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Bob Schieffer fawns over Scott Brown during this cringe-inducing commentary segment on Face the Nation. And I thought Tweety was bad. Of course in typical Villager fashion Schieffer uses this as an excuse for calls of bi-partisanship without bothering to explain to his audience which party is caving into the other one and which one is obstructing. Hint to Schieffer, it's your miracle worker's party that's causing the gridlock along with the ConservaDems who are pretending to be Democrats.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Finally, there's been so much wonder expressed about the election of Scott Brown, I'm beginning to think that if it had happened in ancient times it might have been included in the Bible.
For sure, back then people were always looking for signs, and the politicians saw Brown's victory as more than just a sign. It gave them Old Testament-level shivers worse than Moses felt when he realized that burning bush was talking directly to him.
But was it more than that? I wondered. Did it herald a new Age of Miracles? Utter Brown's name and the waters part? Think about it.
Republicans tried for a year to kill health care reform. If Brown's victory didn't kill it in a second for sure it shoved it to the back burner.
And with great fanfare and the blessing of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the
administration planned to try the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed in lower Manhattan. But Brown railed against civilian trials for terrorists, and in an epiphany worthy of the road to Damascus, the mayor of New York suddenly wanted no part of the trial--too expensive.
The heavens also parted for the administration: No backdown on civilian trials yet, but it looks like the proceedings will be moved.
And when the President went to Baltimore and had a very adult debate on issues with
Republicans--a debate that did both sides proud--I thought, stars above, maybe they are ready to work together. Well, silly me. An hour later that the partisan sniping and nastiness was going again full bore.
It's going to take a real miracle to stop that. But, we can hope.
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Someone want to explain to me just where in this poll it says that the voters of Massachusetts wanted Brown to work with Democrats "to get Republican ideas into legislation". Papermoon at Daily KOS has a nice breakdown of that poll which flies in the face of Schieffer's hackery here--New Poll Explains Massachusetts.
Of course Schieffer can't help himself and has to get his little shot in on the blogs as well, saying politicians shouldn't be listening to the "fringes". Well Bob, it looks like "the fringe" at the Great Orange Satan is doing a better job of breaking down that poll than you are. And given the Democrats accepted 180 amendments from the Republicans on the health care bill and didn't get a single vote for them, just what else does Schieffer think they should do to show they'll work with the other side? Just another example of someone pretending to be a journalist while pushing Republican talking points.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Finally today, figuring out what Scott Brown's victory meant has set off a fiercer debate than trying to divine the meaning of the Book of Job. We were all certain it meant something profound, we just weren't sure what. Well, a Washington Post poll yesterday provided some clues. Sixty-three percent of Massachusetts voters thought the country had gone off course and the big part of them voted for Brown. That's pretty simple actually.
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Bob Schieffer throws this stink bomb without naming any names. Anyone want to take a guess as to who he was talking about? My guess is if you got a straight answer out of him there would be some false equivalencies in there. I don't disagree with him that's it is good that Americans are coming together to try to help the people of Haiti.
Now maybe if his news organization decided to start doing its job and quit pretending our government had nothing to do with the state they're in now with the extreme poverty making this disaster worse, that would be something.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Finally today, in a reporter's life there are stories--some interesting, some not; and then there are moments to remember. This weekend was one of those. When George Bush and Bill Clinton sat down together and said helping those in Haiti overrode politics, it symbolized that this was one of those times when the country came together. That seems to happen less often nowadays. In this day of mean and polarized politics we find no shortage of one-upmanship, pettiness, and those seeking partisan advantage. The politicians love it and have somehow come to believe it helps them when, in fact, it is has just the opposite effect.
My evidence of that, well, there was a time when people wanted their children to go up to be President. How often have you heard anyone express that wish lately? Or even that their child would grow up to have anything to do with politics.
But here is the good news. When Americans have to come together, when we have to put those things aside, we always do, as we did after 9/11. The reaction to Haiti may have been more remarkable than our response to 9/11 because 9/11, after all, was about us. This past week was about the suffering of others. Yet, with the exception of a few loonies and professional partisans, Americans opened their hearts and their billfolds and they did so even though America itself is in the midst of an economic crisis.
So it was good to see Bill Clinton and George Bush sitting together, good to know that in times past they drew strength and counsel from each other. That's how Americans want their leaders to act. Too often, they just don't.
