ShortsandPants: Quote of the Day. Blue Gal explains how these lying hypocrites can make such outlandish claims with a straight face.

Invictus: Purge at the White House on torture and detainee policies?

Capital Eye: Watchdog groups detail political contributions in ways never before documented

Kevin Drum: The New Obstruction

Facing South: Health Bill Hypocrisy? *Republicans* led the push for Louisiana funding that wound up in the Senate bill

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: Yoo still here?....'Beat Reporters'...Another reason TIME sux...More sources of B.S. gone...Nationalist narcissism...Murdoch & Microsoft....Pathological-Liar...The news about the internet...A new horizon for the news...Comedy Gold...Were these accidents?...NYT's notion of "pragmatism"...Feckless media...STFU... Modern Media...Less talk, more war...CNN will keep his seat warm...More Fox/wingnut bullsh*t...Inside the Dean Dome

In a breathtakingly tight argument, Chris Matthews corners Rhode Island Bishop Thomas Tobin, who has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., from receiving Holy Communion due to his views on abortion.

Because here's the moral hypocrisy at the heart of the Church's abortion position: If it's really and truly murder, you're talking about prosecuting mothers, sisters, lovers and friends for having them. Tweety is quite aggressive with the bishop, demanding to know exactly what legal penalties he thinks should be legislated.

I mean, we won't even touch the concept of one religion imposing its moral position on everyone else. We don't have to. Because if you're saying abortion is murder, you may not create a separate class of penalties under the law. You can't argue that women "didn't know what they were doing." You can't say they were "confused" or "coerced" if there's no evidence they were, anymore than you can say that about any other murder for hire. Either she paid someone to murder her child - or she didn't.

So she has to be tried for murder. The churches can't have it both ways. They can't advise forgiveness and legal exemption for one specific class of murders.

And there's no way the majority of Americans would ever support sending their relatives, neighbors and friends to prison for it.

This is really what Tweety was getting at, and it was damned brilliant. Go, Tweety!

Yeah, it's a Hollywood mixed with Scientology story, which I normally avoid like the plague, but director Paul Haggis's very public and damning resignation from the Church of Scientology because he couldn't reconcile his belief in the fundamental unfairness of banning gay marriage and his church's support for it is definitely worth a read:

In what may prove to be an earth-shaking rupture for the organization, Oscar-winning writer and director Paul Haggis has broken publicly with the Church of Scientology, the Hollywood-centric religion that has recently come under renewed scrutiny for its political positions.

In a scathing letter to the church's celebrity contact, Tommy Davis, Haggis accused the church of hypocrisy and lies, especially regarding its decision to support the anti-gay-marriage proposition on the California ballot last year, Proposition 8.

"I told you I could not, in good conscience, be a member of an organization where gay-bashing was tolerated," Haggis wrote, referring to support for Prop. 8 in the church's San Diego branch. "You promised action. Ten months passed. No action was forthcoming."

He added: "The church's refusal to denounce the actions of these bigots, hypocrites and homophobes is cowardly. I can think of no other word. Silence is consent, Tommy. I refuse to consent."

The church has officially denied that it supported Proposition 8, however, Haggis felt that the denial was weak at best, and not the only troubling thing about Scientology:

He accused Davis of lying in a CNN interview about church policy regarding the requirement that members distance themselves from any family members who oppose Scientology.

"I saw you deny the church's policy of disconnection," he said. "I was shocked. We all know this policy exists."

Haggis said his own wife "was ordered" to break relations with her parents because of the policy, "because of something absolutely trivial they supposedly did 25 years ago when they resigned from the church. ... For a year and a half, despite her protestations, my wife did not speak to her parents, and they had limited access to their grandchild. It was a terrible time.

"To see you lie so easily, I am afraid I had to ask myself: What else are you lying about?" Haggis wrote.

Haggis's letter is available here. In it, Haggis acknowledges that the hardball tactics the Church of Scientology employs to smear those who have left the fold will be used on him as well. The Church of Scientology isn't having the best of weeks, either. They were convicted in France of fraud and the country just stopped short of banning the church altogether.

Steve Benen found a good one. Looks like the wingnuts are so eager to find "proof" for their theories about Obama, they don't even bother to check the source. Can't say I'm surprised!

Right-wing pundit Michael Ledeen published an item this week on Barack Obama's "college thesis," which Obama allegedly wrote as a student at Columbia 25 years ago. Leeden cited some website, which ran a piece in August.

