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Even her idiotic writing stunned Lauer. The last time she was on the show he treated her as a normal person. (Check out this video.) I would hope that stops, but NBC and the rest of cable news constantly give her a platform to rant on. When will that end? I think this is the first time Matt actually read anything she wrote.

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LAUER: On the 9-11 widows, an in particular a group that had been critical of the administration:

"These self-obsessed women seem genuinely unaware that 9-11 was an attack on our nation and acted like as if the terrorist attack only happened to them. They believe the entire country was required to marinate in their exquisite personal agony. Apparently, denouncing Bush was part of the closure process." And this part is the part I really need to talk to you about: "These broads are millionaires, lionized on TV and in articles about them, reveling in their status as celebrities and stalked by grief parrazies. I have never seen people enjoying their husband’s death so much." Because they dare to speak out?

COULTER: To speak out using the fact they are widows. This is the left's doctrine of infallibility. If they have a point to make about the 9-11 commission, about how to fight the war on terrorism, how about sending in somebody we are allowed to respond to. No-No-No. We have to respond to someone who had a family member die. Because then if we respond, oh you are questioning their authenticity.

LAUER: So grieve but grieve quietly?

LAUER: What I’m saying is I don’t think they have ever told you, you can’t respond.

COULTER: Look, you are getting testy with me.

Lauer actually got to her at the end a little bit because he couldn't believe she would write something as repulsive as that. Wake up Matt, NBC and all the other networks. Ann was off from the beginning of the interview. She had trouble responding to Matt's questions about why Bush's poll numbers are in the tank. I'm glad he brought up her Harriet Miers statements.

Pushing his new memoir in an interview with NBC's Matt Lauer which aired Monday, George W. Bush addressed one of the defining episodes of his presidency. Finding no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush claimed, left him feeling "sickened." But in 2004, as you may recall, President Bush found his Iraqi WMD fiasco side-splittingly funny.

In his NBC special, George W. Bush insisted that the absence of weapons of destruction from Saddam's arsenal stick induces feelings of nausea and fury.

LAUER: Your words. "No one was more sickened or angry than I was when we didn't find weapons of mass destruction." You still have a sickening feeling--

BUSH: I do.

LAUER: --When you think about it.

BUSH: I do.

As well it should. After all, President Bush, Condi Rice and others in the administration warned Americans about "the smoking gun that could come in the form of mushroom cloud." With that and other rationales for the Iraq conflict debunked and discredited, the staggering cost in blood (over 4,000 U.S. dead, 30,000 Americans wounded, tens of thousands of Iraqi civilian casualties), treasure and diminished U.S. influence is a national catastrophe of epic proportions.

Or, as then President Bush told the 2004 Radio and Television Correspondents Association Dinner, hilarious.

In that presentation as in so many others, Bush showed his contempt for the truth and the suffering of the American people. His tasteless (and rightly panned) slideshow made light of the lack of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Coming one year and hundreds of American dead and wounded after the invasion of Iraq, President Bush the cut-up hoped to regale the audience with his White House hijinx. As David Corn of The Nation reported:

Bush notes he spends "a lot of time on the phone listening to our European allies." Then we see a photo of him on the phone with a finger in his ear. But at one point, Bush showed a photo of himself looking for something out a window in the Oval Office, and he said, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere." The audience laughed. I grimaced. But that wasn't the end of it. After a few more slides, there was a shot of Bush looking under furniture in the Oval Office. "Nope," he said. "No weapons over there." More laughter. Then another picture of Bush searching in his office: "Maybe under here." Laughter again.

Whether his Iraq war was side-splitting or stomach-turning, George W. Bush told NBC's Lauer he'd do it all again. As he claimed many times before, Bush insisted, "I mean apologizing would basically say the decision was a wrong decision," adding, "I don't believe it was the wrong decision."

The American people, seeing their military overstretched, Al Qaeda emboldened, Iranian influence enhanced and U.S. prestige deeply damaged, long ago concluded otherwise. That is truly sickening. As for the legacy of George W. Bush, there's nothing funny about it.

(This piece also appears at Perrspectives.)

George Bush is on a new "mission" now since he's out of office and is trying to restore his name after he did so much to destroy it. Watching him last night instead was a vivid reminder of how awful a President he was. So much for the image makeover.

