David Shuster had a knock-down, drag-out fight with wingnut extraordinaire John Ziegler over his new pseudo-documentary about the supposedly unfair mediatreatment of Sarah Palin:

Professional right wing angry person John Ziegler (remember his potty-mouthed but fact-light challenge of 538.com's Nate Silver?) is busy as a beaver, creating the "documentary" Media Malpractice... How Obama Got Elected about how that "librul media" (*sigh* Can that phrase be retired yet?)

Shuster started off by telling Ziegler that Palin thought Ziegler mischaracterized her in his promos. You can't make this stuff up folks, but when it comes to right-wing apologists, anything is possible. (very rough transcript and not in order)

Shuster: Sarah Palin says your decision to post excerpts out of context on YouTube led to misleading reports. Your take?

Ziegler: I'm sorry that she feels that way. I don't believe that's the case..

Shuster then brought up Ziegler's idiotic statement when he said that the media was "assassinating Palin." Right-wing propagandists will cry "victim" everytime.

Shuster: Wait as second, wait a second. You think it's accurate to use the word 'assassinate'? Regardless of the heavy criticism, doesn't it diminish real assignations when you throw out the word 'assassinate' because Sarah Palin didn't like some of the questions she got in an interview?

Ziegler: I believe her character was assassinated, David, and I believe this network played an enormous role in that process and you took the clip of the Katie Couric out of context.[..]

Shuster: But John, even in the documentary, at least in the clips that you've released, she still can't answer, at least it takes her several opportunities, she still really can't say what she reads. Does Sarah Palin take any responsibility....

Ziegler: David, that's ridiculous. Apparently you didn't watch the clip.

Shuster: I did, She talked about news articles that are widely circulated in Alaska

Ziegler: You're a joke.

Shuster: John, the joke is the fact that you and Sarah Palin can't take any responsibility for the fact that she wasn't prepared to run for vice president. Does she ever acknowledge that in any of your interviews?

Ziegler: Did you not watch the clip?...This is clearly an agenda by MSNBC... Really? So is that your opinion, David? Is that your opinion,

Shuster: No, I'm asking you

Ziegler: As an alleged news person, is that your opinion? That she was unprepared to be vice president of the US? That doesn't seem very objective to me...

Shuster: John, it's the opinion of 65% of the people...

Ziegler: It's not your opinion, it's everybody's opinion.

Shuster: It's everybody's opinion that's had an opportunity to interview her, except for you and my question is, when you interviewed her, did she ever express any responsibility for her own shortcomings, any?

Ziegler: I feel like this is OJ Simpson interviewing the Cobbs

Shuster: It's a simple yes or no answer....

You see, with guys like Ziegler---when he's confronted with facts that disprove his propaganda, he gets abusive. Where have we seen that before? And I find it laughable that Palin and her supporters will not admit that she was ill-prepared to run and hasn't taken responsibility for her own actions, but yet they ask average Americans who are losing their jobs to take responsibility for their own failings.

Anyway, Ziegler will be on again for Round 2 with Shuster at the 3/6PM hour. It will probably be plenty entertaining. The right-wingers are so worried about the Fairness Doctrine being pulled, but in reality, when they are given time to explain their positions, that's when they are exposed as the whack jobs they really are like....John "The Joke" Ziegler.

More to come....

Digby has some good news:

More good news on the progressive front:

A group of progressive operatives from MoveOn and labor circles have teamed with a prominent Internet pioneer to try to give the Sam Bennetts of the world the final push they need -- and send even more Perriellos to Congress. The organization will be the first of its kind exclusively to focus on electing progressive Democrats in congressional elections.

It won't focus its energy on unseating conservative Democrats, but Green, a cofounder, didn't rule out the possibility. Instead, it will prioritize competitive open-seat primaries and help general election candidates like Bennett and Perriello run effective campaigns.

The group's first forays are likely to be in the Illinois district vacated by Rahm Emanuel, who left to become Obama's chief of staff. Green says the group is in talks with a progressive labor lawyer, Tom Geoghegan, in that district. Another potential target: the California district emptied by Hilda Solis, who's been tapped to be labor secretary. "Our belief is there are many more Tom Perriellos out there who are on the cusp of winning," says Green. "There's a pattern of progressive candidates who are written off in the beginning and who come inches away from victory, but lose due to inefficient campaigns.

