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There really wasn't a lot of substance to Alan Grayson's appearance on Hardball yesterday, but it is always pretty delightful to watch Grayson in action anyway. He just says what he thinks and lets the chips fall where they may.

The end got a little over the top, in fact:

Matthews: Dick Cheney—and that‘s how you pronounce his name—was out last night in black tie, along with his—well, his felon former chief of staff, who I think took the bullet for him in that whole matter, perjury and obstruction of justice.

And he wasn‘t out robbing gas stations. His behavior was right there in the office under Cheney‘s leadership. Anyway, the prosecutor in that case said there was a cloud over Cheney‘s head. The—the prosecutor obviously brought the justice to that guy Scooter Libby. He got convicted of a number of counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

The president even held his nose and would not pardon these guys, wouldn‘t pardon Scooter Libby. Here‘s this guy, with all his inglorious background, out trashing the president of the United States for dithering.

Your response?

GRAYSON: Well, my response is—and, by the way, I have trouble listening to what he says sometimes because of the blood that drips from his teeth while he‘s talking.

But—but my response is this. He's just angry because the president doesn't shoot old men in the face. Oh, by the way, when he was done speaking, did he just then turn into a bat and fly away?

MATTHEWS: Oh, God. We have got to keep a level here.

Even if this kind of talk horrifies you, the fact that it's coming from a Democrat is actually a relief for those of us who've watched the party perfect its Village-approved Harvey Milquetoast routine the past couple of decades.

It's one of the traits that has really harmed the Democratic brand over that time, because it's led people to believe that they don't really have the courage of their convictions, that they won't stand up and fight for anything, that they don't really believe in anything.

Alan Grayson leaves no such impression. Even if other Democrats go fleeing in horror, he's doing them -- and us -- a real service.

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I have to say this Birther movement is starting to get on my last nerve. Seriously, what more has to be done to get through their thick, dense skulls that Obama was born in the U.S.? And now, to add "credibility", they trot out G. (apparently for Geezer) Gordon Liddy--a convicted criminal, mind you--to express all the same ridiculous doubts ("That's not a birth certificate--it's a certificate of live birth!") and to assert that the "preponderance" of evidence (which is limited to his grandmother saying he was born in Kenya and the screaming mimis of some very unhinged people) suggests that he is, in fact, an illegal alien, and all the other evidence (the certificate of live birth, the birth announcement in the Honolulu papers, etc., the verification by state officials, the fact that courts have already thrown this ridiculous charge out, the fact that he was certified as a legitimate candidate for POTUS, etc.) entirely dismissable.

Chris Matthews ever-so-gently (perhaps in deference to the feeble appearance of Liddy?) smacks down the insane hate and logic spiraling out of control.

Media Matters looks at the nutwing conspiracists who should be relegated to the outer fringes of the national dialogue being instead mainstreamed by the likes of Lou Dobbs.

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I meant to get to this yesterday, but time flew by. Anyway, Chris Matthews had on Manuel Miranda, disgraced right-wing hack and former hired hand of Bill First, to discuss his provocative letter that attacked the GOP over Sonia Sotomayor. Matthews tried to appear to be very tough on Miranda, but never brought up his criminal background or his over-the-top comments about Mitch McConnell.

Greg Sargent:

The New York Times reports that a coalition of heavyweight conservative groups has signed a letter pressuring Senate Republicans to filibuster Sonia Sotomayor. The organizer of the pressure campaign — which has angered Senate GOP leaders — is identified as one Manuel Miranda, whom the paper only describes as a “former adviser on judicial issues to former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist.”

There’s a bit more to Manuel Miranda than that, however. Miranda, as longtime Congressional insiders will recall, was the GOP Senate staffer who was nailed in 2004 for hacking into the computers of Senate Dems and downloading thousands of documents relating to the strategies of Dem Senators on judicial nominations.

Miranda’s scheme — widely referred to as “Memogate” — was a big deal. A Senate probe found that many of the swiped files had been systematically downloaded “from folders belonging to Democratic staff,” with some leaked to friendly reporters. Miranda resigned, and a Washington Post editorial denounced his “political spying operation” that indicated “how low the nominations process has sunk.”

