DOWNLOADS: (605)

PLAYS: (6189)

Embed

Jon Stewart and his crew over at The Daily Show took Sarah Palin to task for her appearance on NBC's the Today Show and the fact that she had told Breitbart's rag that "We’re 'going rogue' and infiltrating some turf for a day."

Eric Dolan at Raw Story has more on Stewart's response to to Palin's appearance -- Jon Stewart pummels Sarah Palin for ‘infiltrating’ the Today Show with her Jesus fish earrings:

But to Stewart, going rogue was actually “cynically exploiting a manufactured notion of yourself as a crusader against a monolithic exclusionary activist liberal media, whilst actually enjoying a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship with them, only to the detriment to the rest of the country.”

“Seriously, it’s the Today Show,” he continued. “You really believe co-hosting the Today Show is is entering the lion’s den, armed only with some Jesus fish earrings and an Iwo Jima sized flag pin?”

But Stewart didn’t stop there.

“Governor Palin acts like she needed to protect herself from the lamestream liberals like garlic to a vampire when the truth is, you’re at the Today Show,” he added. “You’re there to talk about party planning with Tori Spelling! To pretend that you remember who Wilson Phillips is, or to hang out for some light-hearted couch banter with Matt and Ann and Al — instead of acting like you’re sitting with which Che and Lenin and Saul Alinsky.”

And here's a bit more from Stewart with his views on what game Palin was playing here.

STEWART: You're pretending this whole appearance is some uncommonly ballsy way of sticking it to the “lame stream media.” It's just another place for you to tout your brand of home-spun nonsense, unchallenged. […]

Ah... failed, Socialist policies, of Barack Obama. I get it and cut to two minutes into your same interview. […]

Right! Wall Street! Fat cats, reaping the benefits, of the failed Socialist... wait, that doesn't make any sense! Oh, but you know what? Who gives a s**t if it doesn't make any sense. […]

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (267)

PLAYS: (2077)

Embed

...if you had called her fat while she had been pregnant. Or at least that's what she said she would have wanted to do. That was her take on the issue of whether or not criticism of the very pregnant Jessica Simpson was fair or not. This is the sort of thing they talk about on morning shows. If so, Ms Palin may have found her true calling in just the right venue for her.

via The Today Show, two minutes from an almost ten of mind-numbing tv.

The self described “mama grizzly” had no problem weighing in on talking points with the other Professionals, Star Jones, Donnie Deutsch and Dr. Nancy Snyderman, breezing through such topics as criticism over singer Jessica Simpson’s pregnancy weight gain: “I would have wanted to punch them in the neck,” Palin said of anyone who might have done the same to her during her own five pregnancies. "It’s nobody’s business."

DOWNLOADS: (208)

PLAYS: (691)

Embed

For Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), the end of one of the most costly wars in U.S. history is not a reason to celebrate.

As the final American troops were pulling out of Iraq Thursday, the failed Republican presidential candidate insisted that "everything that we gained" in the war could be lost.

"It was a noble cause," McCain told NBC's Matt Lauer. "I really think we risk losing -- great risk -- losing everything that we gained, and that is the opinion of every military leader that I've talked to."

"So was this purely in your opinion, an idea of meeting a campaign promise?" Lauer asked.

"The president made a campaign promise that he would bring all the troops out," McCain explained. "It's very obvious -- I know for a fact because I was involved that there was very little real discussion with the Iraqis about a residual force being left behind, and it is what it is. And so we risk losing everything that we gained."

"As I say, we risk losing everything that we gained," the Arizona senator repeated for third time. "I think it's a great risk. And I think it was unnecessary. We always envisioned some residual force, and this administration, they were never really serious at all."

While McCain may be right that the U.S. is losing part of its footprint in the Middle East, there are some things that Americans accumulated during the war that they wish they could lose: like $800 billion in debt and 4,500 dead American troops.

DOWNLOADS: (207)

PLAYS: (1007)

Embed

Republican presidential candidate Rep. Ron Paul told NBC's Matt Lauer Monday that he has a mainstream candidacy.

"You know, congressman, your name comes up an awful lot when I talk politics with friends and one of the things I hear about you over and over again is that people say 'I like some of his ideas but I'm nervous about the total package,'" Lauer noted. "Because you're a guy who's called for legalizing all drugs including cocaine and heroin, legalizing prostitution. You want to eliminate about half of the federal agencies including Energy, Education, Health and Human services, the Department of Homeland Security. So how do you convince people that you are not just an interesting fringe candidate?"

