been killed in the strike. Those are some of the reports."

"The NATO strikes killed 10,000 to 30,000 people?" an incredulous Wallace asked.

"A report that came out last night from the Tripoli ambassador said that potentially there could be 10,000 to 30,000," Bachmann insisted.

"You mean the Libyans?" Wallace pressed.

"Yes," Bachmann replied.

"You think Muammar Gaddafi is a reliable person?" Wallace wondered.

"I don't think anyone thinks that. President Obama, his doctrine was to enter in Libya for humanitarian purposes. The point of what I'm saying is that we are see many, many lives lost. Including innocent civilians' lives. What will be the ultimate objective and gain? I don't see it. I think it was a foolish decision to have gotten involved," Bachmann said.

In fact, the tea party-backed lawmaker seemed to be referring to a statement made by U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz last week.

Cretz had said that U.S. officials believed that 10,000 to 30,000 had been killed by fighting between Gaddafi forces and the rebels, not NATO airstrikes.

To his credit, Wallace corrected Bachmann in a later segment.

"I just want to clear up, because we looked into what Michele Bachmann had been saying. She quoted the U.S. ambassador to Libya saying 30,000 people had been killed in the NATO strike so far. In fact, what Ambassador Gene Cretz said is that he estimated that 30,000 people had been killed by all sides in the entire conflict. That includes the rebels and the Gaddafi forces. So big difference," he said.

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From CNN -- One of Gadhafi's sons killed in NATO airstrike, Libyan official says:

One of Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's sons -- Saif al-Arab Gadhafi -- was killed after a NATO airstrike, a spokesman for Libya's government said Sunday at a press conference.

Moammar Gadhafi and his wife were in their son's house when it was targeted, spokesman Musa Ibrahim said. Both of them are in good health, according to the spokesman.

The victim is one of two of Gadhafi's sons named Saif. The other is Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, who had previously touted reform but has emerged as one of his father's most visible defenders in recent months.

The house in Tripoli was destroyed by the strike, with a massive crater where the house used to be. At least one unexploded bomb could be seen at the scene.

The building was in a residential area of Tripoli, according to Ibrahim, who insisted that Saif al-Arab Gadhafi was a student in Germany who was not deeply involved in Libya's military and government.

Ibrahim railed against NATO after the fatal strike, calling it an illegal act and a "war crime."

UPDATE: Here's more from the AP -- NATO strike kills Gadhafi's son but leader escapes:

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I'd say Chris Matthews got this one right with what the GOP presidential hopeful's line would have been had President Obama not gone into Libya; they'd have been attacking him. There are a lot of liberals and I count myself among them who have huge issues with why we decided to go in there and with the hypocrisy of pretending that it's for humanitarian causes when there are dozens of other countries that are facing far worse situations than the one in Libya.

And if this ends up going as well as anyone could hope for now that we've committed to going in there, and in the end and we oust Gadhafi in a short amount of time and we see some actual democratic movement and real elections take his place with less loss of civilian life than we might have seen with what Gadhafi was already planning for his own people, I'll be more than happy to have egg on my face. I'm not wishing for things to go badly there, but if that is the end result, I'll be very surprised. I would personally love to see our foreign policy take a turn where it centered on ending poverty and ending armed conflicts rather than continually profiting off of both.

And any liberal that was against our other military interventions as I was in the Middle East has a legitimate right to criticize what's going on now. As Chris Matthews, Howard Fineman and Joan Walsh discussed here, these hypocrites in the Republican Party who never met a new armed conflict that they didn't love who are carping now about what's going on forfeited that right to do the same when they decided to cheer lead for Dubya and his invasion of Iraq. As Matthews pointed out, their criticism of what's going on now is nothing but knee-jerk reaction and automatically attacking anything a Democratic president does.

Transcript via Lexis Nexis below the fold.

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Keith is not back on the air yet, but he is back on the web with his first Special Comment since leaving MSNBC. From his blog The FOK News Channel -- Special Comment: Libya, Obama and the Five-Second Rule.

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CNN's Nic Robertson in Libya responds to Fox's claim that their crews were used as human shields for Moammar Gadhafi.

Fox News Claims CNN Crews Acted As Human Shields For Gadhafi in Libya:

Fox News has launched a smear campaign on CNN’s patriotism by reporting that CNN crews were used a human shields and prevented a British attack on Gadhafi’s compound in Libya. CNN denies the story, but this hasn’t stopped Fox News from running an attack on their breaking news competition at CNN. [...]

Anchor Jon Scott asked if the media was brought in after the first two cruise missiles struck and Griffin answered, “After those Tomahawks landed the Libyan Ministry of Information went to the hotel where most of the journalists were staying they asked journalists to come and see the damage. From their point of view this was a propaganda opportunity to show that Gadhafi himself was being targeted because his compound had being targeted. Some news crews decided to go; others including our Steve Harrigan did not go to the compound. They were concerned that they could be used as human shields and what we are now learning is that British defense forces had to call off tornado fighter planes that were loaded with seven missiles that were destined for that compound. [...]

One of the other journalistic crews that went to the compound that Fox News didn’t bother to mention was the News Corp owned Times of London, but that doesn’t very well fit into the Fox News narrative that the dirty liberal CNN acted as willing human shields for an enemy of America. The FNC point being that if Gadhafi stays in power it could very well be because of those five British Tomahawk missiles that did not get fired on his compound. This was a very clever way for Fox News to question the patriotism and journalistic integrity of CNN.

More there so go read the rest of the post, but I agree with their conclusion on the likely reason Fox did this.

The reason for this FNC attack on CNN is simple. CNN is the third place cable news network, until breaking news occurs. CNN is still the destination in many viewers’ minds for breaking news coverage. CNN still has more international resources than any other cable network, and the only time their ratings skyrocket is when there is a breaking news story out there. After the Japan earthquake CNN’s ratings more than doubled.

Breaking news coverage is the one area of the market that Fox News does not lead, so it is not a surprise that they would use the coalition efforts in Libya to smear CNN.

Here is the video from Fox News Robertson was criticizing. (h/t Dave N.)

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Transcript below the fold.

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I guess now that we've decided we can afford to help with air strikes against another country that has a lot of oil that we might be concerned about, we can continue to tell the tax payers that we're broke and cannot afford to pay for those horrible entitlement programs that you working slugs were expecting like your Social Security and your Medicaid programs. And never mind raising taxes on the "job creators" because their needs must be met at all times whether they're creating jobs overseas for slave wages or anywhere for that matter. If you're a corporation that does business in the United States, you must be coddled to.

And you stinking low life union thugs must STFU if you don't like any of this, because you of course are the source of all of our problems and draining the taxpayers in America of their hard earned money. And if you're a dirty f-king hippie organization like NPR, you must be defunded because we can't have our taxpayer dollars being spent on any evil liberal ideology being spread around to the rural areas of the country.

And of course we can afford this -- it never means raising taxes on the rich. From my buddy Scarce who helps me here and shared this with our group.

Deep Thought -- U.S. fires 110 tomahawk missiles, each costs $569,000. That's more than 5 years of NPR federal funding in less than an hour.

We've got to have our priorities, don't you know.

I am really disgusted with what's been going on in Libya and Gadhafi's actions, but am also really cynical about our decision to go in there. We're supporting dictators that are as bad as Gadhaifi and treating their citizens just as badly, but we're not doing anything about that or helping to overturn those regimes.

If the uprisings in the Middle East and Africa don't start a conversation about what's wrong with our foreign policy and what we can and cannot afford to pay for at home and what we should and should not be supporting, I don't know what will.

The interview with Fawaz Gerges is available at CNN's website.