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House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) on Friday refused to condemn Rep. Michele Bachmann's (R-MN) suggestion that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, had infiltrated the U.S. government on behalf of radical Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) accused Bachmann and four other Republican lawmakers of “specious and degrading attacks” after they called on inspectors general in the State, Homeland Security, Defense and Justice departments to investigate “potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration” of the Obama administration by Abedin, an aide to Secretary Clinton and wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY).

McCain was just the first in a series of Republicans -- including House Speaker John Boehner, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner and former Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins -- who spoke up to condemn the anti-Muslim accusations.

Although Cantor had recently said his party needed to be more tolerant of LGBT people and Muslims, he seemed on Friday to legitimize Bachmann's call for an investigation.

"If you read some of the reports that have covered this story, I think that her concern was about the security of the country," the Virginia Republican insisted to CBS host Charlie Rose. "So, that's about all I know."

In an interview with BuzzFeed last week, Cantor called on Republicans for an "acceptance of diversity."

"I’ve always said we need to be a party of inclusion not exclusion," Cantor explained. "We need to be promoting tolerance and, you know, as someone who is a religious minority, I sort of grew up with having that mindset, knowing full well that I am in a very distinct way from a religious background, separate and apart from the mainstream of this country."

He added that it was "absolutely wrong to stereotype or look badly at anyone because of their religion."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert on Tuesday lashed out at Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and other Republican "numbnuts" who have criticized Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) for suggesting that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, had infiltrated the U.S. government on behalf of radical Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last week, McCain accused Bachmann, Gohmert and three other Republican lawmakers of "specious and degrading attacks" after they called on inspectors general in the State, Homeland Security, Defense and Justice departments to investigate “potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration” of the Obama administration by Huma Abedin, an aide to Secretary Clinton and wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY).

Other Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner and former Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins have also condemned the anti-Muslim accusations.

"Well, it’s obvious that John McCain didn’t even read the letter because of what he said in accusing Michele and us of making these horrible accusations," Gohmert told conservative radio host Dennis Miller on Tuesday.

"And I wish some of these numbnuts would go out and read the letter before they make these horrible allegations about the horrible accusations we’re making."

He added: "But we also know that John McCain himself had said back in the early stages of stuff going on in Egypt that he was, in his words, 'unalterably opposed to helping the Muslim Brotherhood.' Well, obviously the unalterable person has been altered, so he is OK with it now."

Last week, Gohmert told U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano that his suggestion that Homeland Security Advisory Council member Mohamed Elibiary was working for the Muslim Brotherhood had nothing to do with the fact that he is a Muslim.

“The allegations are not because he is Muslim,” Gohmert insisted at a House Judiciary Committee hearing. “You’ve followed me around the world, you’ve seen me huggin Muslims around the world, because the ones I hug are our friends, and this administration seems to have a hard time recognizing members of terrorist groups who are allowed into the White House."

"Numbnuts" is derogatory slang term that mostly likely originated in the U.S. military. It is often used to to describe an ignorant person, but it can also imply cowardice, sterility or impotence.

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Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) on Thursday responded to criticism over her attacks on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin, by claiming that Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) also had a "long record" of association with radical Islamists in the Muslim Brotherhood.

Last week, the St. Cloud Times reported that Bachmann and four other Republicans sent a letter to inspectors general in the State, Homeland Security, Defense and Justice departments calling on them to investigate “potential Muslim Brotherhood infiltration” of the Obama administration by Abedin, an aide to Secretary Clinton and wife of former Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-NY). Their accusations were based on a report by Frank Gaffney’s neoconservative Center for Security Policy.

On Wednesday, Ellison, who is Muslim, told the Star Tribune that this "is one of those moments when you can't stay silent," adding that the attacks were "McCarthyism at its worst."

Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner, Arizona Sen. John McCain, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and former Bachmann campaign manager Ed Rollins also condemned the anti-Muslim accusations.

Speaking to conservative radio host Glenn Beck on Thursday, Bachmann declined to respond to her Republican critics, but attempted to smear Ellison by associating him with Islamic radicals.

"So when you wrote this letter, then Keith Ellison comes out," Beck told Bachmann. "Keith Ellison is -- he has a record of being the Mafia hitman."