"To not portray it like you have just done," Paul said. "I want to legalize freedom. What's so bad about that? What's wrong with legalizing choices about your life and your liberty and religious values? What's wrong with legalizing the Constitution? I can defend everything I do by the Constitution. So why can you turn that around and say everything he's doing is nuts and crazy?"

"I think a growing number of people are starting to realize what I'm talking about is pretty sound," Paul added. "It's very American. It produces prosperity and peace and I'm always bewildered why anyone would reject it."

Why in the hell does MSNBC keep giving this petulant liar a format? And yeah, I'm talking to you, Ed Schultz, as well. Chris Matthews brought on Cheney sycophant Ron Christie, who proceeded to do what he always does when he appears on MSNBC -- lie, feign outrage and talk over the other guests. I feel your pain, Joan Walsh.

Christie of course spent the segment making excuses for the Bush administration and the outing of Valerie Plame and our invasion of Iraq. Christie looked like he was going to pop a gasket when Joan Walsh dared to point out that she like most of us have some trouble figuring out where George Bush's "moral" and "psychological compass" were at after we watched him yucking it up with his "have mores" making jokes about not being able to find and WMD's in Iraq. The horror! How dare you point out the painfully obvious Joan Walsh?! This guy makes my head hurt about as badly as Pat Buchanan does. I'd love to see MSNBC show both of them the door.

Transcript via Lexis Nexis.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

That was President Bush`s discussion with Matt Lauer of course on NBC about his "December Points," the name of the book. It`s literally coming out tomorrow, though everybody has gotten a peek at it.

The books begins with an effort to shape his presidential legacy, obviously. Earlier on "The Today Show," Matt Lauer asked him about Scooter Libby. Now, Scooter Libby, to those who are not experts on "HARDBALL," was chief of staff to Vice President Cheney. He got convicted of about five felony counts of obstruction of justice and perjury. The president commuted the sentence to time served or whatever.

Let`s listen to him discussing that now.

Continue reading »

DOWNLOADS: (385)

PLAYS: (1350)

Embed

President George W. Bush's friendship with Vice President Cheney was stretched to the breaking point after the president refused to pardon I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for lying in the Valerie Plame case.

Appearing in a interview on NBC Monday, the former president said that Cheney was furious over the decision.

"He wanted me to pardon him," Bush told NBC's Matt Lauer. "And this was a decision that -- a real life decision for the presidency, really. I chose to let the jury verdict stand after some serious deliberation. And the vice president was angry."

"You went to him and you told him," Lauer explained. "You said he was furious and he said, 'I can't believe you're going to leave a soldier on the battlefield?'"

"Yeah, he did," the president said.

But Bush said his relationship with Cheney has since recovered.

"He gave a very gracious speech on his way out of town at Andrews Air Force Base. Yeah, we are friends. I went by to see him. I've seen him since then, talked to him. I'm pleased to report we are. I was a little concerned at one time. It was a hard decision to make. But that's what you do when you're president, you make hard decisions," he said.

In 2007, Libby was convicted of two counts of perjury, one count of lying to federal agents and one count of obstructing a federal investigation into the case of who leaked Valerie Plame's name, a CIA operative married to one of the president's critics.

Bush decided to commute a 2 and 1/2 year prison term but he let a fine of $250,000 stand.

DOWNLOADS: (395)

PLAYS: (2063)

Embed

The panel on The Chris Matthews Show this weekend did their best to try to soften how disgusted most of us should be after watching George W. Bush’s upcoming interview which will be aired on NBC this Monday with Matt Lauer.

LAUER: “I can never forget what happened to America that day. I would pour my heart and soul into protecting this country, whatever it took.”

BUSH: Yeah.

LAUER: It took thousands of lives, American lives, billions of dollars; you could say it took Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib…

BUSH: Yeah.

LAUER: And government eavesdropping and waterboarding. Did it take too much?

BUSH: We didn’t have an attack. 3000 people died on September the 11th and I vowed that I would do my duty to protect the American people and uhm…they didn’t get hit again.

Chris Matthews went on to ask how Obama would have handled the aftermath of 9-11 and if he’d have reacted differently than Bush, like he doesn’t know that answer all ready. Bob Woodward pointed out that al Qaeda was not present in Iraq until after we invaded them.

The part of this discussion that really got under my skin was this statement by Katy Kay.

KAY: The sort of political extraordinariness of the Bush administration was that Cheney managed to convince 70% of American people that Iraq was, that Saddam Hussein was directly behind Iraq. (I think she meant to say 9-11 here.)