Check out the 'Bold Progressives' website:

The PCCC is a new PAC dedicated to helping bold progressive candidates run first-class campaigns and win.

Now this is pretty damn terrible.

Barack Obama is set to host a press conference with incoming Democratic National Committee Chair Tim Kaine on Thursday in what will ostensibly mark the beginning of a new era for the party and the committee.

Noticeably absent from the affair will be the individual who symbolized the old regime.

Former Gov. Howard Dean is not on the list of attendees for the event, a noticeable nonattendance for someone largely credited with revitalizing the Democratic Party ranks and contributing - whether politically or through his 50-State Strategy - to major electoral gains.

It is unclear whether Dean's absence reflects a snub or a scheduling conflict. An Obama transition official said it was their understanding that Dean was traveling. But a source with knowledge of the proceedings said that Dean was not asked to attend and suggested that he would have changed prior plans.

Either way, he's not attending tomorrow's presser when the DNC torch is unofficially passed to Kaine. The Virginia Governor officially takes over the post on January 21.

Howard Dean led the charge on the 50-state strategy that paved the way for Obama to take the election. He was ridiculed by the Beltway weenies and Villagers over it, but he had the last laugh.

He was also the netroots' choice for DNC chair and it worked out brilliantly.

This is interesting: Democratic National Committee chair Howard Dean, who was greeted with intense skepticism by the party's big-money donors at the outset of his tenure, appears on track to bring in far more cash this quarter from those top fundraisers than many expected.

I don't know who is at fault here, but this is not cool.
My friend Steve Benen writes:

For what it's worth, I don't think Obama is deliberately snubbing [Dean]. From what I hear, the two get along very well, and Obama has said more than once that Dean's 50-state strategy laid the groundwork for his own bottom-up presidential campaign. For that matter, I can't think of a reason why Tim Kaine would harbor any animosity towards Dean.

So, what explains today's Dean-less event? I'm at a loss.

Ronald Reagan said the most destructive thing to the American people that a president could say on his inaugural address---1/20/81.

Reagan: In this present crisis Government is not the solution to our problem. Government is the problem.

That statement caused fear and anger in Americans and painted a big fat target on the backs of the government so that he could attack it and so would the American people. Good government is crucial in restoring this country to prosperity and as we have all witnessed, conservatism has indeed unleashed its destructive influence over every part of our society.
Obama's response is right on...

Obama insisted that only government could “break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy,” prevent “the catastrophic failure of financial institutions,” restart the flow of credit and restore the regulations needed to prevent such a crisis in the future.

This is government's role. When Reagan said that government was the problem, he made them the bogeyman instead of the life raft. When we have a disaster like Hurricane Katrina, government should be there to rescue us, but with conservatives in control, people were left stranded to fend for themselves.

As much as I get ticked off with all this bipartisan talk, Obama understands that government can be the agent of hope in this time of crisis and thus will be reversing Reagan's anti-government mantra.

Kathy G. gives us the goods on Geoghegan.

My NY Giants take on Duncan's Iggles Sunday afternoon in the NFC playoffs.

That should be a heckuvagame.

And here's a flashback to a little racism from RushBo on ESPN.

"I think what we've had here is a little social concern in the NFL. The media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well,'' Limbaugh said. "There is a little hope invested in McNabb, and he got a lot of credit for the performance of this team that he didn't deserve. The defense carried this team."

He quit soon after.

My comments this past Sunday were directed at the media and were not racially motivated," Limbaugh said in a statement issued late Wednesday night. "I offered an opinion. This opinion has caused discomfort to the crew, which I regret.

"I love NFL Sunday Countdown and do not want to be a distraction to the great work done by all who work on it. "Therefore, I have decided to resign. I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of the show and wish all the best to those who make it happen."

George Bodenheimer, president of ESPN and ABC Sports, issued the following response: "We accept his resignation and regret the circumstances surrounding this. We believe that he took the appropriate action to resolve this matter expeditiously."

No racism there. And he loves Obama. Hey, I have a nice bridge to sell ya.