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When asked about our policy of releasing prisoners from Guantanamo Bay, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (DINO-CA) agrees with Rep. Pete Hoekstra that we should not be releasing anyone to a country with an al Qaeda presence.
SCHIEFFER: Dianne Feinstein , what about that, that we shouldn’t release anybody to a country where there’s an Al Qaida presence? Do you go along with that?
FEINSTEIN: Yes, I tend to agree with that, actually. And if you look at Yemen-- and we’re taking a good look at Yemen-- what you see is I think at least 24 or 28 are confirmed returns to the battlefield in Yemen. And there are a number of suspected.
If you combine the suspected and the confirmed, the number I have is 74 detainees have gone back into the fight. And I think that’s bad.
And here’s the reason. They come out of Gitmo and they are heroes in this world. This world is the only world that’s going to really be accepting of them. Therefore, the tendency is to go back. And I think the Gitmo experience is not one that leads itself to rehabilitation, candidly. I think it leads to....
SCHIEFFER: Let me -- let me ask, do you think that maybe we just ought to keep Gitmo open for a while and not release anybody that’s down there, or at least put them in some other place but not release them?
FEINSTEIN: Well, I agree with those that have said that Guantanamo has really been a recruiting tool for Al Qaida, that it has not been helpful to us. And I think that, you know, the Senate is now engaged in a huge study on the interrogation and detention of the some 33 high-value detainees. What happened to them, how were they treated? What success did the interrogation have? Were the laws followed? That kind of thing. And we should have the report completed within the next three months or so.
SCHIEFFER: All right.
FEINSTEIN: However, the problem is that this is very difficult. And I happen to know the prison system rather well, so I believe the safety of America is assured in the federal prison system. I don’t worry about the safety element.
SCHIEFFER: It sounds to me like what you’re saying here, Senator Feinstein, is that we ought to be very, very careful about releasing anybody right now. That seems to me your (inaudible).
FEINSTEIN: I think right now, until we sort this out, the answer is yes.
SCHIEFFER: All right. I want to thank both of you for being with us this morning. Very enlightening discussion.
Gee Senator, who would have ever thought torturing people would make them want to come back and kill us later? The Gitmo experience--isn't that lovely?
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We all knew this was coming, right? On this week's Face the Nation, Olympia Snowe cites the lack of time for Republicans to further amend the health care bill none of them ever had any intention of voting for as the reason she won't vote for it. Steve Benen has more this:
By all appearances, the White House, from the outset, made an effort to garner bipartisan support for health care reform. At least in the Senate, that now appears impossible. Democrats no longer need Sen. Olympia Snowe's (R-Maine) vote, but they sought it out anyway, to no avail.
Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican who had been considered a possible Democratic ally, said she would oppose the measure because it was being rushed. "It is a take-it-or-leave-it package," she said.
I just can't figure out what on earth Snowe is talking about. She voted with Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee reform plan, but now appears to be looking for an excuse to oppose the effort. But to sound even remotely credible, Snowe will have to do better than this.
I agree. Weak indeed. How's the bipartisanship working out for you President Obama? Snowe reminds me of her buddy Susan Collins talking about wanting to "improve" a bill she had no intention of voting for either. As Steve notes in his post, both of them have had ample chance to make this bill as bad as it is now.
"You have to take out the Medicare buy-in. You have to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the class act which was a whole new entitlement program that will in future years put us further into the deficit," Lieberman told CBS' Bob Schieffer Sunday.
"I want to tell you, we could pass a health care reform bill this week with more than 60 votes and it would be bipartisan if we just took a few things out of the bill as it is today," said Lieberman.
Lieberman wants to pass a Republican health care package, which is no plan at all. This bitter man is hijacking the entire health care reform effort for no other reasons than his petty, narcissistic agenda. He is a traitor to the liberal policies that once, as a vice-presidential nominee in 2000, he would have never signed onto.
Greg Sargent comes up with video proof which exposes Lieberman of being a bad-faith participant in health care negotiations. Holy Joe just three months ago was saying that he supports a Medicare buy-in plan. Oh, my!
