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After recapping the whole witch hunt by Bachmann and her fellow House members going after Hillary Clinton aide Huma Abedin, and Newt Gingrich's defense of Bachmann on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer this Wednesday, Colbert had this response to Gingrich's defense of Bachmann's McCarthyism:

COLBERT: Yes, it takes a brave man to randomly accuse someone of something horrible, based on no evidence and then demand they refute the evidence that you don't have. So tonight, I am accusing Newt Gingrich of being a baby-eating werewolf. There it is. It's out there now.

Do I have evidence? No. But someone has to stand up to him. Where do I find the courage?

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Rick Santorum was asked by CNN's John King about an incident at a Florida town hall where a woman in the audience questioned President Obama's citizenship and claimed that he is a Muslim and unlike John McCain who ran into some similar situations in 2008, Santorum didn't feel the need to correct the audience member.

KING: Senator, at your event there earlier today a woman stood up and she delivered a pretty “out there” attack on the President and I want you to listen.

WOMAN: I never refer to Obama as President because legally he is not the president. He constantly says that our Constitution is passe and he totally ignores it as you know he does what he darn well pleases. He is an avowed Muslim.

KING: This is how you responded.

SANTORUM: I'm doing my best to try to get him out of the government, right? I am. And you're right about how he uniformly ignores the Constitution.

KING: You're not responsible for what somebody in the audience says Senator. I want to make that perfectly clear, but do you feel any sense or responsibility to say whoa? Senator McCain repeatedly in 2008 stopped people who went down that line and said look, let's fight them on policy. Let's not go there.

SANTORUM: I have repeatedly done that. I don’t feel it’s my obligation every time someone says something I don’t agree with to contradict them and the President's a big boy and he can defend himself and his record and I'm going to go out and talk about the issues that the President and I disagree on and try to defeat him because I think that's the best thing we can do for the future of our country.

KING: I understand on every point, but something like that, standing up saying he's an avowed Muslim, you don’t feel an obligation to say, “Ma’am, let’s fight him on taxes, let’s fight him on spending, let’s fight him on the size of government but let’s not do that”?

SANTORUM: I think I repeated that many, many times throughout the course of this campaign. I don't really feel an obligation to go out and repeat it over and over again as people bring that up. My position's clear, the President's position's clear. I don't think the President's a Muslim, but I don't think it's my obligation to go out and repeat that every time someone who feels that way says something.

While it may be true that Santorum isn't responsible for questions he's asked during his campaign stops, it might help matters or make his excuse more believable here if he were not just bragging about an endorsement from World Net Daily's wingnut birther, Joseph Farah -- Santorum Touts Birther Endorsement.

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Lawrence O'Donnell decided that turnaround was fair play with wingnut Rep. Steve King and asked him if he had his Christian ID card or some other means to prove that we should take his word that he's not a Muslim.

Here's more from The Last Word Blog -- Is Rep. Steve King a Muslim?:

A focus group of Republican voters in Iowa had some harsh criticism of President Obama for his handling of Egypt. Many of those voters don't trust him because they think he's Muslim. And Republican Congressman Steve King from Iowa hasn’t exactly set his constituents straight.

On the show, the Congressman told Lawrence that Obama’s speech in Cairo and emphasizing his middle name, Hussein, helps to “perpetuate the persona that he has a close relationship with the Muslim religion."

Obama has repeatedly declared himself a Christian. But to some, including King, that’s not enough.

How can one really prove they’re a Christian or Muslim?

I don't think O'Donnell's attempt to get King to quit playing the same game with President Obama worked very well.

Shorter Lawrence O'Donnell: Can we get you to quit giving a wink and a nod to the whackaloons that our president might be a Muslim?

Shorter Steve King: No. (wink, wink)

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The staff at The Ed Schultz Show did a nice job putting this mash up together explaining just where the people in Frank Luntz's focus group the other night on Sean Hannity's show might have gotten some of their ideas about President Obama.

