Andrea Mitchell steps in it again: (+ defends Bob Woodward)

Imus got wind of her flopping around about her previous statements regarding Joseph and Valerie Wilson on his show 11/12, so he had her back on to clarify. She was fumbling and stumbling throughout the segment. It's "hard work" to carry water for the administration. Whether you like him or not, Don has one of the only shows that is able to get politicians and journalists on and he will ask them some tough questions that other outlets will not. Do you think Chris Matthews would hold her up to any kind of scrutiny?

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Her answers were ridiculous and she almost steps in it again as Imus asks her about this exchange.

Murray: Do we have any idea how widely known it was in Washington that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?

Mitchell: It was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger. So a number of us began to pick up on that. But frankly I wasn't aware of her actual role at the CIA and the fact that she had a covert role involving weapons of mass destruction, not until Bob Novak wrote it.

(Rough transcript. Anyone want to write a transcript?)

Imus: It seems unclear what you said and perhaps you can clear it up about what you said back in Oct. of 2003---

Mitchell: I have been trying to figure out "what-the-heck" I was talking about, frankly. There is confusion because I am confused.

Imus: So when you told Alan Murray of CNBC, that it was widely known that his wife worked for the CIA-(interruption)--what were you drunk?

Mitchell: I don't even remember the deal...

(later)

Imus: His question seems plain...Imus: What this suggests to me is that you knew she worked at the CIA, but you didn't know what she did there. Isn't that fair-did you know that?

Mitchell-(garbled)

Imus: Why did you say that Andrea?

Mitchell: I messed up...(later)

Imus: Russert was a little short with me---almost like he was trying to hide something....

Imus laughing: I realized-well this is an unfair thing to say, I was gonna say- all you folks in Washington are all in bed with one another, but that would be an awful thing to say....

I can't agree with you more on that point. Listen to Andrea discuss Booby. She says Bob Woodward is a great journalist who made one "teenie-weenie" mistake. Notice she spews the beltway company line that they told him casually about Valerie and says that it wasn't "something important until it became important." I agree with Imus, she is drunk.

Andrea: Bob Woodward is a terrific reporter, there is no one like Bob Woodward. He has done extraordinary work---(later) If people make one mistake in the course of a thirty five year career when they have been bullet proof---

Then she says that we don't know if Libby is lying. I'm too tired to go on.....

Imus in Hot water over racial remarks!

From US Wire: Palestinians Called 'Filthy Animals' on MSNBC's 'Imus'; CAIR Calls For Apology, Says Unchallenged Remarks Promote HatePalestinians Called 'Filthy Animals' on MSNBC's 'Imus'; CAIR Calls For Apology, Says Unchallenged Remarks Promote Hate.

Video

Media Matters:From the November 12 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning:

DON IMUS, host: They're [Palestinians] eating dirt and that fat pig wife [Suha Arafat] of his is living in Paris.

ROSENBERG: They're all brainwashed, though. That's what it is. And they're stupid to begin with, but they're brainwashed now. Stinking animals. They ought to drop the bomb right there, kill 'em all right now.

BERNARD MCGUIRK, producer: You can just imagine standing there.

ROSENBERG: Oh, the stench.

IMUS: Well, the problem is that we have Andrea [Mitchell, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent] there. We don't want anything to happen to her.

ROSENBERG: Oh, she's got to get out. Just warn Andrea, get out, and then drop the bomb, kill everybody.

MCGUIRK: It's like the worst Woodstock.

ROSENBERG: Look at this. Look at these animals. Animals!

The Evolution of Dad trailer, a film by Dana H Glazer

My book chat this week with Andrea Batista Schlesinger really had me thinking about how to raise my kids to honor their curiosity and love to learn and try new things. And I have to admit that most of those characteristics in me were learned from my dad. My mom was my source of comfort and my role model in nurturing, but my dad was the one who told me to crack heads and take names and never be afraid to ask questions and more importantly, to keep asking them until I was satisfied. I learned from a child development book that your relationship with your mother affects how you feel about yourself; your relationship with your father affects how you relate to others. And now I see it with my own kids, and how they look to cues from their daddy and how their eyes light up when they make him laugh or he praises some little bit of something they've worked out. So I want to wish my dad and my hubby a very happy Father's Day and thank them for their roles in raising inquisitive kids. And happy Father's Day to all you daddies out there as well. It is frequently a thankless job, but possibly the best and most important role a man can have.

This Sunday's shows are simply more of the same. I almost suspect the bookers of these shows to be reading C&L and choosing guests that guarantee a good number of snarky posts. How else can you explain Presidential runner-up John McCain on Face the Nation, Fred Thompson on Meet the Press, Lindsay Graham on This Week and Pete Hoekstra on Fox News Sunday? Seriously, with all the problems we're facing in the world, these guys are the best ones to opine? Maybe it's because all the adults who can actually have real ideas to deal with these problems are too busy working.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Labor Secretary Robert Reich.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu; former Sens. Sam Nunn, D-Ga., and Fred Thompson, R-Tenn.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Gloria Borger, Bob Woodward, Joe Klein, Tina Brown. Topics: How will this year's health care reform debate be different from 1993? What will be the lasting impact of this past week's protests in Iran? Meter Questions: Will Republicans unite as a bloc to oppose any health care reform bill? YES: 9 NO: 3; Will President Obama's policies be a riper target than his personality for Republican critics? YES: 12 No: 0.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, Bob Casey, D-Penn, and Richard Lugar, R-Ind; Zbigniew Brzezinski.