So in other words, it was Dick Cheney’s fault that he was allowed to lie to the public and not the media for failing to alert the public to the fact that he was lying. Okay Katy. Nothing like relinquishing on your responsibilities if you want to call yourself “journalists.”

Mrs. Greenspan followed that by doing her best to carry a little water for the Bush administration by pretending that they really were concerned about a threat from Iraq until Chris Matthews pointed out that the CIA didn’t agree with them.

Bob Woodward went on to trivialize any of Colin Powell’s objections to the wisdom of our invasion even though we all know he went on to give that speech to the UN where he carried water for Bush with fear mongering over Iraq’s non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

The panel spent most of the rest of the segment talking about whether George W. Bush and his father disagreed or not over his decision to invade Iraq, like that means a damn thing now when it comes to all of the lives and money wasted there.

DOWNLOADS: (339)

PLAYS: (2273)

Embed

President Barack Obama isn't impressed by a Republican manifesto that promises to cut the size of government if they take over Congress. Appearing on the Today Show, Obama said the Republican "Pledge to America" was irresponsible.

CNN reported:

President Barack Obama is responding to the GOP's so-called "pledge to America," saying the newly unveiled 21-page document is nothing more than a continuation of "irresponsible policies."

"What I'm seeing out of the Republican leadership over the last several years has been a set of policies that are just irresponsible. And we saw in their 'Pledge to America' a similar set of irresponsible policies," he told NBC's Matt Lauer Monday morning.

"They propose $4 trillion worth of tax cuts and $16 billion in spending cuts and they say we're going to somehow magically balance the budget, the president continued. "That's not a serious approach. So the question for voters over the next five weeks is who is putting forward policies that have a chance to move our country forward."

Obama's remarks come just days after House Minority Leader and other Republican leaders announced the document called "A Pledge to America."

DOWNLOADS: (116)

PLAYS: (144)

Embed

President Barack Obama would have already fired BP CEO Tony Hayward if it were up to him.

Critics have called for Hayward to be canned following a string of insensitive and clumsy comments.

"The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume," Hayward was quoted as saying. Hayward also said that he was tired of presiding over the spill and he wanted his life back.

"Family members of those 11 people who died on the rig and the people whose lives are going to be changed for years want their lives back, too. He doesn't work for you. But if he did, would you want him out?" NBC's Matt Lauer asked the president in an interview that aired Tuesday.

"He wouldn't be working for me after any of those statements," Obama replied.

The Commander in Chief responded to criticism that he had done little more than talk about repairing the damage done to the environment by saying that he had sought the opinions of Gulf residents and experts so "I know whose ass to kick."

"I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar. We talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answer so I know whose ass to kick," Obama told Lauer.

DOWNLOADS: (82)

PLAYS: (196)

Embed

James Cameron offered to help BP find a solution to their leaking well in the Gulf of Mexico but the company turned him down. Now the Academy Award-winning director is taking his suggestions directly to the media.

"You had a brainstorming session that I understand lasted more than ten hours. Did you come up with concrete ideas in terms of things that can be done right now that can make this situation not worse, but better?" NBC's Matt Lauer asked Cameron Monday.

"We looked at it in sort of three stages. What can we do right now to either slow down or stop the flow of oil and to capture what's escaping? Those were the first two. The third section was what can this group do in terms of having ongoing value in studying the environmental impact to the underwater community and in possibly forming the basis of the framework for a national rapid response team, which we don't seem to have," Cameron explained. "We think, you know, we need to have a permanent group that can come in on day one of a crisis and assist."

"Does the government want to rely on BP or another oil company for all of its intel coming out of the site or do they want their own independent capability to go in and see what's happening? We have that ability, submersibles, ROVs, all kinds of vehicles that could get down there. Why doesn't the federal government have that independent capability aside from the oil company?" wondered Cameron.

Cameron offered one idea for plugging the well. "Our group's recommendation is to go back to the 'top kill' type of process where you get heavy oil drilling mud down the well, build up some hydrostatic pressure. And the way we think you do this is you throttle the well at the surface, you create enough back pressure, which they didn't have before," said Cameron.

The Avatar director told Lauer that he was taken out of context when he reportedly called the people in charge of the spill "morons." The New York Post suggested Cameron was calling the Obama administration morons.

He didn't say who in particular -- BP executives or Obama-administration officials -- he was calling "morons" in a speech Wednesday at the All Things Digital conference in Palos Verdes, Calif.

"I was talking about the BP people, who were out at the scene, trying to control the leak. What I was doing -- it's a classic out-of-context kind of quote," said Cameron.