"Well, [Ellison] has a long record of being associated with CAIR and with the Muslim Brotherhood," Bachmann agreed. "[S]o he came out and essentially wanted to shut down the inspectors general from even looking into any of the questions that we were asking. So he wanted to shut it down. In response I wrote another letter back to Keith Ellison, a 16-page letter which I would encourage all of your listeners to go and read this letter. It’s what I call a bulletproof letter."

"And so then now what’s happened is the attack machine has been turned on myself and the other members of congress who have been asking the questions, that somehow we’re the Muslim haters, we’re the witch-hunters, we’re the new Joe McCarthyites because we’re asking these questions," she insisted.

Later on Thursday, Ellison told CNN's Anderson Cooper that Bachmann's charges were "ridiculous."

"That's not true," the Minnesota congressman explained. "I don't have any Muslim Brotherhood connections that she's talking about."

"I'm absolutely not trying to shut down their investigation. What I'm trying to do is raise a concern about unfounded allegations of disloyalty, specifically with regard to Huma Abedin and a few other people who she mentioned."

Ellison continued: "It's about marginalizing and alienating a group of Americans who she does not view as all-American enough."

(h/t: MinnPost)

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Bob Schieffer sat down with a panel that could rightfully be called "Meet the Republicans" on this week's Face the Nation and asked his panel of Ken Blackwell, Ed Rollins, Liz Cheney and Ed Gillespie what they thought about Rick Perry's bizarre Cornerstone speech that left so many people wondering if he was drunk or on drugs after watching it.

Ken Blackwell, a Perry supporter, naturally tried to blame the response to the speech on the fact that it was edited down to seven to three minutes on You Tube depending on which version someone happened to watch. I hate to break it to Ken Blackwell, but watching the entire video really doesn't make it any better.

Schieffer asked Ed Rollins if he thought this would harm the Perry campaign in the same manner as the now infamous "Dean scream" harmed the Howard Dean campaign. Rollins didn't think it would but didn't think Perry was going to come out of this unscathed either. And Liz Cheney basically attacked him for even bringing it up at all.

Ed Gillespie tried to paint a happy face on whether this would harm Perry or not as well and said the difference between what happened to Howard Dean and this event with Perry is that people were watching Howard Dean live and unedited. How badly this does end up harming the Perry campaign, time will tell, but the talking heads and pundits as we saw here sure are going to do their best to make sure the media continues to ignore or gloss over the speech and just how truly bizarre his behavior was.

Full transcript below the fold.

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Time for your weekly podcast with The Professional Left, otherwise known as our own Driftglass and Bluegal.

Links for this podcast include:

Scott Simon’s “Windy City”

Romney’s "unemployment" ad problem.

FOX NEWS.Com calls for higher corporate taxes.

You can listen to the archives or make a donation to help keep these going at http://professionalleft.blogspot.com/. Have a wonderful holiday weekend everyone and enjoy the podcast.

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While discussing President Obama's announcement that he will run for reelection on Hardball, Chris Matthews allowed long time Republican campaign operative Ed Rollins to punt on whether he knew what the potential (or maybe not) Republican candidates were up to with the birther talk we've been hearing out of the likes of Donald Trump and others and tells Rollins that "everyone knows" "what they're up to with that."

Two points on this. First of all, Rollins has been around long enough to be one of the big players in Republican politics and in helping with the Republican's Southern Strategy over the last thirty years or so and he knows full well where this "crapola" that Matthews asked about is coming from. And second, just because the Republican Party has gone off the rails with catering to the right wing of their base, that doesn't make Ed Rollins "mainstream" as Matthews called him here. He's still a right winger who's not been above playing the race card in the past and his ideology is hard right.

I'm quite sure Matthews has been following politics for long enough to know this, but it didn't stop him from painting Rollins as some sort of moderate Republican that doesn't belong in the party any more. Never mind his work for Nixon, or Reagan or Bush or that he was just running Huckabee's campaign last time around who's hardly what anyone could consider a moderate as well. He's just a "mainstream guy" now! Oh goodie.

It's horrid just how far to the right our political dialog has moved for that to be the conventional wisdom from our beltway Villagers like Matthews. Not bats**t insane equals the new center. Wonderful.