Miranda called Mitch McConnell "limp-wristed":

A group of conservative Republicans questioned Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's handling of President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee on Tuesday, with one suggesting Kentucky's senior senator should resign if he is unable to aggressively challenge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination.

Manuel Miranda, a former aide to McConnell's predecessor Sen. Bill Frist, orchestrated a letter signed by 145 GOP conservatives urging lawmakers to scrutinize Sotomayor. Miranda resigned his position in Frist's office in the wake of a probe into alleged hacking of Democratic computer files.

In an interview with Politico, a Washington based publication, Miranda said McConnell should "consider resigning" as Senate minority leader if he can't take a harder line on President Barack Obama's first Supreme Court nominee.

Miranda accused McConnell of being "limp-wristed" and "a little bit tone deaf'" when it comes to judicial nominees.

Asked by McClatchy Newspapers to explain those statements, Miranda said the Senate as an institution hasn't properly vetted previous court nominees and "should do more."

He specifically criticized how McConnell "holds the gun" to judicial nominees. "He doesn't hold it very firmly. He doesn't hold it very well."

Hmmmmm. I wonder why he used the term limp-wristed against Mitch ...

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Tom Ridge was on Hardball Thursday and made a few statements that the Grand Poobah of the GOP---Rush Limbaugh will not like. There's a fight for the heart of the GOP goin' on if you haven't noticed. It's the Limbaughs vs the Ridges and it looks like the wingnut-teabagger brigades led by Rush are winning.
Ridge says the GOP is much too shrill and should not be a party made of teabaggers alone. Then they got into Arlen Specter switching parties and the conversation turned into a surreal Villager comic strip. Apparently Specter should have acted like Davey Crockett and died at the Alamo instead of becoming a "turncoat" and switching his uniform to join the Mexicans. I'm not kidding. I'm no fan of the switch, but these two Villagers like to make believe they know all there is to know about politics, but how could they reasonably make the case that an old time politician is going to willingly lose his seat in the name of Davey Crockett?

So what happened? Was it the Iraq war? Was it Cheney's war over there? What did it to you?

RIDGE: Well, I think both -- I mean, I look at Pennsylvania as a frame of reference, and clearly -- nationally -- you know, there's certainly fundamentals that always guided us as Republicans, limited government, fiscally ethical government, competent government, outcome-based, and understand that government has no money of its own, so when you make an investment, make sure you get the outcomes that you need.

Our message became shrill. We became very divided over these social issues. And at some point in time, we're going to have to be a lot less judgmental...

MATTHEWS: Yes.

RIDGE: ... and a lot more tolerant because we will always be the pro-life party. There's no question about that. But we have to...

MATTHEWS: Well, you're pro-choice.

RIDGE: That's right. But it's the notion of, Let's accept certain differences of opinion to understand that these are principled people who disagree with you, and let's treat them with greater civility and respect than, frankly, we have in the past.

MATTHEWS: Did you have any conversation with Arlen Specter the last couple days?

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You would think that Chris Matthews would know something about Jonathan Turley, since he's been on MSNBC for years and has openly spoken about the Bush administration and torture, and has consistently said that waterboarding is a war crime and should be prosecuted.

The key exchange:

TURLEY: You know, Chris, the thing that disturbs me most, the thing that I think is most grotesque, is not the thought of prosecuting high-ranking officials, it's that high-ranking officials ordered war crimes. And if we need to prosecute it to show the world that we are not hypocrites...

MATTHEWS: When did you first say that?

TURLEY: When did I first say that we should prosecute?

MATTHEWS: Yes.

TURLEY: Back in the Bush administration.

MATTHEWS: And why—I remember that. Why did the—why do you think there was no call within the legal community to do what you‘re saying right now? Why was this country so relatively silent? You were out there alone. Why was this country so silent on the possibility that war crimes were being committed in this country for eight years?

TURLEY: Well, unfortunately, that was part of the distortive effect after 9/11. And quite frankly, we lost our bearings. And this really shows how dangerous torture can be. When you hate someone enough or you‘re afraid enough...

MATTHEWS: OK, so what you think is possible here...

TURLEY: ... that you can violate the law.