The paper was called "Aristocracy Reborn," and in the first ten pages (which were all that reporter Joe Klein -- who wrote about it for Time -- was permitted to see), the young Obama wrote:

"... the Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy."

That's quite an indictment, even for an Ivy League undergraduate.... Maybe instead of fuming about words that Rush Limbaugh never uttered, the paladins of the free press might ask the president about words that he did write.

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh picked up on Leeden's report, blasting Obama for the alleged paper.

The first sign of trouble was when Joe Klein noted that he's never seen or written about Obama's college thesis, and has "no idea where this report comes from."

The second sign of trouble was when one stopped to notice that Obama didn't write a senior thesis (though he did write a thesis-length paper on Soviet nuclear disarmament).

The third sign of trouble was when one clicked on the link that Leeden provided as support and found the word "satire."

Yes, Leeden and Limbaugh got all worked up, trashing the president for a paper he didn't write in college 25 years ago, relying on a satirical blog post. And for real entertainment value, notice what Leeden and Limbaugh did when they realized they'd fallen for a dumb joke -- they blamed Obama anyway.

Leeden conceded he was wrong and apologized, but added, "It worked because it's plausible." Limbaugh said the text he touted was fake, but it didn't matter because, "I know Obama thinks it." Yep, even when they're wrong, it's only because the president makes it easy for them to be confused.

The wingnuts do get themselves all worked up, don't they?

The fringey-right are upset at the news that Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow attended an off-the-record briefing at the White House:

A day after key White House officials declared the Fox News Channel wasn't a news organization, President Obama met with MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

Talk about your delicious hypocrisy.

Fittingly, the news was broken by FNC's Bret Baier during Tuesday's "Special Report" (video embedded below the fold with transcript, relevant section at 1:45, h/t Hot Air via NBer Thomas Stewart):

BRET BAIER, HOST: And finally, during this morning's off-camera White House briefing with reporters, ABC's Jake Tapper asked Press Secretary Robert Gibbs about the ongoing White House attacks on FOX News Channel.

After being asked about the charge that FOX isn't a real news organization, Gibbs answered, quote "We render opinion based on some of their coverage and the fairness of that coverage."

Tapper: "That's a sweeping declaration that they're not a news organization. How are they different from say, ABC, MSNBC, Univision?"

Gibbs: "You and I should watch around 9:00 tonight or 5:00 this afternoon."

Tapper: "I'm not talking about the opinion programs or issues you have with certain reports. I'm talking about saying that thousands of individuals who work for a media organization do not work for a news organization. Why is that appropriate for the White House to say?"

Gibbs: "That is our opinion."

Well, the White House's strong opinions about our opinion shows - - Glenn Beck runs at 5:00 p.m. and Sean Hannity at 9:00 p.m. -- apparently do not extend to similar shows on other networks.

A White House official confirms to us that the audience for Monday's off the record briefing with President Obama included MSNBC personalities Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

Hmmm. So the White House thinks Fox isn't a news organization because it has a perspective, and specifically points fingers at Beck and Hannity.

What does the Adminstration think Olbermann and Maddow have?

I guess it's not a problem for a new organization and its members to have a perspective so long as it's one the White House shares.

They seem to miss the big difference between people like Olbermann and Maddow: They attempt to gather and present facts on their shows. Sometimes they slip up, but it's not usually intentional. Get it?

And they're suffering from memory loss again:

The guest list included Sean Hannity, Neal Boortz, Michael Medved, Laura Ingraham, and Mike Gallagher. (Rush Limbaugh was unable to attend.) Friday’s off-the-record talk, set for 30 minutes, ended up lasting 90 minutes, where Bush told his guests that the war on terror has to be about right versus wrong, “because if it’s about Christianity versus Islam, we’ll lose.” He also showed them the pistol Saddam Hussein had when he was captured.

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George Carlin from Back in Town, 1996. Very funny and definitely not safe for work.

h/t Mikeovhell

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Lou Dobbs has always been unrepentant in the face of proof of his many journalistic misdeeds. So it is not surprising that, in the face of a concerted campaign to have CNN remove him as one of its major news anchors, Dobbs defiantly embraces conspiracy theorists who argue, among other things, that President Obama is planning to round up conservatives and incarcerate them in concentration camps, and who feature pro-secession articles on their websites.

Dobbs's irresponsible brand of journalism besmirches the credibility of an organization like CNN. Which means that it needs to choose between preserving its fast-eroding integrity, or sacrificing it on the altar of Dobbs' ego.

America's Voice is stepping up its campaign to have Dobbs removed this week with a series of ads and other measures intended to increase the public pressure on CNN's executives to act.