I cringed when I heard his tale about the "fetus jar." I wonder if he read most of what was in his own book? In his NBC special called 'Decision Points" he tried to explain away why America tortured people. (Oh, have you wondered why FOX didn't get the first exclusive? Maybe the answer comes from the publishers, but you know Dick Cheney would never have agreed to that.)

Anyway, Cheney knew that if he stacked the OLC with his sycophants like David Addington then he'd get the rulings he needed to do whatever the executive branch wanted, which has been well documented. Jack Goldsmith blew the whistlel on them many times. Matt Lauer asked him about the legality of waterboarding and he replied that he's no lawyer after all. Heck, I'm only a Texan. Hee haw!

There's plenty about Bush's tenure to discuss, but for now let's just stick to the most heinous topic: Torture.

NBC transcripts::

LAUER: Why is waterboarding legal, in your opinion?

BUSH: Because the lawyer said it was legal. He said it did not fall within the Anti-Torture Act. I'm not a lawyer., but you gotta trust the judgment of people around you and I do.

LAUER: You say it's legal. "And the lawyers told me."

BUSH: Yeah.

LAUER: Critics say that you got the Justice Department to give you the legal guidance and the legal memos that you wanted.

BUSH: Well—

LAUER: Tom Kean, who a former Republican co-chair of the 9/11 commission said they got legal opinions they wanted from their own people.

BUSH: He obviously doesn't know. I hope Mr. Kean reads the book. That's why I've written the book. He can, they can draw whatever conclusion they want. But I will tell you this. Using those techniques saved lives. My job is to protect America and I did.

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The media hissy fit over Conway's Aqua Buddha ad has really fallen off the cliff. Matt Lauer of The TODAY Show was the latest media elitist to go after Conway's ad over false pretenses. He harps on something that's not part of the ad at all as they all have (Do you believe Rand Paul has faith?) and then Lauer goes into bizarroland.

Lauer: ...do you think Mr. Paul is a man of faith?

Conway; I am not questioning his faith, Matt.

Asked and answered. Now comes the Monty Python portion of the interview.

Lauer: Does this foreshadow what kind of a Senator you might be in Washington and you're going to be a guy that goes there and continues the political divide or are you someone who can reach across the political aisle to make changes that are necessary for people that are in this country?

Has the media ever asked Tea Party candidates throughout this long midterm process if they are going to be bi-partisan and work with Liberals and Democrats in Washington? Hey Matt, has Rand Paul ever gone on the Today Show? Would you ask him the same question? This is pure Beltway political fetishism that only applies to Democrats. We had an election in 2008 and the Democrats won big, but because the media has this bi-partisan fetishism with Democrats, they obviously approved of the the tactics of 'Republican obstructionism' that began immediately after the election. Has FOX News ever asked Rand Paul if he'd be bi-partisan? OK, I had to say that. If any single member of the GOP filibusters a Democratic nomination or a piece of legislation, the media elitists almost never, ever call them out on it. And when I see the Beltway Broders come unglued over the Aqua Buddha, I wonder why they never, ever care about looking into all of the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove's lying liar ads, don't you?

Greg Sargent has the details:

Last week I noted that the ads that have been bankrolled by Karl Rove's groups and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce against Senate Dem candidates across the country have been widely debunked by independent fact-checkers for their multiple falsehoods and distortions.

Turns out the same is true of the Chamber's ads against House Democrats. These Chamber ads, which are running or have run in multiple districts across the country, contain many claims that are demonstrable distortions or have been repeatedly debunked as false by independent fact-checkers. This is the side of this story that continues to unfold under the media radar. Much of the media focus has been on the high-profile Beltway spat between these groups and the White House and Dems over their undisclosed donors. But the ads themselves are not receiving anywhere near the high-profile media scrutiny that Dem claims about the Chamber have -- even though they constitute a massive national campaign flooding airwaves in multiple races that could tip the balance of power in Congress.

Here's a rundown of the Chamber ads attacking House Dems that contain the debunked claims:...read on

Once again the same double standard applies to Republicans. No matter how many times conservatives hurt the working class in this country or lie to the American people in their ads or in their actions, it's always just fine among the media elite for conservatives to stand with Big Corporations and hurt our country. The bipartisan fetish the Beltway Broders have always means one thing: give in to the demands of the GOP. Let's have a D.C. cat-food commission to investigate the media and how they operate on a day to day basis.

By the way, Rasmussen has a new poll out today that says Conway has caught up in the polls to Rand Paul so maybe this is why he's going ballistic over the Aqua Buddha ad. This is strange since Rasmussen always seems to be skewed to favor Republicans.