Dave N.: Can I make a side bet on Duran Duran vs. Yes?

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Amanda Turkel:

Conservatives are now brushing off the Schiavo case to use it against Thomas Perrelli, President-elect Obama’s pick for the no. 3 spot at the Justice Department. Right-wing websites are outraged at Obama’s association with Perrelli, since he was one of the lawyers who represented Michael Schiavo, who wanted his wife’s feeding tube removed. The Washington Times today reports that these conservatives are now gearing up to fight Perrelli’s nomination:

Andrea Lafferty, executive director of the Traditional Values Coalition, derided Mr. Perrelli’s selection as “just another death-peddler Obama has added to his list of nominees.” She said he’s earned the nickname among pro-lifers of “Piranha Perrelli” for his work on the case.

Tom McClusky, vice president for government affairs at the Family Research Council, said several end-of-life issues could make their way to the federal level in the next four years and having Mr. Perrelli at the department means pro-life causes would have a tougher time winning those debates.

“If the Justice Department isn’t going to do anything about it, the states, what’s to stop them from cases like Schiavo and even worse cases,” Mr. McClusky said...read on

If I remember correctly, the Terri Schiavo story was one of the first times the conservative movement was really exposed for the extremely insane positions they hold dear to the American people and they were as horrified as I was. Tom Delay and his crew were so drunk with power that they even threatened the Republican judges involved in making the right decision. (Above video from the C&L vault in 2005)

Delay: Mrs. Schiavo’s death is a moral poverty and a legal tragedy. This loss happened because our legal system did not protect the people who need protection most, and that will change. The time will come for the men responsible for this to answer for their behavior, but not today. Today we grieve, we pray, and we hope to God this fate never befalls another. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Schindlers and with Terri Schiavo’s friends in this time of deep sorrow.

John McCain even got into the act. And they even played the Terry Randle card. America was horrified. And so the conservative movement began to crumble because the media couldn't waffle their way through it. Bill Frist's political career never survived his video tape diagnosis.

"I question it based on a review of the video footage which I spent an hour or so looking at last night in my office," he said in a lengthy speech in which he quoted medical texts and standards. "She certainly seems to respond to visual stimuli."

His comments raised eyebrows in medical and political circles alike. It is not every day that a high-profile physician relies on family videotapes to challenge the diagnosis of doctors who examined a severely brain-damaged patient in person.

When you have Sean Hannity camped out in front of Terry's hospice, well, it was truly a disturbing time indeed. I had to stop searching my data base because it was nauseating. Let them bring this case up if they want. I have all the video we'll ever need to expose this once more. I wish they would let Terry rest in peace?

Matt is a good friend of mine so I'm really pleased with his announcement yesterday. He said he wanted to get some Hill experience to see how it all works up close and in person.

I've taken a job inside the House of Representatives (more on that when I've cleared what I can say) to see how the place works and to help create the space for more progressive policies. Ultimately what I've learned, from many of you as much as from the task of writing for the public for the last five years, is that there is a serious leadership gap in this country.

And by leadership gap, I mean something very specific, so specific that I'm going to give it a name. I call it a 'rootsgap'...read on

I think they can learn a few things from Matt.

Yeah, I know, but I have to, I really do. Matt Drudge falsely accused NBC of banning Coultergeist from their network because they cancelled a spot over a Tony Blair appearance.

Drudge has put forth so many falsehoods that he should be ignored by the press, (but is hailed as the king of the world) and Ann says this with a straight face.

COULTER: The point is, I was canceled twice. And it wasn't until the Drudge Report ran a headline on its own reporting -- and the Drudge Report has never had to retract a report the way --

LAUER: You know -- you know what -- you know what that expression is --

COULTER: -- NBC News has.

LAUER: -- just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean you don't have enemies. But anyway, let's get to the --

COULTER: Let's get to the reason --

Wow, that's never happened in show business before. I was cancelled a few times because other news breaks and the focus shifts. But she has never been afraid to play the conservative victim before. Nobody does it better than her.

