Keith Olbermann pinned the honor on him 8/17 for his remarks about Cindy Sheehan.

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Keith :

But the winner -- oh, it's the irrepressible Rush Limbaugh. On the radio, he said, quote, "Cindy Sheehan is just Bill Burkett. Her story is nothing more than forged documents. There's nothing about it that's real."

I guess she made up that dead-son-in-Iraq business! He also referred to her supporters as "dope-smoking FM types." I guess the painkillers wipe out your memory along with your ethics. Rush Limbaugh, today's worst person in the world!

Yes, TSA procedures suck, and yes, they're heading toward a tipping point where there will be nearly unilateral support for getting rid of them. But make no mistake, the publicity was turned up by the right in order to leverage maximum political points for them. Had these procedures been in effect when Bush was in office, Rush most certainly would have extolled their value and reminded us all that it was in the name of "keeping us safe".

In Rushbo classic hyperbole, he instead suggests that the president should have his daughter "groped" by the TSA so he can show everyone how safe it is. These procedures are ridiculous, and the right argument to make on both sides is that they will not prevent an attack. They're a reaction, and one that actually hands a victory over to terrorists instead of dealing with the problem. But once again, instead of dealing seriously with an issue that garners agreements across partisan lines, Limbaugh ignores the real problem and goes after the president.

Sadder still, it works. People actually believe what this gasbag says, and how he says it. And so then we have surveys that indicate a majority of Americans believe President Obama's religion is somehow subversive, scary and different from most Americans, and "patriots" selling copies of Mein Kampf.

The tactic? Easy. Keep the noise level high and severe for 2 more years until everyone begs for it to stop, then offer up a nice, white, clean-cut Republican to turn down the volume.

BTC News: Nobody could have predicted the disaster that is Homeland Security

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{H/t Heather]

Here's a fact: Right-wing authoritarians will never accept Barack Obama as their president, even if he does everything they demand of him to the jot and tittle. Just watch Liz Cheney on Fox News Sunday today, after Bloody Bill Kristol went so far as to praise Obama for his "clear commitment" to winning the war in Afghanistan:

Chris Wallace: Liz, does Bill Kristol have it right with the appointment of Petraeus and the comments that he made that we showed about no rush for the exits in July of 2011 and late this week -- are you as convinced as Bill is that the president is "all in" in Afghanistan?

Cheney: Ah, I think that Bill is right, that the president did the right thing and that the president deserves credit. I think that he unfortunately had to relieve McChrystal -- I think that McChrystal was a tremendous general and he did tremendous things in Iraq; when the entire story of Iraq is told I think he'll get the credit he deserves there with the special forces. He had to be replaced, however, and Petraeus is the right person for the job. And I do think the president's speech announcing the change was a good speech.

Now, I don't think we know for sure that he's all in. Because Petraeus can't do it alone. And if you don't have the changes in your civilian leadership that you talked about in your interview segment this morning, it will be very difficult to get this done.

It's obvious to everyone on the planet -- except the rabid right -- that Obama is "all in" on military-industrial complex's strategy for "winning" in Afghanistan -- but it's predicated on eventually "winning" (whatever that means) and then getting out. This is what Cheney really is after: like her father, she favors an endless war in Afghanistan, one that can just roll on forever, providing an endless excuse for our military involvement in the Middle East. They're looking out for American hegemony, and too bad about that body count.

Nothing Obama does will ever satisfy the likes of Liz Cheney. Right-wing authoritarians believe above all in bowing and adhering to those in authority -- and the thought of bowing to a Democratic president, liberal or otherwise, as a legitimate president is too much cognitive dissonance for them to handle.

Sen. Tom Coburn offers us this Moment of Irony: He frets that negotiations between BP and the White House may not have been fair because, well, BP was in a weaker PR position.

KING: Rush right or is the Republican leadership in the House right?

COBURN: Oh, I don’t know. I think it’s the cynicism of our politics today. Nobody in either party wants to be vulnerable on any issue and where’s the real leadership? You know what we lack is where is the clarity of purpose. Nobody disagrees that BP is going to be held accountable. The question is how and when and that’s a small matter right now in terms of the problem that we have.

(CROSSTALK)

KING: Do you have any problem with the White House negotiating this deal?

COBURN: Well I’m not sure it’s fair negotiations because you’re dealing with one very strong party and one very weak party in terms of public relations. But you know basically holding them accountable is where we want to be and this is one way of doing it.

See? This isn't about fairness, not really. It's about the appearance of fairness from a public relations standpoint. The whole "shakedown" meme begun by Joe Barton last week and continued through the weekend is nothing more than an effort to turn the victimizer into the victimized. Since there's absolutely no foundation for such a flip, there's only how things look.

(h/t Talking Points Memo)

The Rude Pundit: Rush's wedding, Helen Thomas, Bibi, and what we've lost

FiveThirtyEight: Are you smarter than a George Mason University economics professor?