And a last note on this birther crap that none of them ever want to admit. Calling the president a "Kenyan" is just code for the N-word they're not allowed to say in public and all of them damn well know it.

Transcript below the fold.

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Hey John Boehner... where are the jobs? Oh, I guess they don't matter if it's government employees potentially getting hammered from the GOP's proposed spending cuts.

Boehner: If Jobs Are Lost As A Result Of GOP Spending Cuts 'So Be It':

If House Republicans succeed in cutting tens of billions of dollars in discretionary spending over the next six months, some of the most immediate victims will be federal employees, many of whose jobs will be slashed as their agencies pare back.

At a press conference in the lobby of RNC headquarters Tuesday morning, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) shrugged this off as collateral damage.

"In the last two years, under President Obama, the federal government has added 200,000 new federal jobs," Boehner said. "If some of those jobs are lost so be it. We're broke."

Some of those employees will no doubt collect unemployment insurance, so the government's obligation to them won't disappear with their jobs.

As TPM and John King pointed out, his numbers are wrong too.

And you've got to love CNN's favorite phony baloney "centrist" hack John Avlon defending Boehner here. Talking like some tough guy when you're doing real damage to real people's lives isn't going to win him any points in the minds of most of the electorate. It would be nice if his constituency at home finally had a belly full of him.

UPDATE: And here's more from Steve Benen. Apparently Villager Mark Halperin is trying to trivialize this as some sort of minor gaffe by Boehner. As Steve explains, it's not.

And Rachel Maddow opened her show by asking if John Boehner is just not very good at his job considering the way the last month has gone for him, with this remark just being the latest in a series of missteps.

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Anderson Cooper and his producers apparently think that something mentioned in a post by the liberal web site Think Progress that was not the main topic of the post that they took issue with somehow is equal to what hatemonger Michelle Malkin does day in and day out on her blog, and these two websites somehow are equal in spreading misinformation to the public. All I can say after watching this is: Shame on Anderson Cooper and his producers, and shame on the supposed liberal on the panel, Maria Cardona, for letting this pass without defending the work that Think Progress has done week after week on their site.

Here is the post that was being criticized by Cooper -- Gohmert Warns Of ‘Reverting’ To Era Of Congressional Duels — While Pushing Bill To Arm Congressmen. The main substance of that post was that it is pretty well insane for Gohmert to be pushing for handguns to be allowed on the House floor. They mentioned that his argument that there was a handgun ban in DC was not true.

Here's Cooper's criticism of that.

COOPER: Well, the liberal blog ThinkProgress jumped all over Gohmert's idea, mocking it, calling it -- quote -- "harebrained." Their main point was this, though. "Gohmert" -- and I'm quoting -- "Gohmert explained the need for his bill by falsely claiming that Washington, D.C., has a gun ban. The Roberts Supreme Court did away with D.C.'s handgun ban in 2008."

Well, there's only one problem with that statement. It's wrong. Even after that Supreme Court decision, ordinary citizens cannot carry a registered -- registered handgun in D.C. You can keep a handgun in your home if you have a permit, but you can't carry one.

Now, you can say what you want about Louie Gohmert's idea of lawmakers carrying guns in and around the Capitol, but you should criticize it based on actual facts, not made-up ones, which is just what ThinkProgress did.

Handguns may not be entirely banned in DC, but you still can't go walking around with one on the streets or bring one into the halls of Congress. I think Cooper's splitting hairs here with the language in the Think Progress post.

This just looks like an excuse to me for CNN to play the "all sides are equally bad" game and take a shot at Think Progress. Those folks actually have one of the few liberal think tanks out there behind the research they're doing, unlike Malkin, who just makes crap up to be outraged about. And one last note here: If Think Progress does end up realizing they made a mistake in their reporting, we're likely to get a retraction from them. You're never going to see that from the likes of Michelle Malkin.

In the meantime, we get to hear more of the "all sides do it" bulls**t from the Villagers who would not recognize an honest conservation about anything if it bit them on the nose.

Transcript below the fold via CNN.