I will be voting for sure, and I hope you do too.

It sounds like the President isn't all that impressed with BP's Tony Hayward. With regard to the now-famous interview with Matt Lauer where he looks for "asses to kick", MSNBC also reports the following remarks:

The BP executive last month complained about the amount of time he is spending dealing with the disaster, saying "I would like my life back," and also played down the spill's effect. The Gulf was "a big ocean," he said, adding "the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to be very, very modest."

"He wouldn't be working for me after any of those statements," Obama told TODAY.

The president also defended not having spoken to Hayward since the disaster began 50 days ago.

"I have not spoken to him directly," he told Lauer. "Here's the reason. Because my experience is, when you talk to a guy like a BP CEO, he's gonna say all the right things to me. I'm not interested in words. I'm interested in actions."

Works for me. I encourage the President to start kicking ass by handing out some high-level pink slips.

As long as I'm posting a little bit of fluffy quoting around the Gulf disaster, perhaps a roundup of our most recent posts about it might be helpful, given how much news there is about so many different aspects of the disaster.

Here we go:

Expert Simmons says well may be gushing between 100-150 barrels per day. Cheryl Attkisson at CBS confirms lowball leak estimates.

Ever-cognizant of Maureen Dowd's dreams, President Obama looks for asses to kick. The sun shines on BP and the Bush administration as more information comes to light about how BP was able to fast-track their drilling permits, thanks to the Gang of Four (aka Bush, Cheney, DeLay, and Barton).

Dick Cheney hides behind daughter Liz Cheney's skirts and lets her fight his battles. Adm. Thad Allen describes the oil as "an insidious enemy," BP employees weren't sure who was in charge, and Haley Barbour visits the River Denial.

Since we're not an all-oil, all-the-time blog, posts on Gaza, Elena Kagan, unemployment, and the right-wing noise machine are also good reads.

Bonus: My inner history wonk sings when I see Newstalgia posts like this one. Take a minute to walk back to the 70's and listen to the Silent Majority: Mexican-Americans in the 70's.

Jeff/Jim does the Today Show

via AmericaBlog

Jeff/Jim really is becoming a media whore, too.

This morning, Campbell Brown did a taped piece featuring an interview with Gannon/Guckert. She did a pretty good job. After he gave the lame excuse about changing his name, she told him the name isn't that hard to say.

Brown asked him about his hooker past, which he wouldn't answer. He did say there was some truth and a lot of falsehood about him.

It was more of the same from him. He sure intimated he was consulting an attorney and there was more to come.

Campbell concluded by mentioning that Dems were calling for investigations. The way she did her segment sure made it clear they were needed.

After the piece, Matt Lauer said this was a bizarre yet fascinating story.

Yes, Matt, it is. And it is about time that the MSM really started paying attention.

I love Google, don't you? It's so handy. Why, if I were a Republican presidential nominee and I didn't know who to select as my running mate, I too might use teh Google to determine my pick.

John McCain did that very thing when he selected Sarah Palin. On the Today Show, when Matt Lauer questioned him on his pick, he said that he "wouldn't know." Jesus. McCain tried to bring up the war to divert Lauer from pushing him, and to Lauer's credit he didn't back down.

John McCain refused to comment on it. That is insane.

Lauer asked, that the vetting of Sarah Palin was so woefully inadequate that no one from the campaign traveled to Alaska to interview her husband or any of her political opponents?

"I wouldn't know," McCain said. "The fact is that I'm proud of Sarah Palin, I'm proud of the campaign we waged, she energized our party, she will be a major factor in American politics in the future, and I'm proud of our campaign."

Somewhat taken aback, Lauer told McCain that he found it "somewhat surprising" that he didn't know anything about the vetting process, adding "You were the presidential candidate."

McCain testily shot back by saying that he had no intention of "looking back over what happened over a year ago," adding, "I'm sorry, you'll have to get others to comment on it."

Really? That's all Mr. Straight talk had in him? And it's embarrassing that they were so desperate for a female candidate that they actually had to Google Chick-Repubs to see who was available.

Among their revelations is how McCain's campaign manager, Rick Davis, spotted Sarah Palin while searching the Internet for possible female vice presidential candidates.

"Rick Davis saw one interview she did with Charlie Rose where she was very much the Sarah Palin that people find appealing. She was lively, she was engaging, she popped off the screen. And he said, 'Wow, she jumps out,'" Halperin said.