The Big Picture: Art Laffer, make up your own facts here

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Connecting.the.Dots: American Ass-Kicking

Fafblog!: A few million bodies between friends

The Culture Wars End Today

from ASZ: DOCTOR Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader, makes a bullshit eighth-hand medical diagnosis for the media, and the TASS-US stenos dutifully lap it up. DOCTOR Howard Dean, newly elected chairman of the DNC, says nothing publicly.

The hypocrisy is stunning. Liz at Blondesense comments this morning:

Bush is changing his plans this weekend to rush to sign emergency legislation that might save Terry Schiavo's life if he can get federal judges to rule on this case. This from a man who had no problem signing a law to allow hospitals to pull life support from patients whose bennies had run out, were probably less sick than Schiavo and of course were of the brown skinned persuasion. This from the culture of life man who signed more execution orders than any other governor. This from the man who started a goddamned war in Iraq dragging young men and women from America to fight for his whimsy, get killed or mutilated and then shaft them...

The most absurd thing is that this is no longer about Terri Schiavo. You know it and I know it. It's about unbridled abuse of power. It's one of the final shots in the culture war for the collective soul of America.

And we lost.

Don't just take my word for it, either. Here's a learned legal opinion:

...Look, there is no other way to put it: this is the most blatant and egregious power-grab by one branch over another in my lifetime. Congress is intruding so far into the power of the judiciary, on behalf of a single family, that it is breathtaking.

Bizzaro World

via PITZ

"(Bill) LD 908, would make it illegal in Maine to abort a fetus that is known to have the 'gay gene.'"Ah, the spectre of eugenics being used to drive a wedge between liberals who identify primarily as pro-choice and those who identify primarily as supporters of gay rights."

Of course a Republican proposed this bill. Rep. Brian Duprey told the Portland Press Herald that he got the idea for the bill while listening to Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show.

This legislation borders obviously on the insane. However, if enough anti-abortion lobbyist and evangelicals tried to sign on to this bill, then wouldn't it have to force them to acknowledge that homosexuality is not a learned behaviour? TWhen the bill goes down in flames,... you get the point.

Breaking News from Suburban Guerrilla:

The GAO to investigate voting irregularities:

(Washington, DC) Reps. John Conyers, Jr., Jerrold Nadler, Robert Wexler, Robert Scott, and Rush Holt announced today that, in response to their November 5 and 8 letters to the Government Accountability Office (GAO), the GAO has decided to move forward with an investigation of election irregularities in the 2004 election. The five Members issued the following statement:"We are pleased that the GAO has reviewed the concerns expressed in our letters and has found them of sufficient merit to warrant further investigation. On its own authority, the GAO will examine the security and accuracy of voting technologies, distribution and allocation of voting machines, and counting of provisional ballots. We are hopeful that GAO's non-partisan and expert analysis will get to the bottom of the flaws uncovered in the 2004 election. As part of this inquiry, we will provide copies of specific incident reports received in our offices, including more than 57,000 such complaints provided to the House Judiciary Committee.
"The core principle of any democracy is the consent of the governed. All Americans, no matter how they voted, need to have confidence that when they cast their ballot, their voice is heard."

"I misspoke"

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Crook and Liars
perseverance pays off. We called CNN and demanded an on-the-air apology by Novak himself because of the lie he spread about Howard Dean. Earlier in the week Judy Woodruff issued an apology for Novak's lie, but we felt that wasn't enough. We called and spoke to a PR person who said they would talk to the producers of Inside Politics and get back to us. We promised that we would not go away.

Since Novak claimed on February 26 edition of CNN's The Capital Gang: "Howard Dean gave a speech at Cornell on Thursday of this week in which he said that 80 percent -- over the years, 80 percent of the Social Security benefits will be lost." Then he repeated the lie on Inside Politics the following Monday. Off course Dean actually said: "if Social Security were left alone for 30 years, benefits would be reduced to 80 percent of what it is now." The GOP repeated his lie with video on their website (scrubbed now) and subsequently Rush Limbaugh used the same quote on 3/3. Novak came on the air today and apologized saying: "On Monday I said, I misspoke myself...what I meant to say..."

We know that he knew the actual quote being a seasoned "journalist," but chose to try and tarnish Dean with a lie. Also he claimed to have said it on Monday only, which of course is not true. The fact that he got on the air at all shows what can be done if we put our minds to it. Media Matters was on top of the story as well and proved invaluable in getting Novak to denounce himself. Thanks to all that called and emailed their concerns to CNN.

(Update-many feel it wasn't a good enough apology. We do agree. He still tried to say that Dean didn't "toe" the party line, which of course is incorrect. However, we still feel that it was important to get him to acknowledge his lie on the air, "something that had to kill him to do," even in the under handed way that he did it. We never expected him to admit much more. We tried our best.)