Conservatives have almost destroyed this country for the last 8 years, but to Coutler it's all B. Hussein Obama. Well, her new book is called Guilty: Liberal "Victims" and Their Assault on America, and that's what she did to get back onto NBC. (Guilty: Coulter's latest book filled with falsehoods) She couldn't wait to get back onto the network that wants to destroy America in O'Reilly's mind. And let us not forget when she was on with Vieira she said that Rudy Giuliani was crazy enough to "nuke" Iran. That's something that really builds bridges.

But she'll always have a nice slice of the TODAY Show no matter how hate filled her books are or what she says. Remember when C&L break open her attacks on the 9/11 Widows? The blogosphere went wild and then the media followed.

Bill O'Reilly was upset that the 9/11 widows gave me their response to Coulter's attack before the traditional media.

After Ann got through blabbering about Drudge, Lauer confronted her on her idiotic writings, called them venomous and over the line. She looked pretty dazed and confused in her usual garb, attempting to defend her attack on single moms while trying to sound sane. I'm pretty proud of C&L's push to get a sane pundit like Rachel Maddow on the TODAY Show. She has so much class that it must really be freaking Coulter out. You know, I doubt Coulter would ever debate me at all. I tried to set that up once already, but she balked...

Chuck Todd seems to think that torture is A-OK and not something that is fundamentally disgusting, and opposing it just a crazy left-wing position. Digby explains:

Did Chuck Todd recently attend a Mark Halperin seminar on how to be an insufferably obtuse purveyor of stale and useless insider conventional wisdom? (Or does he just have a natural talent for it?) Check this out:

Competence And Ideology: One reason why intelligence has become such a tough nut for Obama to crack: There's a lot of Democratic rhetoric on intel from the presidential campaign, and it's something that Obama is allowing the intellectual left to have veto power over. Obama finds himself caught in this first intra-party vise between his instinct to pick competence over ideology. His first rumored choices for CIA were competent picks -- but both would have been eviscerated by the intellectual left because of their anger at Bush over interrogation practices. He's allowing ideology to trump competence for the first time in one of his major appointments. Now, the pick of Dennis Blair to be DNI is a tip toward competence, while the Obama folks hoped Panetta was a compromise between competence and ideology (Panetta was praised as a smart manager during the Clinton White House years). But it looks like it ain't being received that way...

Apparently being against torture is now a crazed left-wing ideological position built on "anger" at George Bush. And it's incompetent, to boot. I don't know how many times people have to make this point, but when it comes to torture it is not a matter of being mad at bush or even simple human decency. It is a matter of competence as well. Not only does torture not work as an intelligence tool, the sincere and public repudiation of torture is essential to the success of Obama's foreign policy. If he were to choose someone who was implicated in or associated with Bush's torture regime, his credibility around the world would be damaged before he even begins. It would be dramatically incompetent for him not to make a clear distinction both to the intelligence community and the rest of the world between his policies and the Bush administration's...read on

In the mind of a Villager, torture is a civilized practice that is both just and competent. That was very frightening to read. Bill O'Reilly would be proud.

Winning over Republican votes at the beginning of Obama's presidency should never be a priority if it forces him to compromise because Obama will be blamed for the failure.

Krugman on the stimulus package:

And that gets us to politics. This really does look like a plan that falls well short of what advocates of strong stimulus were hoping for — and it seems as if that was done in order to win Republican votes. Yet even if the plan gets the hoped-for 80 votes in the Senate, which seems doubtful, responsibility for the plan’s perceived failure, if it’s spun that way, will be placed on Democrats.

I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

Let’s hope I’ve got this wrong.

Obama won a mandate in November and should use it to FULLY push through his agenda. One thing that Republican obstructionists seem to forget is that Obama is an incredible communicator and if McConnell's gang block him like I think they will then when he takes to the airwaves and uses the proverbial presidential bully pulpit, he will be able to cause them some serious damage. But Obama seems to be playing the bipartisan game a little too much for my liking at this point and may end up watering down his solutions to curry favor with a party that wants him to fail. Nothing has been written in stone yet so I'm just bringing this point up. I think we all agree that Obama needs to succeed on a political level too, but also because so many Americans are in need. The type of need that conservatives will always refuse to give.

As Krugman says, if his plan isn't a success and rather quickly then Republicans will be screaming him down in 2010 like wild banshees.