Dobb's mainstreaming of extremist beliefs and provably false "facts" simply cannot go on if CNN wants to be considered a responsible mainstream news organization:

White nationalist conspiracy theories flow seamlessly from vigilantes and extremist web sites to Dobbs and back again. Watch just a couple of episodes and you'll see how he throws around the term "criminal illegal aliens" with the spite and frequency of a mid-century Southern politician using the N-word. In Dobbs’ world, immigrants are disease ridden criminals who kill cops and are plotting for revolution. Bogus claims that immigrants are bringing a new wave of leprosy to America might be taken with a grain of salt on Fox - but on CNN, it’s news.

Perhaps to quell the criticism, CNN is airing a new mini-series in October called, "Latino in America." The network is in heavy promotion mode, sending the show's host, Soledad O'Brien, around the country to drum up interest.

Yeah, well, nice PR segments never quite wash the bad taste out of your mouth after having to swallow Dobbs' nightly broadcasts of immigrant-bashing.

The movement to challenge CNN to drop Lou Dobbs Tonight is growing. Dozens of local and national advocacy organizations are standing together to take the fight to CNN. Media Matters with DropDobbs.org, Presente.org and dozens of Latino groups with BastaDobbs.org, and Democracia Ahora with TellCNNEnoughisEnough, have all launched excellent campaigns against Dobbs. And groups like the National Council of La Raza have chronicled Dobbs’ extremism through websites like WeCanStopTheHate.org.

Our new campaign to get Dobbs off the air will hit CNN both on the air and online. In addition to the TV ad, we’re running online ads and targeted ads on Face Book. You probably won’t see them unless you work for CNN or Turner – we’re asking Anderson Cooper, Soledad O’Brien, Wolf Blitzer and others how they feel about promoting and enabling Dobbs and his unrelenting campaign of immigrant bashing.

The real question is, what else does Dobbs have to do to get fired? He called Rep. Joe Wilson's outburst a "public service," perpetuated the birther conspiracy, has congratulated the Minutemen, and just last week was honored by the anti-immigrant group FAIR - designated a Hate Group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

It's time that CNN executives and the other "talent" at CNN deport Dobbs to Fox or talk radio where he belongs. He doesn't deserve the CNN seal of approval. Until CNN deals with its Lou Dobbs problem, any attempt to reach out to Latino audiences will be pure hypocrisy.

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One of the more laughable right wing attack lines against President Obama has been the number of "Czars" he has appointed. Of course, we know that former President Bush had more czars than Obama, but why would Fox News report that? During his health care reform speech last week, the president said "If you misrepresent what's in the plan, we will call you out"

Release the hounds, the pushback has begun:

Last week, when the President addressed the Joint Session of Congress in a speech on health reform, he referred to some of the untruths – okay, lies – that have been spread about the plan and sent a clear message to those who seek to undermine his agenda and his presidency with these tactics: "We will call you out." So consider this one of those calls.

Over the past several weeks, we've seen with increasing frequency and volume issues raised around the use of "czars" by this Administration. Although some Members have asked serious questions around the makeup of the White House staff, the bulk of the noise you hear began first with partisan commentators, suggesting that this is somehow a new and sinister development that threatens our democracy. This is, of course, ridiculous. Just to be clear, the job title "czar" doesn’t exist in the Obama Administration. Many of the officials cited by conservative commentators have been confirmed by the Senate. Many hold policy jobs that have existed in previous Administrations. And some hold jobs that involved coordinating the work of agencies on President Obama’s key policy priorities: health insurance reform, energy and green jobs, and building a new foundation for long-lasting economic growth

But of course, it’s really the hypocrisy here that is noteworthy. Just earlier today, Darrell Issa, a Republican from California and one of the leaders in calling for an investigation into the Obama Administration’s use of "czars", had to admit to Fox News that he had never raised any objections to the Bush Administration’s use of "czars". Many of these members who now decry the practice have called on Presidents in the past to appoint "czars" to coordinate activities within the government to address immediate challenges. What is clear is that all of this energy going into these attacks could be used to have a constructive conversation about bringing this country together to address our challenges moving forward – and it doesn’t take a "czar" to bring that about! Just some folks willing to act in good faith. Read on...