Transcript below the fold:

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Chris Matthews cites the Senate Armed Services Committee report to Rep. Mac Thornberry and although he admits there was a systemic failure in the prison he won't admit it came from the top and that Gitmo and Abu Ghraib are in any way connected. Thornberry like the rest of them are trying to turn this into a political issue. It's a legal issue and a question of whether or not there were war crimes committed. In Rep. Thornberry's world it's appropriate to punish the underlings but heaven forbid hold those at the top accountable for their actions.

I never thought for the life of me I'd see this many Republicans coming on the air and justifying torture. First it didn't happen. Then well okay, it happened but it was just a few bad apples. Now torture was necessary and down right patriotic if we were torturing suspected terrorists. All that other torturing that was going on...of course that had nothing to do with the policies that had us torturing the "bad guys". I've got to wonder just how stupid they really think most of the non-Sarah Palin worshiping American public is to buy this sort of double-speak.

I would also guess they're counting on no one ever watching this again.

Chris Matthews ask neocon Frank Gaffney and David Corn whether Spain has any legal standing to prosecute Bush officials for war crimes. Of course Gaffney doesn't think the U.S. needs to abide by our treaty agreements or any sort of international laws. He also claims our current situation has nothing to do with the Nuremberg trials.

Why does Matthews feel it's necessary to keep putting this neocon Gaffney on his show? It reminds me of the way he would trot Tom DeLay out there every chance he got as someone any of were are supposed to take seriously.

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This wanker was also on Washington Journal today and from the little bit I got to hear of it on my XM radio he was just as infuriating there as well. Apparently Stephen Moore got the same memo as Lou Dobbs today on this "grass roots"...cough... rather astroturf tea bag movement from the conservative lobbyists and Fox Noise as to who is driving it. That Rick Santelli is just such a populist don't you know. He represents the people!

At least Matthews, unlike Dobbs was honest enough to show the extent that Fox is promoting this thing even though he plays as though he's clueless during this interview as to where this movement is being financed. I think Matthews knows full well who's funding it but just doesn't want to come straight out and say it.

Bob Cesca summed this interview up pretty nicely here: Ass Troturfing:

The last time we saw Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, he was participating in Glenn Beck's insane "War Room" episode during which he helped to game out Beck's paranoid delusions. And the next day, Colbert discredited the whole ridiculous event -- right in front of Moore's smirky face.

Somehow being a laughing stock on both FOX News and Comedy Central hasn't prevented Moore from appearing on Hardball where he lied about the tea bag parties:

This really isn't something that's being driven, a) by the Republican Party, or b) by the national conservative groups. You gotta give credit where credit is due on this Chris, it really is a genuine kind of grassroots thing that kind of just spontaneously combusted around the country.

Lies. FOX News Channel, which could be considered a national conservative group, is promoting the tea baggers. FreedomWorks, a national conservative lobby, is funding the tea baggers. Fine -- whatever floats their boat. But don't say it's grassroots when it's clearly astroturfing of the highest order.

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Maybe we need to offer a course for the 24 hour News Channel talking heads in remedial journalism. Certainly, some refresher classes in very basic skills like oh....listening...are needed. My first candidate is Mr. "Hardball" himself, Chris Matthews. Matthews admits that he is so busy doing whatever it is he does to actually listen to his guests. It took a friend watching the show to tell Matthews after the fact that Frank Gaffney derailed his segment right into Neocon Crazytown without Matthews even noticing.

MATTHEWS: I—some time—as you know, sitting in this desk, this side of the desk, Joe and Pat—you have tried to do this—we have all tried to do this—we try to catch everything that goes past us, so we can act in real time.

Sometimes, people say things on this show so fast, that they come out of left field or right field, and I don‘t even hear them. But a friend of mine called me up and said, pay attention to what Frank Gaffney said on your show on Thursday, and we went back and looked at the tape.

You know, if this was an isolated incident with Matthews, that would be one thing, but the irony was that Gaffney was asked on to discuss another Neocon lie by Ari Fleischer that Matthews missed the day before. Excusing his own culpability in not being bothered to listen to what's being said on his program and how that misinforms the public, Matthews is just shocked...shocked, I tell you...that Gaffney would offer up such an egregious lie:

MATTHEWS: These people, they use anthrax. They will use—“The Weekly Standard” has reams of arguments why we should go to war. They won‘t quit, Pat. It is funny, but it‘s horrible. [..]