CNN's "Reliable Sources" - Diane Sawyer, Bill Keller.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - An in-depth look at the crisis in Iran. What do we know about the man with the REAL power in Iran - the Ayatollah Khamenei? Plus, how technology has altered the power of the people.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and McCain; Reps. Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich., and Paul Ryan, R-Wis.; Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

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Olympia Snowe joined Andrea yesterday and was actually better than I thought she would be over her support of a good public option.

When Andrea brought up Conrad's proposal of non profit co-opts that appeases the right wingers who are dead set against the public option, she downplayed it's significance and said that we already use that system today and it wouldn't solve anything.

Snowe: ..a fall back plan in the event that the private plans do not work to provide affordable, quality health insurance to Americans is the way to go and I know some on my side view that as a government option as well, but I do think we have an obligation to make sure that every American has access to affordable plans with quality standards as well, not just on choices, but affordability and quality as well.

Mitchell: What do you think about D-Kent Conrad, the budget committee's proposal for cooperatives, non government cooperatives that would provide insurance?

Snowe: ...states today can create co-ops as a matter of fact, but we want to make sure that not just incorporating the status quo. In other words, if these co-ops were to be formed, Americans still could not have access to affordable, quality plans then you really do have to have a contingency plan, with a fall back plan of some kind to make sure that you do have the conditions to ensure that Americans do have access to an affordable plan.

Today for example in the state of Maine, you don't have the purchasing power necessary to leverage competitive prices so it really has kept so many people and so many small businesses out of the market, we want to make sure that's not what we repeat as we try to reform and provide universal access and coverage to all Americans.

Snowe sounds better on health care than many of the Democrats that are out there trying to knock out a public option like Kent Conrad is doing. And she actually uses the word universal and "quality" when speaking of the public option. I know she's been shaky before. And it's alarming that Conrad would throw liberal supporters under the bus just to appease republican obstructionists and destroy a public plan that would be good for America, but bad for the corporate Dems and Republicans that have been paid off by the Health Care Industrial Complex.

(Please donate to C&L's 2009 fundraiser if you can. We need your support.)

: New information about the Bill O'Reilly case.

Lisa Bloom interviews Andrea Mackris's sister about Bill O'Reilly and also talks about the rumors printed in the NY Daily News about her brokering a settlement deal in the sexual suit.

Watch Here

It's a long and intense piece.

Think Progress has the latest example of the apparent lack of self-examination and rank hypocrisy of the right's favorite gossip maven.

Drudge - the operator of the right-wing pseudo news site Drudge Report - was talking about the Venezuelan government's shutdown of the country's oldest private TV station when he veered the discussion into a hit piece on Olbermann. "When we start hearing that the National Guard is seizing television stations, alright then I'm on board," Drudge said. "Then I'm on board, Olbermann. Until then, it's all pancake, makeup, and Edward R. Murrow ‘good night and good luck' and...complete and utter camp."

Riiiigggggghhhhhtttt. Never mind the complete incoherence and inability to complete a sentence, much less a thought. Here's a guy who never goes out without his Walter Winchell fedora and whose entire career revolves around repeating salacious bits and pieces of the Starr Report and Andrea Makris's testimony as well as "blind items" fed to him by some RNC slug in the name of "public interest". He definitely knows from camp and phoniness, don't ya think?

This is really great news. A bill that's been held up by Republican Joe Barton looks to be a done deal now, MSNBC (12-04-06) fails to report that Barton was the main person holding up this very important bill. I wonder why? Andrea Mitchell and Chip only say that it's been stuck in the House. Check out this video where a parent with an autistic child is turned away from a meeting with Joe Barton.

Katherine Harris was on MSNBC trying to spin everything about her campaign. First she starts off by referring to the National Journal as "the liberal media". After that she tries to explain all her staffing turnovers. She is saying that they had to let people go. Funny since all the news about those changes had the staff quitting.

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After Harris tries to spin the 2000 election debacle, Andrea Mitchell says that Bush will be in Florida campaigning for Harris today, however the Republican gubernatorial candidate will not appear with Bush (which has the White House rather upset). Mitchell's reason for that? "He is busy cleaning out his sock drawer". Perhaps she should have just said that he didn't want to appear with Bush, like many other Republican candidates around the country.

Andrea Mitchell just reported that the CIA has fired an agent who failed a polygraph and admitted leaking classified information to Dana Priest of the Washington Post...
Priest won a Pulitzer Prize for: "Dana Priest won the beat reporting award for revealing that the CIA was using secret prisons in Eastern Europe to interrogate terrorism suspects."

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Andrea says that it also has been referred to the Justice Dept for possible criminal action.

Mitchell's being told about the firing actually violated Porter Goss's order within the CIA not to leak. Go figure. This definitely will have huge ramifications...

Keith had on Andrea Mitchell and Ex-CIA officer Melissa Boyle Mahle, to dig a little deeper on the Mary McCarthy story.
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Andrea says that Mary did meet reporters, but says she didn't leak classified information. The story unfolds.

Ex-CIA officer Melissa Boyle Mahle who maintains close contacts with CIA insiders reports that the leak investigation is considered to be a "witch hunt" by many inside the agency.

The reaction from some right wing bloggers over this story really goes beyond the pale. They think that-I kid you not-the secret prisons were all a cover to draw out leakers from the agency. Mark Kleiman digs up the facts. You have to read the post. It's some of the biggest conservative sites promoting this crazy idea.

( h/t David Edwards for the vid)