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During a panel discussion on John King USA about PBS's decision to edit out some of Tina Fey's remarks criticizing Sarah Palin while accepting The Mark Twain Prize, Mrs. John King Dana Bash points out that this is not the first time PBS has been "accused of editing to favor Republicans" and that PBS has been accused of being too liberal. It's too bad that the panel and Bash didn't bother to point out the fact that this edit by PBS of Fey's remarks shouldn't be all that surprising to anyone paying attention since the network took a turn to the right some years ago.

That said, I don't expect anything better from anyone on CNN. Introspection as to how our media is not serving their basic purpose as the fourth estate in America isn't exactly their strong point to put it lightly. Since sadly Bill Moyers left the air at PBS... again... I'm not sure why anyone would perceive that network to be "too liberal" other than from listening to the Villager's on their television sets telling them that it is day in and day out. If anyone thinks that The McLaughlin Group or the PBS Newshour or Charlie Rose are liberal, they're not watching those shows. I consider Frontline to be fairly neutral in their reporting and that's about the extent of what I might watch on that network on any kind of a regular basis. They've got Tavis Smiley on there on a nightly basis but his show sure as hell doesn't make up for the shows that lean to the right or the loss of Bill Moyers. He just gave right wing hack Dennis Miller a sad and sorry softball interview on the same night this panel segment aired.

Here's what got ignored during this segment where they made light of the editing of Tina Fey's remarks.

PBS Panders to Right With New Programming:

A new public television program called the Journal Editorial Report, featuring writers and editors from the arch-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial page, will debut tonight on public television stations around the country. The show joins Tucker Carlson: Unfiltered, hosted by conservative CNN pundit Tucker Carlson, and a planned program featuring conservative commentator Michael Medved as part of what many see as politically motivated decisions to bring more right-wing voices to public television.

According to reports in the public broadcasting newspaper Current (1/19/04, 6/7/04) and in the New Yorker (6/7/04), conservative complaints about the alleged liberal bias of the program Now With Bill Moyers contributed to the momentum to "balance" the PBS lineup. The new programs seem to be the result of that pressure. In fact, Now will soon see its role on public television diminish, as the program is cut from one hour to 30 minutes when Moyers voluntarily leaves the program later this year. He will be replaced by co-anchor David Brancaccio, formerly of the public radio business show Marketplace, who expresses no obvious ideology. If Carlson, Medved and the staff of the Wall Street Journal editorial page are all necessary to balance the liberal Moyers, by 2005 there will be no one on PBS to balance them. Read on...

And there's this.

PBS Stolen by Right Wing in Cunning Bait and Switch:

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As predicted by Steve Benen, here's the AC360 panel discussing the midterm elections, and one David Gergen claiming that President Obama isn't going to be able to get his "liberal agenda" passed now and that he's going to have to "come to the middle" if the Republicans take back the Congress. Sorry David, but President Obama already "came to the middle", in fact he unfortunately started there with way too many of the bills he either got passed or attempted to get passed and all he got in return was Republican obstruction.

Apparently Gergen and thinks that "coming to the middle" means passing a Republican agenda.

COOPER: Ed and David, you both have seen in White Houses, you know, a president who, going into midterm elections, faced a tough battle. And different presidents react differently: Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton. How do you think -- if the House goes back to Republican -- David, let's start with you -- how do you think that affects President Obama? How -- what changes?

GERGEN: Well, in the first place, he's not going to be able to get his liberal agenda through. That's just -- that's going to be finished.

And -- but the question is whether he's going to come to the middle and whether Republicans will do that, and we can actually get some real progress, not only on jobs, but on the deficits. I think it could be -- it could be serious gridlock, or we could go the other way. I don't think we know the answer to that yet.

I do think, if he demonizes John Boehner, to go back to the point just made, I think it could become harder to work with him.

I'd love for David Gergen to explain how John Boehner could be any harder to work with than he has been already. The President needs to do more of and not less of what he did during his Labor Day speech with calling out the GOP for their obstruction, no matter what the talking heads like the ones on this panel had to say. And John Ridley, you should be ashamed of yourself for saying you'd like to give the Republicans a chance to show what they stand for, like you don't know already. What ought to be nerve-wracking for you is what happens to our economy if the Republicans are allowed to put any fixes on hold for the next two years.

Full transcript via CNN below the fold.

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