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In the vid, Lieberman appeared to go further than the current Senate deal, which would expand Medicare to those aged 55-64, saying he supported the idea of expanding it to people aged 50 and over. Lieberman referenced his proposal along these lines during the 2006 campaign, and added:
“My proposals were to basically expand the existing successful public health insurance programs Medicare and Medicaid…
“When it came to Medicare I was very focused on a group — post 50, maybe more like post 55. People who have retired early, or unfortunately have been laid off early, who lose their health insurance and they’re too young to qualify for Medicare.
“What I was proposing was that they have an option to buy into Medicare early and again on the premise that that would be less expensive than the enormous cost. If you’re 55 or 60 and you’re without health insurance and you go in to try to buy it, because you’re older … you’re rated as a risk so you pay a lot of money.”
It’s not entirely clear that Lieberman was offering a full-throated current endorsement of the proposal, but his tone is clearly positive and approving. It’s yet another sign, as if you needed one, that Lieberman’s current opposition to the Senate proposal doesn’t appear to have any roots in a genuine policy disagreement.
It appears that Holy Joe wants to destroy health-care reform because his feelings have been hurt by liberals who disagreed with his warmongering behavior. The pettiness he holds dear to his heart is being used to destroy any chance that working-class Americans will be getting meaningful health care reform. You can't go lower than that.
Again it boils down to leadership, and President Obama and Harry Reid have not led this fight well from the beginning. They knew they had to deal with Joe, so he was bowed down to. The problem is that he felt no repercussions after he threw his full support to John McCain in the 2008 election. "He's with us on everything except the war," was what Harry Reid said. How did that work out for ya, Harry? Joe is destined to destroy health-care reform altogether.
People need to send the link to this to all the press and the villagers they can think of to show just how perfidious their favorite "man of integrity" is being on this. Thy won't care about the substance, but this helps expose Lieberman's pettiness which villagers always find uncomfortable. (The exposure, not the pettiness.)
Please sign this petition to progressive Senators Russ Feingold, Bernie Sanders, Roland Burris, and Sherrod Brown:
PETITION: "Don't let Joe Lieberman win! Americans need you to stand strong and block any 'compromise' without a strong public option. If necessary, demand that Sen. Harry Reid and President Obama support budget reconciliation and pass a bill with just 51 votes -- at which point, Joe Lieberman will be irrelevant and the public option can be made even stronger."
Key Democrats have said they won't support a bill without a strong public option:
That said, I agree with Chris Bowers that in a lot of ways the real story here is that the Senate leadership has, at every step of this process, underscored that a “reconciliation” path to a health care bill is off the table. That means Lieberman has unlimited control over what happens, and no incentive to compromise, so it shouldn’t surprise anyone that he’s being uncompromising. Can’t liberals be just as stiff-necked as Lieberman? Sure, they could. But liberals members do have an incentive to compromise—the tens of thousands of people who die every year for lack of health insurance. The leverage that Lieberman and other “centrists” have obtained on this issue (and on climate change) stems from a demonstrated willingness to embrace sociopathic indifference to the human cost of their actions.
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Sen. Joe Lieberman isn't backing down from his demand that health care reform not include a public option but now he has a few more requirements.
"You have to take out the Medicare buy-in. You have to forget about the public option. You probably have to take out the class act which was a whole new entitlement program that will in future years put us further into the deficit," Lieberman told CBS' Bob Schieffer Sunday.
"I want to tell you, we could pass a health care reform bill this week with more than 60 votes and it would be bipartisan if we just took a few things out of the bill as it is today," said Lieberman.
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Oh lovely. More fear mongering on another Sunday bobble-head show, this time from Bob Schieffer. Pat Leahy sets him straight on why the United States is perfectly capable of prosecuting terrorism cases.
SCHIEFFER: Well, you heard what the congressman said, Senator Leahy. Tell me why you think he’s wrong.
LEAHY: I think that Eric Holder, our attorney general, is right. I think the president is right in holding the trials of these murderers in New York City.
What we’re saying to the world is the United States acts out of strength, not out of fear. I know when I go around Vermont, people say, let’s try criminals. Let’s try criminals like KSM. Let’s get them convicted. We’re very much a law enforcement type of state here.
I was a former prosecutor. I’d like to just see them prosecuted. In the same which way we prosecuted Timothy McVeigh. We’re not afraid to do that. We’re the most powerful nation on earth. We have a judicial system that is the envy of the world. Let’s show the world that we can use that power. We can use our judicial system, just as we did with Timothy McVeigh, and send the people -- and convict the people.
