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Marc Thiessen was out flogging his most recent bit of ugly fearmongering -- his book that claims that the Obama administration doesn't want to capture terrorists -- on Morning Joe today, and ran smack into Lawrence O'Donnell, who gave him an earful:

Thiessen: You know, we've got to think back to the period after 9/11. We didn't even know who hit us. We didn't know that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad was the mastermind of 9/11, or the operational commander of Al Qaeda. And then we started rounding up these terrorists. We caught Abu Zubaydah, we caught Ramzi Binalshibh, and KSM. And these guys provided us information under questioning by the CIA that stopped a number of terrorist attacks. They would have been planning to blow up the U.S. consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, they were planning to blow up our Marine camp in Djibouti, they were well on their way to recruiting a cell of terrorists who would fly an airplane into Heathrow Airport and buildings in downtown London. And KSM had recruited a cell of Southeast Asian terrorists called the Garaba Cell, because he knew we'd be on the lookout for Arab men, to fly an airplane into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, the tallest building on the West Coast. This program is why we did not have another 9/11 after the attack.

Scarborough: Lawrence O'Donnell:

O'Donnell: Well, you're lying about the West Coast thing, that's been covered very clearly --

Thiessen: Oh that's not true!

O'Donnell: -- But you as a former speechwriter for the White House, you took an oath of office when you took that job, that you might or might not remember. You actually published a book that says that the president of the United States, on its title, the president is inviting the next attack. Isn't it true that the president you work for invited the first attack?

Scarborough: All right.

Thiessen: Oh Lawrence, that's ridiculous.

O'Donnell: By having no idea what was going on with Al Qaeda. You just admitted that when you were hit on 9/11, you just said, 'We didn't know who hit us.' You said we didn't know who hit us. You were told who was going to hit us before we were hit on 9/11, and your administration invited the first attack, you should live in shame.

All this terribly upset everyone on the set, who began saying, "Lawrence, Lawrence!" Thiessen began responding by reverting to discussing Democrats' terrorism policies, and O'Donnell demanded he talk about the Bush administration's record. It was too much for Scarborough, who broke in:

We're going to break right now. We're going to break right now, and I'm going to be interviewing Marc myself.

When they returned, it was all civilized.

Have you ever noticed that anyone who wants to talk about the Bush administration's culpability for being asleep at the wheel on terrorism when the 9/11 attacks hit -- even though the record on this matter is quite clear -- gets quickly shut down?

In fact, even bringing it up gets you described as a "conspiracy theorist." For instance, the fact that 35% of Democrats believe Bush was warned in advance about the 9/11 attacks is frequently touted by people like Scarborough as some kind of evidence that the party is full of "9/11 conspiracy theorists."

Believing Bush was warned in advance about impending attacks from Al Qaeda is not a conspiracy theory: It's a fact. Or have none of these people ever heard of Bush's August 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing -- the one titled "Bin Laden determined to strike in US"?

You know, the briefing that specifically warned:

Continue reading »

This is good. He's anticipating the wingnut line of attack and cutting them off at the pass:

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts was ushered into the Map Room of the White House on Wednesday night to re-administer the oath of office to President Barack Obama because the original oath on Tuesday had a word out of sequence.

White House counsel Greg Craig said the move was made out of "an abundance of caution." Obama's second swearing-in, devoid of the pomp of the initial event, took place at 7:35 p.m. in the presence of a few aides and reporters. The chief justice was wearing a court robe. "Are you ready to take the oath?" Roberts said. "I am," Obama said, "And we're going to do it very slowly."

The retaking of the oath followed two meetings, one with economic advisers and another with the defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others to discuss national security and the withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

UPDATE: Spoke too soon! Screaming Drudge headline: 'No bible used at Obama re-swear'. FYI, Matt - the Constitution doesn't require one.

(h/t Ben at Media Matters)

We covered this story Tuesday morning and sure enough, the band of morons on Fox & Friends continued to push the debunked theory - that because Chief Justice John Roberts flubbed part of the oath of office (oaf of office?) during Tuesday's inauguration, President Obama just might not be the president after all. More from Media Matters:

During Fox News' inauguration coverage, Chris Wallace stated, "I'm not sure that Barack Obama really is the president of the United States, because the oath of office is set in the Constitution." Wallace later claimed, "I wasn't at all convinced that ... John Roberts ever got it out straight and that Barack Obama ever said the prescribed words." On Fox & Friends the following day, Fox News repeatedly aired video of the oath flub, and Gretchen Carlson asked of Obama, "Is he really president," and went on to claim, "Because there was a flub in the oath of office." However, numerous experts, including one quoted later on Fox & Friends, have reportedly said that an incorrect recitation of the oath is insignificant. Read on...

Will Dennis Prager and Virgil Goode now call the Founding Father responsible for the Declaration of Independence a terrorist-lover?

WaPo:

Rep.-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, found himself under attack last month when he announced he'd take his oath of office on the Koran -- especially from Virginia Rep. Virgil Goode, who called it a threat to American values.

Yet the holy book at tomorrow's ceremony has an unassailably all-American provenance. We've learned that the new congressman -- in a savvy bit of political symbolism -- will hold the personal copy once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

NPR interviewed Mark Dimunation of the Library of Congress about Jefferson's book.

Atrios:

CHICAGO, IL - Today Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-IL) issued the following statement in response to Representative Virgil Goode's (R-VA) continued efforts to undermine the First Amendment by condemning Keith Ellison's (D.-Minn.) right to take his oath of office on the Koran.

"Tolerance for different religions speaks to the very character of this country and the precepts on which it was founded," said Emanuel. "President Bush has reminded us time and again that freedom of religion is a fundamental American value. As such, I call on President Bush to be consistent and denounce Congressman Goode's intolerance."

Keith Ellison, D-Minn is a Muslim so you knew this was coming.

Ellison is setting yet another precedent in January when he takes the oath of office in the Koran, Islam’s holiest book—an event that evoked conservatives to accuse him of deviating his allegiance from the Constitution to Allah.

On Tuesday, conservative radio talk show host and columnist Dennis Prager wrote: “America is interested in only one book, the Bible.” Directly addressing Ellison, he added “If you are incapable of taking an oath on that book, don’t serve in Congress.”..read on

Am I missing something---don't we use the Constitution? Taylor Marsh has more. Think Progress has a round up. There is nothing that surprises me anymore from thugs like Prager and that's pretty sad.