They would use any case to get us into a war with Iraq, and they did. And they won. They got us in. [..] What about the charge [..] that Saddam Hussein should have been fought, we had to go to war in Iraq because he bombed Oklahoma City? That is so close to fringe argument, Laurie Mylroie stuff, nutcase stuff, I should say.[..]

Gaffney was—was reaching... Because he is a good guy, but he was reaching for the crazy stuff.

TRIPPI: They have been reaching since the beginning. That‘s the whole...(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Oh, OK. I don‘t know where they—where they drink this stuff.

If you don't know, Chris, it's because you really haven't been listening these last eight years. Wake up, dude. The whole meme of "Saddam is a threat to us" originated from fringe cases like Laurie Mylroie, Ahmad Chalabi, and "Curveball" from the beginning. Here's the problem, Chris: YOU LET THEM. You--and all these other derelict talking heads (because I will not call any of you a journalist)--let them come on your program and lie. And because you weren't listening, they knew they could do it with impunity, because there would be no follow up questions, no context, no verification and no obstacles. You want to know why so many people still believe that Saddam had something to do with 9/11? Look in the mirror.

Oh, and one more thing: Your comment that Gaffney is a good guy? No, he's not. He may be perfectly pleasant at your Beltway cocktail parties, but Chris, he is a LIAR. No, even more, he is an lying, treasonous, unapologetic warmonger with the blood on his hands of an unbelievable number of people--who posed no threat to us. That is not a good guy. For once in your life, play hardball and call someone out for their lies instead of laughing about them with others. Maybe Gaffney will refuse to come on Hardball again for such treatment, but you know what? That would be a benefit to America.

Full transcripts here

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Chris Matthews, Richard Wolffe and Eugene Robinson talk about Michael Steele's problem with trying to pull the GOP in a more moderate direction when the party clearly doesn't want to go there. Steele's having a bit or trouble even keeping his own message consistent.

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Matthews smacks down Ari Fleischer who's been out on a Bush redemption media blitz of late for his Bush kept us safe from a terrorist attack nonsense. He obviously got under Fleischer's skin since Fleischer got pretty snitty with him for daring to challenge his talking points.

Matthews did a pretty good job here but as friend of the site and fellow contributor Jon Perr pointed out to us Matthews has disappointed in the past and is sure to continue to in the future.

For all his ferocity towards Fleischer today and his claim about the Bush White House in 2007 that “they won’t silence me,” Chris Matthews spent an awful long time calling George W. Bush and his friends, “good guys.”

As Jon noted at Perrspectives back in 2007 Chris Matthews: Bush White House "Good Guys" Won't Silence Me:

But what we do know is that Chris Matthews likes George W. Bush and the "good guys" of his White House - a lot. They may be, Matthews now suggests, thugs and criminals, but they are thugs and criminals you want to drink a beer with all the same:

"I thought in listening to the president, I was listening to one of the great neoconservative minds. We were given a rare opportunity to hear the real philosophy of this administration with regard to the war in Iraq." (August 9, 2007)

"I like him. Everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs, maybe on the left." (November 28, 2005)

"Sometimes it glimmers with this man, our president, that kind of sunny nobility." (October 25, 2005)

"We're proud of our president. Americans love having a guy as president, a guy who has a little swagger, who's physical." (May 1, 2003)

"For example, George Allen is a lot like George Bush. He's friendly. He's a jock in a way. He's happy go lucky. He's a good guy to hang out with, kicks back." (May 24, 2006)

"They're very adept politically, this White House. And whatever you think of Karl Rove, he is good and he is tough." (October 29, 2004)

"Tony [Snow] has no regrets, nor do any of us for being his friend. Good guy, he has been, he is, and he will be." (September 4, 2007)

"And as we sign off today, it was the last day on the job for White House press secretary, the very likable, the very good guy, Tony Snow." (September 17, 2007)

"Tom DeLay, you are not in this buisness for the money. You live modestly. You commute back and forth from Washington to Houston, Texas. Why? What drives you every day?" (January 24, 2006)

"We'll be right back with House Majority Leader John Boehner. You can see this man's greatness." (March 6, 2006)

"And Republican Senator Pete Domenici of New Mexico - a good guy, by the way - intends to retire from the Senate when his term ends next year." (October 3, 2007)