"McCain boxed himself in. He needed a game-changing pick for vice president. And that left them with a last-minute pick of someone who was, to McCain, a virtual stranger, and was, to his senior staffers, an absolute stranger," he added.

Gawker writes:

McCain knew Bristol Palin was pregnant, Republicans insisted. But suddenly stories were all-but-implying that McCain's campaign—the campaign of serious grown-ups—basically Googled Palin a couple weeks ago and decided she looked clean enough for the job. As John Dickerson puts it, Republicans are not being complimentary when they quietly call McCain "reckless."

Why didn't Davis just go to Hannidate or Match.com to find a running mate for McCain? I'm sure Laura Ingraham would have jumped at the chance too.

Obviously, Jeffrey Immelt feels more than a little pressure to prove that NBC is not the liberal bastion (and messenger of Obama's secret army) that the unapologetic righties like to whinge about, otherwise there's really no excuse for this latest hire:

Journalism continues staggering pushes forward on an otherwise ordinary Sunday! In the great "tradition" of mixing up people like Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera with public drunks like Hoda and Kathy Lee, The Today Show's newest hire? Jenna Bush. Whee!

Absolutely, completely, 100% true. Here's looking at you, NBC, via the AP report:

...a 27-year-old teacher in Baltimore, [Bush] will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television's top-rated morning news show, said Jim Bell, its executive producer.

"It wasn't something I'd always dreamed to do," she said. "But I think one of the most important things in life is to be open-minded and to be open-minded for change."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the spawn of the guy who mangled the English language so often that it was painful to listen to him speak and who is personally responsible for the grammatically-odd statement above is going to cover educational issues?

That's like asking the spawn of Darth Cheney, Liz Cheney, on her opinion about Obama's foreign policy, or lifelong government-paid health insurance recipient John McCain about his opinion on the public option...oh wait.

As Atrios tweeted yesterday:

I look forward to seeing Jenna Bush interview Liz Cheney on The Today Show, being introduced by Luke Russert

Unqualified nepotism: Conservative values at their very best.

Ah....the gift that keeps giving. Please, Sen. Craig, keep fighting this.

(photo courtesy of ABC News)

KING5.com (Seattle): (h/t miss kitty)

U.S. Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho appealed to the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Monday in his ongoing attempt to withdraw his guilty plea in connection with an arrest in an airport bathroom sex sting.

Craig's appeal was filed at the court in St. Paul less than two weeks after Hennepin County Judge Charles Porter refused to overturn the guilty plea, saying it "was accurate, voluntary and intelligent, and ... supported by the evidence."

Craig, a Republican from Idaho, pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in August after he was accused of soliciting sex in a bathroom at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport in June.

The four-page filing did not detail the basis for the appeal.[..]

The senator also discussed his relationship with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Craig was Senate liaison for Romney's campaign, a post he abandoned when the scandal came to light.

"I was very proud of my association with Mitt Romney," Craig told Lauer. "... And he not only threw me under his campaign bus, he backed up and ran over me again."

We'll have video from his exclusive special interview with Matt Lauer tomorrow night.

Bill Donohue is now NBC's resident expert on the Middle East and higher learning issues in college campuses.<snark> How do I know? He was on with Matt Lauer Monday and told me so. Bill does seem to know a lot about propaganda though...And I thought he was just trying to save Christmas. Check out his violent rhetoric here---here---here---and don't forget that he blamed the kids for allowing Mark Foley to molest them. Some expert.

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Since Noah Oppenheim has become a producer for TODAY, it has become littered with extreme right wing pundits. I watch it almost everyday because they feature hard news in the first hour. Read this detailed piece about Noah in the TV Newser. There seems to be a little tension there.

A 'Today' staffer says the assertion that his program is full of liberals is nonsense. He believes the editorial staff is 50/50, left and right. The show is fair and middle-of-the-road, and that's why Oppenheim's appointment is nerve-wracking: He seems unable to shed his political leanings and remain unbiased.

We all don't care what his politics are as long as he keeps them out of his segments. And now you'll understand why the Donohue's are on so much.

Please email Phil.Griffin@nbcuni.com and ask him why he's giving so much power to (read this Weekly Standard article) Noah Oppenheim, who used to be the EP for Scarborough. (Please be polite!) They are making a mockery out of the Today show. And this morning---guess who they had on as a very serious political analyst to tell us how the campaign trail for President is going? Bill Kristol.