posted by TheDon
Meat The Press
MTP has has a couple of good shows in a row, with panels as good as you could reasonably expect dealing with the presidential campaigns. Today is a change-of-pace, with a hard-hitting hour-long interview of His Honor, the Mayor of 9/11 himself. Yeah, right. I'm looking forward to a game of slow-pitch softball with Rudy! as the umpire.
I will only write about unexpected moments or insightful answers, so this ought to be a fast read.
Rudy! claims that he quit the 9/11 commission because he knew he would run for president, and his presence on the commission might unfairly cause people to accuse the commission of political bias in its conclusions. NOT because he would rather give speeches for money. Nope.
OK, that was way more empty than I dared dream.
What we "learned" from this show that we already knew:
Rudy!
- is not worried about Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina primary losses.
- is happy to keep a preemptive attack on Iran on the table.
- laughs a lot during what should be serious discussions. Not as much or as inappropriately as Pat Robertson, but a lot.
- doesn't publicly embrace Norman Podhoretz's desire to bomb Iran ASAP, but doesn't distance himself from his core beliefs, either.
- mouths a lot of meaningless platitudes about everything, including Iraq and terrorism.
- blames Bill Clinton for not telling him how serious the Al-Queda threat was when they declared war on the US in 1998.
- cannot pronounce Qatar, despite doing a lot of business with their leaders. Also, he's OK with doing business with people who apparently financed and protected the people
who conceived and carried out the 9/11 attacks. Says they are allies of ours. Really, really good allies. - won't release client lists because they've mostly been publicly discussed anyway. Nothing to see here! He is not a crook!
- claims he did not vet Bernard Kerik carefully enough. FOR TEN FUCKING YEARS!!! OK, I added the last part...
- takes "responsibility" for Kerik's corruption, but in the same way that Republicans always take responsibility. He claims ignorance of the situation, but says he "should have been more careful". Yikes.
- has a really high opinion of himself as Mayor of New York.
- says he was basically forced to give tax-payer funded security to his girlfriend. Damn you, NYPD!!!
- refers to his current former mistress as "my wife, Judith". Every time.
- won't go after Huckabee for his "not Adam and Steve" comments.
- has committed sins.
- opposes increasing CAFE standards.
- "intends" to balance the budget.
Fawkes News
Oh God. McCain and Huckabee. I picked a bad week to give up political disengagement.
First up, Huckabee (who Chris Wallace actually calls "The Cinderella Man of the GOP Race".) The Huckabeans are now at 39% in Iowa, +/- 7%. A poll with more than a 5% margin of error is technically called "a wild guess", but let's play along. Attacking Romney is good for Saint Rudy!, a theory which I'm sure doesn't influence this fine news network!
WOW! Wallace starts with Aw-shucks-abee's 1992 stance on quarantining AIDS patients, cutting federal funding for AIDS research, and the sinful nature of homos. Huck claims that it was 1992, and who really knew very much about AIDS? He was just pointing out that political correctness was keeping them from doing the right thing (locking up the "carriers"). Why, just look at the amusingly mispronounced avian flu pandemic! We were planning on locking up "carriers" for that! Does he just assume that his tone of voice puts people to sleep, and they won't notice what he is saying?
Since it's not Rudy! lying to him, Wallace attacks! He points out that the CDC said in 1985 that you couldn't go poz from casual contact. Huck counters with some "better safe than sorry" crap, and points out that some of his best friends died of AIDS. One of them was even "in fact, a homosexual". Well! That's different! Dick.
Wallace plays a Charles Krauthammer quote, calling Huck a religious bigot. I have to admit that this show is a lot more fun since they picked sides in the GOP primary, and now their chosen candidate is in a little trouble. Huck calls "Charles" one of his very favorite columnists, and says he only dislikes the ones written about him. Says he talks about his own faith, but doesn't talk about Romney's
Huck goes much farther than I've seen him go before, and says that voters should not consider Romney's Mormon faith when they go into the voting booth, they should consider his flip-flopping on every single issue. I'm paraphrasing, but only a little.
Wallace calls Huck out on immigration because, even though he's embraced an agenda that would embarrass Tom Tancredo, and requires people in this country to go the fuck back to Mexico return to their homes and apply, last year he called for a "pathway to citizenship". According to Huck, that's not a change because he never said what that pathway was! Brilliant! And the only reason it would take years to get back here legally is government incompetence. His administration would get everyone back in a matter of days. Riiiiiiight.
Wallace attacks on the NIE gaffe, opposing waterboarding and wanting to close GITMO. He then asks how important other countries' opinions would be to his foreign policy. A really unfair characterization (but not unexpected), but Huck handles it well. Except for the pie-in-the-sky part about "as president I will make sure we have better intelligence".
Huck's against torture! And destroying damning CIA videos of torture. Now he's just trying to get me to like him. It won't work, but it's nice to be asked.
Next up, McCain.
McCain is glad that the AG is going to investigate the destruction of CIA torture videos? Huh? Is he breaking news here or just making it up? I'm thinking it's the latter. And he still opposes torture for all the right reasons.
DCI Hayden says they destroyed the tapes to protect the identities of CIA operatives. Ignoring what has to be the intentional irony, this is just plain BS. The tapes were destroyed because if they ever get out, lots of people are going to be charged as war criminals. I think that I would go to jail to get one of those tapes out, because nobody, after seeing what we did to get "confessions" from "terrorists" would ever support those methods. Except Cheney. And Limbaugh. Probably Coulter, too, but that's it.