"I think you beat a good guy [Jim Talent]. I looked at all the Republican candidates running for election in tough elections. I thought he was probably the best of them." To Missouri Senator-elect Claire McCaskill, (November 28, 2006)

"Mike DeWine, a good guy." (February 9, 2007)

"Chris Shays, actually a good guy, we'll see how he deals with this thing." (August 28, 2006)

So today we get a smackdown from Matthews. We'll see what tomorrow brings. If anyone would like to watch the entire segment instead of my mash up my friend CSPANJunkie has it up in two parts.
Part 1
Part 2

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Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi tells us how he really feels about Rush Limbaugh on Hardball. I've never seen Matt pull his punches and he sure as hell doesn't hold back here. He makes some great points about what the future of the Republican party is with women and independent voters if this is the path they want to continue down as well.

Updated: As my fellow C&L'er Max pointed out to me tonight (thank you Max):

Oh he went so easy on him... Taibbi is the (usually) the most ruthless physical caricaturist there is.

He noted Taibbi's post at the HuffPo Erica Jong Thinks I Want to Do My Mother: A Response where Taibbi wrote this in response to Jong's criticism of his remarks about Hillary Clinton.

Like other sexist men, I apparently trained my monomaniacal focus on Hillary's appearance while while ignoring the paunches, liver spots and comb-overs of male politicians.

Jong has apparently never read anything else I've written. Here is a short catalogue of some of the physical descriptions I've used in recent articles about male politicians.

Follow the link above to read the rest. Warning before following the link, some of it may not be safe for work. I get so tired of the undeserved politeness on these shows for Limbaugh and his ilk as Margaret Carlson exemplifies with her remarks following Taibbi's where she says that Rush is more "intellectual than the other talk show hosts". Really Margaret? Intellectual is not the first word that comes to mind when I listen to anything Rush Limbaugh says. Nope. Uh...blowhard and hack, those come to mind. Intellectual...not even on the radar screen for me. And as Andy already noted in the comments, I don't think Limbaugh is beloved by anyone either. Great points Andy.

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Chris Matthews takes Darrell Issa to task on Hardball for using the term "Democrat Party".

Matthews: Well, I think the Democratic Party calls itself the Democratic Party, not the Democrat Party. Do we have to do this every night? Why do people talk like this? Is this just fighting words to get the name wrong?

Issa: This isn't intended to be fighting words.

Matthews: They call themselves the Democratic Party. Let's just call people what they call themselves and stop the uh, the Mickey Mouse here. Save that for the stump-seriously.

Issa: Chris, Chris.

Matthews: Now let's get to the issue here, seriously we've got a fiscal challenge. I want to go back to Congressman Frank and to some English here. Congressman Frank are you worried about the size of these WWII numbers here? Again, 1.75 trillion deficit this year. A spending level of almost 4 trillion. We're almost running deficits as big as the revenue number we're bringing in.

Frank: Well Chris let me first of all come to the defense of my colleague Mr. Issa and the Republicanistical Party that he represents, um and say that ah...

Issa: Thanks Barney.

Frank: You're welcome there Darrell. The point is this. For him to say oh these are the Democrat's deficits. I have never seen people disavow their own handiwork so quickly. And I knew that born again was an important strain, in in our society but born again deficit haters, it's a new version.

While this is pretty well a slap on the wrist for this sort of childish behavior we've come to expect out of the Republicans it's nice to see them get called out for it once in a while. Democrats need to do what Matthews did here to Republicans every time they pull this and maybe they'd finally stop after they got tired of getting egg on their face. You can watch the full segment with Issa and Franks talking about the budget here.

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Howard Dean on President Obama's healthcare plan. Dean says he hasn't seen the actual written bill but he says that an option to select Medicare is going to be part of his healthcare plan. If that is true, it will eventually put the health insurance companies out of business. I'd look for a big fight on this one from the Republicans if Doctor Dean's predictions are true. I'm sure the devil will be in the details.

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John Ensign on Hardball still blaming Fannie and Freddie and the Community Reinvestment Act for the economic crisis and claiming that government spending didn't get us out of the depression. I think Ensign and his buddy Boehner need to spend a little less time in the tanning bed thinking of new ways to attempt to revise history and take cheap political shots at entities they don't like and a little more time actually trying to get this country back on track and out of the mess we're in.