This is a blogger with a spine. The blog post was written by Anita Dunn, and she goes on to nail numerous right wing politicians and pundits, calling them out on the nutbaggery. It's worth clicking through to the original to read it all.

tttthink: On 9/10, 2001 Donald Rumsfeld admitted the Pentagon couldn't account 2.3 trillion dollars. Then 9/11 happened and everyone forgot

AlterNet: 14 things you need to know about Joe Wilson

Lean Left: "Mr. Gorbachev, Build Up This Wall" - Jackass Rightwinger's cynical hypocrisy hits historic high

Welcome Back to Pottersville: The Big Casino

attytood: College president honors "diversity" by naming center for Dick Cheney

Garry Wills on the death of conservatism

Citizens for Tax Justice point out what I was saying just the other day: We only hear all this crying and moaning about the deficit when it's something for regular working people, and not a powerful lobby. And of course, the Republican'ts are right out there in front of the Hypocrisy Parade:

And yet, many of the lawmakers who argue that the health care reform legislation is “too costly” are the same lawmakers who supported the Bush tax cuts.

Their own voting record demonstrates that health care reform is not a matter of costs, but a matter of priorities.

It’s difficult to see how the Bush tax cuts could provide us with two and a half times the benefits of health care reform. In 2010, when all the Bush tax cuts are finally phased in, a staggering 52.5 percent of the benefits will go to the richest 5 percent of taxpayers.

President Bush and his supporters argued that these high-income tax cuts would benefit everybody because they would unleash investment that would spark widespread economic prosperity. There seems to be no evidence of this, particularly given the collapse of the economy at the end of the Bush years.

The tax legislation enacted under President George W. Bush from 2001 through 2006 will cost $2.48
trillion over the 2001-2010 period.

This includes the revenue loss of $2.11 trillion that results directly from the Bush tax cuts as well as the $379 billion in additional interest payments on the national debt that we must make since the tax cuts were deficit-financed.

[...] Over the upcoming decade (2010-2019), the costs of the health care proposals approved by three committees in the U.S. House of Representatives are projected to be around $1 trillion. (One committee trimmed the costs of its health care bill below that amount, but an official estimate of the cost reductions was not available at the time of this writing.)

The chairmen of the three House committees have explicitly stated that their goal is a final bill that
is deficit-neutral in the decade following enactment.

It’s unclear if they have accomplished this yet, since the Congressional Budget Office has not yet issued final cost estimates of the bills, and the legislation is likely to change before the full House votes on a final bill. But President Obama and
Democratic leaders have also committed to ensuring that health care reform will not increase the budget deficit.

Under the House bills, roughly half of the costs would be offset with savings in our existing health care programs, while the other half would be offset with a surcharge on the incomes of wealthy taxpayers.

In contrast, President Bush and his allies in Congress never even attempted to replace the revenue lost as a result of their enormous tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts were deficit-financed, which increased the national debt and resulted in greater interest payments on that debt, as already explained.

These figures make clear that costs cannot be the real concern of lawmakers who oppose the House health care legislation and yet supported the Bush tax cuts. Their position seems to be that showering benefits on the wealthiest five percent of taxpayers and leaving the bill for future generations is preferable to making health care available for all at a much lower cost and paying that cost up front. That demonstrates a different set of priorities than most Americans have, but it doesn’t demonstrate much concern about costs.

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(Congress in 1961 - astute and eloquent in their hypocrisy)

I just ran across this Sunday Interview show from September of 1961, part of the CBS Radio series "Leading Question" - it deals with the death of The Federal Aid to Education Bill, introduced during the 87th Congress in the early months of 1961.

Why is this important? Because Federal Aid to Education was high on the agenda of the Kennedy Administration during his first few months in office, much like the Health Care Bill is to the Obama Administration is now.

How the Federal Education bill died was due to a lot of political hypocrisy and attachments. It also had something to do with a Summer Recess where factions against the bills passing went into overtime poisoning the waters, so that when Congress reconvened, the bill was dead in the water with no hopes of revival.

In this interview - conducted by Bill Downs of CBS News, Congressmen John Brademas (D-Indiana) and Charles Goodell (R-New York), both explained what went into killing the bill and how it happened.

Continue reading »

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On Fox News Sunday when asked if John Ensign or Mark Sanford should resign given that their staying in office is making the GOP look like hypocrites for claiming to be the party of family values, Cantor punts and says they're not a party of personalities, but of ideas. Anyone think he'd have given a different answer if he were being asked about Democrats resigning?

He also completely ignores the part of Wallace's question where he mentions the potentially illegal use private or government money. And like the good little Villager, Wallace doesn't press him on it either. I'm surprised he even asked him the question in the first place. Heaven forbid he'd want to come down too hard on the Republicans' new "rising star", as Cantor was introduced for the segment.