SCHIEFFER: But Timothy McVeigh was an American. He was not what some people would call an enemy combatant.
LEAHY: But...
SCHIEFFER: Won’t this be a circus of sorts, though? That’s what the congressman is saying. He says it’s going to just turn into a propaganda show.
LEAHY: I have a lot of faith in our judges. They know how to run a trial. They know how to keep decorum in their court. If Khalid Sheikh Mohammed wants to stand up and say, as he did in Guantanamo, I committed all these murders, I did all these things, fine. If I was a prosecutor, I would just sit there and let that jury hear it, because he’s going to be convicted.
That’s the important thing. And we show the world that our judicial system works. I think that’s why people like Ray Kelly, who is the commissioner of police, one of the finest commissioners of police anybody has ever had there in New York City, said we’re prepared, we can handle this.
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Joe Lieberman claims that he 'wish[es] people would come out and debate me on the public option instead of questioning my motives' when asked about the money he's receiving from the insurance industry. That's news to Rachel Maddow Joe. If you're looking for someone to debate you about your motives, I hear she's still looking for a response from your office.
SCHIEFFER: I’m going to ask you this question because I want to give you a chance to respond to it. Some of your critics say that the reason that you are so dead set against the public option is because there are so many insurance companies headquartered in your home state in Connecticut and they’ve been some of your biggest supporters. What have they given you this year, $400,000? Something like that? Has that had anything to do with your position on the public option?
LIEBERMAN: No. I wish people would come out and debate me on the public option instead of questioning my motives. If they look at the record, I have never hesitated to get tough on insurance companies when I thought they were wrong. When I was attorney general of Connecticut, I filed an antitrust action against the Connecticut insurance companies.
A few years ago when there was a patient bill of rights in the Senate which the insurance companies opposed, I supported it. Right now, I’ve said that I will support the removal of the antitrust exemption that insurance companies have. That’s not the reason.
But I will say this. This recommendation of a public option, a government health insurance company, takes our government down a road that we’ve never gone down before.
In other words, we believe in a market economy. It’s what’s created the great American middle class. But it doesn’t have a conscience. When it behaves badly, we regulate it, companies. We sue them. I’ve been angry at oil companies. I never had the idea that the government should go into the oil business to make oil companies behave better. I think this would be a terrible mistake.
MADDOW: I also want to tell our viewers that we invited Senator Lieberman to come on the show tonight. His office did not even bother to respond to our requests.
But, Senator Lieberman, you should know you have an open invitation as you long have had to come on the show. I promise you will get a fair shake. Actually, at this point, I promise to not only buy you a shake. I will buy you a cookie if you come on the show.
We won't be seeing that happen any time soon. Lieberman won't get the kind of softball interview he received from Bob Schieffer if he comes on Maddow's show.
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I don't agree with Bob Schieffer all that often but I do agree with most of his points on this one. From CBS News' Face the Nation, Nov. 1, 2009--A Class in Nation-Building 101:
SCHIEFFER: Finally today, as the president tries to develop a new strategy in Afghanistan, I wonder if this is the real lesson that we’ve learned in Afghanistan so far, that nation-building, like charity, probably begins at home, at least the way we seem to be going about it in Afghanistan.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Terrorism poses a threat to America’s national security, but is trying to build a Western-style nation in Afghanistan by funneling money to its leaders really the best way to combat terrorism?
I guess what set me off is that story about how we’ve secretly put the president of Afghanistan’s brother on the CIA payroll. He’s the one who is supposed to be mixed up in the drug trade. The idea was that, by doing that, he’ll help us pave the way to building a democracy there. Now, that’s good work if you can get it. But I don’t see how that is making us safer.
Whatever the size of the military force the president decides on for Afghanistan, I think he needs to be paying more attention to where the money is going for the non-military spending there. Incredibly, no one really seems to know. The judge by what we’ve gotten from it so far, we’d be much better off with some nation-building back home. Our infrastructure is already a mess.
We could start at the Oakland Bay Bridge, where a 5,000 pound part of the top fell off into the traffic below. That would certainly make us safer, for sure.
In Afghanistan, we’re having to relearn what we should have already known, that we can help others but we can’t do it for them. And when we have to pay others to help themselves, I don’t see how that helps anyone but the guy getting paid.