I say Obama should give them his best shot now and if his policies can't help this country recover from the results of conservative waste then at least it happened on his terms.

Not another Bush.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will not run for the open Senate seat of Sen. Mel Martinez, he announced in a statement released moments ago.

"After thoughtful consideration, I have decided not to run for the United States Senate in 2010," said Bush. "While the opportunity to serve my state and country during these turbulent and dynamic times is compelling, now is not the right time to return to elected office."

Bush's decision robs Republicans of a top-tier recruit who would have immediately been favored to hold Martinez's seat. Without Bush in the race, Republicans are almost certain to play host to a crowded and competitive primary.

The announcement comes after 48 hours of rampant rumors among the Florida political community that Bush had decided not to make the race.

Finally a decision we can all back from the Bush family tree.

AOL used my post called...

Barack Obama highlights quick action and Oversight for his new stimulus package

...for the basis of their poll question. As I wrote in the post:

I hope Obama's love affair with bipartisanship will come to an end very soon. Not because I don't think it's a good idea to have both sides working together, but because Conservatives are incapable of doing just that. They do not want Obama to succeed because it will weaken their grip on American politics for years to come at the expense of average Americans just trying to get by.

It's about ideology for them and not about the healing that our country is in desperate need of. I think Obama will soon feel their un-partisan wrath sooner rather than later and hopefully it will snap him out of any thought he had that he could work with Conservatives, no matter how "centrist" he goes.

I doubt they will want to improve the latest Congressional polling numbers...

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I've had this incredible video of John Bolton getting grilled on the BBC over the Iraq war sitting on my servers for a while now and after the holiday I was quickly reminded of it by his new article with John Yoo. He flails away about how bad Saddam was in the past and how he should have been removed in 1991, which led to this response:

John, my relatives are Sunni, Christian and Shi'ite. They've been living under Saddam's dictatorship for thirty years. I've lost more relatives in the last four years, than under 30 years of Saddam. So, I don't think that you can tell me how dangerous Saddam's dictatorship was. The good news is that the American people, who I love defeated Bush in the mid-term elections. That was really, really good news.

However, you still can't make up this garbage that appeared in the NY Times.

No one could have predicted this would happen. John Yoo and John Bolton, in the NY Times, discuss the need to limit executive authority. Up next, David Addington and Dick Cheney write in the Washington Post on the need to reject Unitary Executive theory. I knew these wankers would do this, I just didn’t expect it immediately and so brazenly.

Torture Yoo and John Bolton are embarrassments to this country. Whenever he appears on TV, he should be held up as the face of the complete and utter failure of the Bush administration and their Iraq war.(h/t Brian)

We've heard and seen many news reports about how unpopular Congress is with the American people. And it is at an all time low, but what most TV analysts are refusing to point out is that it's the Republicans in Congress that are dragging down the approval rating. As a new Gallup poll shows us--Republicans in Congress Less Popular Than Bush:

As Gallup showed last month, congressional Democrats are significantly more esteemed than Bush-- and significantly more esteemed than their Republican colleagues in Congress. According to the latest Gallup Poll, 67% of Americans disapprove of Bush, while 69% disapprove of Republicans in the House and Senate and only 55% disapprove of Democrats in the House and Senate.

I've talked to some of our Blue America candidates and they told me that since '06, the Republicans did everything they could to block and obstruct the daily business of the Congress in hopes that America would have a bad opinion of the House and Senate and it would lead to them retaking or making big gains in '08 and 2010.

The 25% approval rating for the Republicans in Congress establishes a new Gallup Poll low, surpassing the 26% measured about this time last year. Gallup first began asking about approval of the Congressional parties in 1999.

Well, Americans aren't buying their me first---America second attitude and in the end if they obstruct Obama's agenda from the outset then they will only fall deeper into the dark hole they have dug for themselves and America. I'm hoping they do just that so it knocks out some of the bipartisan rhetoric Obama is using, because they will not be willing players in the restoration of America and hand Obama a win. Never. Going. To. Happen. I think Obama will get his first stimulus package through with some grumblings from the Mitch McConnell wing and then it'll go downhill from there.

As the Gallup poll points out for all to see: Nobody likes "Republicans."