Brave New Films' Robert Greenwald who's organization has been documenting Fox for years now joined Ed to discuss how their viewers, some of whom were obviously represented in Luntz's focus group, are propagandized daily and exposed to nothing but a steady stream of hatred and lies.

John posted the video of the original segment earlier today.

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Given the fact that many Republicans over the weekend when asked about why so many people in their party believe that our president is a Muslim were feigning ignorance on what's actually going on with who and why these rumors about President Obama started, I thought Touré's rant from this past Friday's Dylan Ratigan show was worth going back for and sharing.

Anyone paying attention to the "summer of racial resentment" from Fox and the GOP already knew this, but it was nice to hear someone say it out loud on national television. The GOP's plan is to drum up racial resentment in order to gain seats in the upcoming mid-term elections.

The misinformation is coming from right wing web sites, email chains, right wing radio and sadly from our "mainstream" media outlets as well.

Touré did a great job of calling out the Dr. Lauras and the Newt Gingrichs and the Franklin Grahams of the world in this segment.

They all were more than aware of the dog-whistles they were setting off to the Republican right wing base and he lays out very clearly just what they'd like to be calling President Obama when they call him a Muslim, but can't do in polite company. I grew up dealing with a father who was and sadly still is racist as hell but doesn't think he is and the cognitive dissonance with some of his opinions and trying to digest them is always something that makes my stomach churn.

I listened to him for years blather on about the lazy blacks he worked with when apparently they never had a lazy white worker as well that they couldn't get rid of, the terrible black drivers he'd encounter on his way to work while I'm sure there was never a bad white driver on the road anywhere around him. He, like Stephen Colbert did have at least one or two black friends, so how could he be a racist? And he was very sad when Lou Dobbs went off the air.

He used to send me some of his right wing emails that his buddies sent him until I did a few replies to all and debunked the hateful junk he was sending me, and that put a stop to those mass emails coming my way. Imagine that.

I know all to well just who the right wing is trying to appeal to with their "Obama is a secret Muslim" bull pucky and Touré is spot on with his commentary. I've had the unfortunate circumstance of knowing who it plays to and what they are willing to say out loud when they think it doesn't matter who hears them first hand.

I'm sure I'm not alone with this experience. I'd love to hear back from others who have had to deal with people they love just being so wrong headed with their prejudices as well.

In the mean time, here's Touré's rant, and rough transcript below the fold.

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On this week's Meet the Press, Mitch McConnell pretends like he doesn't know where the rumors about President Obama's religion are coming from when asked by David Gregory why one third of Republicans believe that he's a Muslim. Sure you don't Mitch. Just for good measure he throws in the same tactic flame thrower Franklin Graham used on CNN last week and instead of saying that he knows full well what religion President Obama practices does a little wink and a nod to his wingnut base and says he'll "take him at his word" that he's a Christian. Nice. Way to pander to the lizard brains out there McConnell.

MR. GREGORY: Let me move on to something that seems to be related to this and has gotten a lot of attention this week, and this is the poll about the president's own faith from the Pew Research Center. Eighteen percent of those polled believe that the president is a Muslim. Among Republicans, this is striking, 31 percent believe he's a Muslim. Of course, he's not. Why do you think these views prevail?

SEN. McCONNELL: Well, look, I think the faith that most Americans are questioning is the president's faith in the government to generate jobs. We've had an 18-month effort here on the part of this administration to prime the pump, borrow money, spend money hiring new federal government employees, sending money down to states so they don't have to lay off state employees. People are looking around and saying, "Where's the job?"

MR. GREGORY: Right.

SEN. McCONNELL: The president's faith in the government to stimulate the economy is what people are questioning.

MR. GREGORY: That, that, that's certainly a side step to, to this particular question. Again...

SEN. McCONNELL: Well, no, I--the--I--the president...