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Sen. Joe Lieberman says that health care reform is important but not so important that he would vote for a bill that includes the public option. The "independent Democrat" blames those that insist on having the public option for his threat to filibuster health care reform.
"I'd say to the people who are all of a sudden making the public option -- a government health insurance company -- the litmus test here, they're stopping us from getting something done," Lieberman told CBS' Bob Schieffer.
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From Face the Nation, Russ Feingold has to remind Bob Schieffer that the "public option" is not a "liberal" position on health care reform. It's a compromise. What liberals want is single-payer.
SCHIEFFER: Let’s talk a little bit about health care. Where do you think health care reform stands in the Senate right now? I know you want the public option, the government-run insurance program, like Medicare for older people. The majority leader now seems inclined to include that in the bill that he’s going to bring to the floor. Do you think that has any chance at this point of passage? Because for a while now, people have been saying the votes are just not there in the Senate.
FEINGOLD: Well, I want to give my majority leader, Harry Reid credit for seriously considering putting this public option in there. I think it’s very important. It’s a sign of strong leadership on his part that he has the guts to do that. Because the American people are for some alternative that will create some competition for the abuses of the insurance industry. So I believe that there’s a good chance it will be in the bill that comes before us in the Senate. I think we have some chance of prevailing in the Senate on it and if we don't I think there's a chance it will come through the House. So I’m becoming increasingly optomistic that we will have a health care bill that will not frighten the American people, that they'll be able to see as reasonable -- it's not a complete government take over health care, but will provide an option for those that don’t have health care or are unhappy with their health care to do something else and I'm frankly getting excited that we may have some momentum for something very positive.
SCHIEFFER: As I understand it, the liberals want the, want the public option. The conservatives don’t. Do you think there’s a possibility that this thing may just end up in a log jam, that liberals won’t vote for this plan without the public option and the conserves won’t vote for it if it includes the public option, and so we wind up with nothing instead of something?
FEINGOLD: Well, that could happen, but the truth is, what liberals want is a single-payer system. Medicare for everybody. So the idea of a public option is really a very moderate idea. Within the current context of a continuing private system, it’s a tough one to swallow for many people who want a single-payer system. So this is a very reasonable approach that I would think people who are both conservative and liberal and in the middle would say, let’s try this; let’s see if this can control and bring under some reason of measure that the insurance companies could finally improve their act.
That is exactly what -- what this is. It is not a liberal or left-wing concept at all.
The GOP’s 1996 candidate for president said he was asked by current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., not to issue a bipartisan statement calling for passage of health care reform legislation.
“We’re already hearing from some high-ranking Republicans that we shouldn’t do that — that’s helping the president,” Dole said. He later specified that the people he referred to included one “very prominent Republican, who happens to be the Republican leader of the Senate,” according to The Kansas City Star .Dole was also quoted as saying that partisanship by his own GOP was behind the delay in reaching agreement on a final health care bill..
I don't expect Dole to suddenly go on the air and rip into his party, but the fact that this much got out says a lot. The republicans have no plan for health care reform so any words that come from older republicans on the hot topic carries a sting to it.
Mitch will be on Face the Nation today and I wonder if Bob Schieffer will bring it up or read a David Brooks column. Maybe they'll just want to talk about the Nobel Peace prize. What do you think?
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An investigation into abuse of terrorism detainees won't be halted following a letter sent to President Barack Obama by seven former CIA directors. "I don't want to start getting into the business of squelching, you know, investigations that are being conducted," Obama told CNN's John King Sunday.
"I appreciate the former CIA directors wanting to look after an institution that they helped to build," Obama told CBS' Bob Schieffer in a separate interview.
The White House’s comments on the sensitive issue have been closely watched by supporters and opponents of further investigation into interrogations some have described as torture.
“I have nothing to say to the president on this, except let Mr. Holder alone. As far as I know, they are," Nadler said at a convention of liberal bloggers and activists. “It would be….improper for the president to decide that there ought to be or ought not to be a special counsel, prosecutions or whatever.”
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RNC chair Michael Steele doesn't think the White House is asking New York governor David Paterson not to run for reelection because he's black -- but Steele is injecting the question of race into the discussion. The White House asked Patterson to drop out, according to a report in The New York Times.
"I found that to be stunning, that the White House would send word to one of only two black governors in the country not to run for reelection," Steele told CBS' Bob Schieffer.