WALLACE: Finally, when you’ve got Republican leaders like Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina or Nevada Senator John Ensign admitting to extramarital affairs and staying in office, questionable use of either private funds or state money, in the case of Sanford, doesn’t the GOP, with all its talk of family values, risk looking like a bunch of hypocrites?

CANTOR: Look, I mean, is anyone happy to see all that have happened? No. I mean, it’s not good. But listen. We have our thoughts with their families and they themselves.

However, look. The party is not just about personalities. It’s about ideas. It’s about our ability to go out and prove that yes, we can lead this country again. So we have got a plan. We are talking about the solutions that actually can address some of the problems that working people in this country are facing, and we’re going to do that over the course of the next 16 months.

WALLACE: But if you’re going to talk the talk, why not walk the walk and say, “You know what? They should step down?”

CANTOR: Well, listen. I mean, again, I say in the instance of the people in South Carolina and Nevada, it is up to them, and those are the elected individuals by those states.

And again, it’s not about, necessarily, these personalities. The direction of this country -- and the challenges that we face are enormous. And we ought to be talking about how to go about creating jobs again. We ought to be talking about the things that matter most to people in this country.

WALLACE: Congressman Cantor, we want to thank you. Thanks for coming in today and please come back, sir.

CANTOR: Pleasure. Thank you, Chris.

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Bill O'Reilly started out his "Talking Points" segment last night like the guy who prefaces his remarks: "Now, I don't to sound like an a-hole, but ..." Because you can be certain that he will then proceed to not just sound like an a-hole but be one.

O'Reilly said he didn't want to "intrude" on the Jackson family's day of mourning, but the truth was, Jackson was a child-molesting jerk whose "incredible selfishness" was paramount (nevermind, of course, that over the course of his career Jackson in fact handed out hundreds of millions of dollars in donations to various charitable causes).

The telling moment came when he leapt to the defense of Rep. Peter King for having verbally attacked Jackson this weekend:

O'Reilly: And if you disagree with honoring Jackson the man, watch out. Congressman Peter King called Jackson a "pedophile" -- an assessment not uncommon -- and was immediately branded a racist. NAACP official Hazel Dukes and Congressman Bobby Rush both said vile things about Mr. King.

What O'Reilly conveniently omits here, of course, is that King didn't merely call him a pedophile (which, considering that Jackson was acquitted, is in fact a slanderous thing to say), he called him a "lowlife" and a "pervert". I guess that in Bill O'Reilly's book, that doesn't qualify as saying "vile things" about Jackson. But then, we're not all bold, fresh slabs of hoomanity.

He continued on the same track with Marc Lamont Hill, who points out O'Reilly's own hypocrisy for having warned everyone away from saying mean things about Jerry Falwell shortly after his death. O'Reilly tries to brush off the comparison as "apples and oranges," but it looks a lot more like Fujis and Braeburns to any sentient being watching the exchange.

It's funny how guys like O'Reilly and King are always big on the "respect for the dead" thing when it involves a white guy. Both of them would have been outraged if anyone had called Frank Sinatra a Mafiosi punk -- what O'Reilly would call a "common assessment" -- in the days immediately following his death and the multiple media homages paid to him afterward. Show some proper respect for the dead, they'd have said. It was the same with Ronald Reagan's death, but on steroids.

But they can never show that same kind of respect for black people. Funny how that works, isn't it?

And if you point that out, then these same clowns turn around and cry out, "Race card! Race card!" As if they weren't the folks who drew it in the first place.

Take a look at this hilarious bit of Republican erotica from Andy Cobb -- "Love Means Never Having to Say You're Resigning." Governor Mark Sanford truly is the gift that keeps on giving.

Open thread below....

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(Deja-vu all over again)

An interesting panel discussion between Senators Estes Kefauver (D-Tennessee), Margaret Chase Smith (R-Main), Blair Moody (D-Michigan) and Harry P. Cain (R-Washington) on the subject "How Can We Get Integrity In Government?" in 1952. I'm struck by the civility of everyone for about the first half before it goes slightly south.

Funny, in almost 60 years the argument is the same, so is the hand-wringing and finger pointing. The other side is always the culprit and everything would be solved if there was a new party running things.

Sadly, no.

I hate to sound cynical, but in 60 years the corruption and lobbying has only gotten worse. Certainly the hypocrisy has.

But I just have the feeling our "trusted public servants" in 1952 weren't going MIA for jaunts to Buenos Aires - or maybe they were and they were more discreet.

At least this bunch doing the panel in 1952 pretended to be.