MR. GREGORY: ...as a leader of the country, sir, as one of the most powerful Republicans in the country, do you think you have an obligation to say to 34 percent of Republicans in the country--rather, 31 percent who believe the president of the United States is a Muslim? That's misinformation.

SEN. McCONNELL: The president says he's a--the president says he's a Christian, I take him at his word. I don't think that's in dispute.

MR. GREGORY: And do you think--how, how do you think it comes to be that this kind of misinformation gets spread around and prevails?

SEN. McCONNELL: I have no idea, but I take the president at his word.

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From Countdown:

In response to Franklin Graham's uncertainty, a special Countdown investigation reveals not only the proof of the president's true religion, but the long-term plan to conceal that truth, a plan first put in motion when he was just 2 years old.

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We've got an economy that's a mess, people who have been unemployed forever that need jobs, massive flooding in Pakistan, millions of gallons of oil and dispersants still floating in the water in the Gulf of Mexico and what is the media spending hours upon hours covering? That ginned up non-controversy over the Islamic center near ground zero and now a new poll that shows about one in five Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim. I wonder where they got that idea?

I hate that they're spending this much time on this nonsense that most people don't care about but if they're going to do it, we need to be pushing back against the lies and point out who's helping to spread them and hold the corporate media accountable when they help to push the latest right wing meme of the day and give it legitimacy.

During John King's show on CNN, Paul Begala says it's not CNN that is attributing to those poll numbers.

BEGALA: Mostly, no. You're right to just observe that as contrasted with Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter for that matter or certainly George W. Bush, this Christian president talks about his Christianity less. That perhaps makes him more like say George Bush's father, a devout Christian, a fine man who just didn't like to wear it on his sleeve as much as maybe some others.

No, in that survey, the Pew poll, most, the vast majority of people who think he's a Muslim. When you ask them why do you think that they say because of the media. And not to put too fine a point on it, they don't mean CNN, John. They mean the kook right wing media that has been attacking this president. It's fine to attack him on issues. But they're trying to attack him with any kind of crazy conspiracy theory they can.

I'd beg to differ.

A little later in the show John King brings on evangelical leader Franklin Graham who suggests that the "confusion" is being caused because President Obama was "born a Muslim" and of course if he says he's a Christian now (wink... wink) we'll just have to take him at his word that he is (but he might really be a dirty Kenyan Muslim usurper... you never know).

There are plenty of places where these rumors are being spread such as email chains, on right wing talk radio and on Fox News, but interviews like this aren't helping matters any. We got zero push back from John King against Graham's nonsense. He's really good at the false equivalency "you decide" game where he lets his viewers figure out for themselves who's telling the truth and who's spouting nonsense that should have been stopped in their tracks for telling lies but wasn't. Heaven forbid that might not make for a polite interview and we couldn't have that sort of incivility now could we?

Does anyone think John King didn't know exactly what he was going to get from Franklin Graham before he came on the air? Here's some of what happened during his encounter with then presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama back in 2008.

Franklin Graham to Obama: Are You A Muslim? (And How Obama Courted Hagee's Publisher):

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Lindsey Graham as I already noted is terribly worried about the constitutional rights of gun owners but when it comes to someone being arrested that's accused of an act of terrorism, not so much. The one area I'd say I probably agree with him on is that there are all kinds of people on that watch list that don't belong on there. I remember reading about Ted Kennedy finding his name on it when Bush was still running the show and have watched lots of segments where everyone that shares a common name is winding up there.

After getting to watch some of the reair of that Senate hearing, Graham's statements were worse than the media reported. If only he had as much concern for someone accused of terrorism as he is for those targeted by this watch list. Somehow Graham doesn't seem capable of making the same rationalizations when it comes to someone who has been charged and not yet convicted of terrorism and the need for the rule of law in case they happen to be innocent and the respect for our Constitution when it comes to terrorism cases as he makes for gun owners. Apparently the Constitution only matters for Graham when it's an issue he can score political points on.

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December 31, 2009 FOX and Friends