McCain seems very tired this morning, and robotically recites the points that Iran is still "a significant threat and challenge", and would not take military attacks off the table, no matter what Robert Kagan says.
Wallace asks McCain what he thinks of Romney, and McCain talks about how much he respects and admires Romney, despite the fact that he doesn't know him very well, and that he has changed his position on many issues. And lied about McCain's positions in mailers.
McCain is still convinced that he's going to win New Hampshire. He's either deranged to the point of obliviousness, or the Straight Talk Express has a flat tire. Wallace points out that it's just kinda barely possible that the fact that independents in New Hampshire are breaking for Obama will kill his chances there. Then he admits that he may be engaging in wishful thinking. I'm starting to think this is his last hurrah as a public figure, and he's ready to retire.
Wallace takes a moment to wonder aloud why Obama and Edwards won't appear on their Fair-n-Balanced little show. Hmmmmmm... Can't even imagine why...
Panel time! Usual suspects Brit Humne, Nina Easton, Bill Kristol and Juan Williams.
First topic is O!prah. Pardon me while I hit the fast-forward about 12 times...OK, 12 more...
Second topic is Romney's "I'm a proud, proud religious bigot" speech.Brit thinks the speech helped with the evangelicals, but I can't imagine that he's right. Juan agrees with me. So does Kristol, but I suspect his grudging admiration (which Kristol makes a point of) is more to support their favorite candidate, the increasingly unsupportable Rudy!
Nina's husband is a Romney advisor, and she gives some love to Romney and his hate speech.
Next up is CIA tapes, their destruction and the cover up. Wallace smirkingly intros a Ted Kennedy tape about the incident. Brit dodges the real issues and defends Hayden, but wants a better sounding explanation. Brit seems puzzled by the fact that the White House and others urged the CIA not to destroy the tapes and they did anyway. Nina switches to waterboarding and blames the Dems for not blowing the whistle sooner. Says that when the threat was bigger, everyone supported the actions, but now that people feel safer they are getting softer.
Kristol snarks away about how the character of the man who destroyed the tapes proves that he must have had honorable intentions, and Kennedy is a poopyhead. So much for the rule of law vs the rule of men.
Juan points out that the CIA actions are indefensible in a democracy. Brit brings up the conspiracy theory that the CIA hates W, and will do anything to make him look bad.Which brings us to the NIE. Nina spouts the Cheney administration line about Iran still being a threat, but adds a rumor that in 2003, leaders in Iran stopped the weapons program because they didn't want to hide it from international inspectors. Kristol, of course, connects the dots in 2003, and gives credit for stopping the weapons program to... wait for it... drum roll... the best war evah! Cue smirks and self-congratulation.
Kristol actually says, and I swear I'm not making this up, "this is yet another feather in the cap of the invasion of Iraq, it seems to me." Cheepers. Juan kills him for it, but Kristol is incapable of embarrassment or introspection.
This Weak
The NIE discussed by Biden and Newt. Mitt Romney on Faith. Oprah on the trail. It's gonna be a quick trip to the round table...
OK, both the Attorney General and the CIA have announced (according to This Weak) that they will investigate the destruction of the torture tapes. There's no mystery what Biden will say (obstruction of justice, special counsel, straight to the office of the president, etc), so it's time to see what Newt says, briefly. Very, very briefly. To clarify, I don't think I will disagree with anything Biden will say, but we're too early in this to spend a lot of time on speculation.
George points out the Biden is at 4% in Iowa, asks him how he's going to make a move in the next three weeks. Biden says he's going to do it the same way he's been doing it. Ummmm... yeah.... nice plan... let me know how that works out for you!
Newt, of course, agrees that the NIE is an attempt by 16 different intelligence agencies to destroy W's god-blessed crusade. How this fuck-wit gets on the TV is beyond me. Newt opposes torture completely, unless the president approves of it. Whatever that means. It's unworthy of America, unless it's not.
Looks like Newt stopped losing weight in anticipation of a presidential run. He could really use a salad and a long walk. Every day. It might help him stop saying stupid stuff, like "this administration is in full appeasement mode" when he talks about foreign policy. Maybe. It won't stop him from being a pompous ass who talks about Mitt's speech being the first time a politician has publicly confronted the assault on religion.
Be still my heart! If someone asks Newt to be VP, he'll reluctantly accept. Thanks! The Democracy is safe!
Time for some fast-forward action...
Round Table!
Oprah's campaigning! Hillary has a mom! I.don't.care.
Romney is a religious bigot! This is getting stale, but George S points out that the speech was the opposite of the JFK speech. Sam Donaldson agrees. Cokie agrees and points out that JFK would be in trouble for the speech today. George Will agrees with me that Romney went after atheists and agnostics, and has a real problem with that. One of us needs a drink, and I think I'll volunteer.
Everyone agrees that Romney is about to attack AwShucksABee, and do it hard, out of necessity. This could get very interesting. Huck didn't have the time or money to run two different investigations of himself before he declared, like the last GOOPer did...
In Memoriam
The 8 victims of the mall shooting
Ralph Binder (cameraman)
Robert Anderson (oil exec)
Elizabeth Hardwick (novelist, co-founder The New York Review of Books)
6 US soldiers (average age - 24.5)
John Cusak has a new movie. Writers' strike means no jokes to end the show.
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