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Is there a more perfect example of why Republicans should never be at the table when discussing our next moves in Afghanistan? Watch how Sen. John "On Any Sunday" McCain glosses over the constant cheerleading he and his GOP cohorts did in Iraq, despite there never being a connection between Saddam and 9/11, despite there never being any real WMDs, despite the fact that we created a vacuum in the country that enabled the burgeoning of al Qaeda in Iraq.

KING: Many see a parallel to Iraq, in the sense that it’s been eight years in Afghanistan, now it’s been billions of dollars, we have shed American blood there and yet, a European commission report out just this past week says for all the efforts to train the Afghan National Army, there’s a 24% rate of attrition. And others have said that not only do they leave, but they take their weapons with them and some of them still get paid. What has gone wrong and what is the United States doing wrong when it comes to the fundamental challenge of getting the Afghans ready to do this themselves?

McCAIN: First of all, rightly or wrongly, we were focused on Iraq. I happened to believe we had to win there. Whether we should have gone in or not, weapons of mass destruction, you’ve covered on other days. But I think the important point here is that again, if the military of a country does not think they’re going to succeed, you have all kinds of problems. Look at the total collapse of the Iraqi Army at one point after we had…we had built them up.

Um, hello? Do you not get that what YOU think is important is highly questionable when you can't get the fundamentals right? Honestly, you think the problem of attrition in the Afghan army has to do with them worried that they won't succeed? Do you even know what success looks like in Afghanistan? Do you have the hubris to assume that it looks the same for the Afghanis?

As Frank Rich says, Two Wrongs Makes Another Fiasco:

Let’s be clear: Those who demanded that America divert its troops and treasure from Afghanistan to Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — when there was no Qaeda presence in Iraq — bear responsibility for the chaos in Afghanistan that ensued. Now they have the nerve to imperiously and tardily demand that America increase its 68,000-strong presence in Afghanistan to clean up their mess — even though the number of Qaeda insurgents there has dwindled to fewer than 100, according to the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones.

But why let facts get in the way? Just as these hawks insisted that Iraq was “the central front in the war on terror” when the central front was Afghanistan, so they insist that Afghanistan is the central front now that it has migrated to Pakistan. When the day comes for them to anoint Pakistan as the central front, it will be proof positive that Al Qaeda has consolidated its hold on Somalia and Yemen.

To appreciate this crowd’s spotless record of failure, consider its noisiest standard-bearer, John McCain. He made every wrong judgment call that could be made after 9/11. It’s not just that he echoed the Bush administration’s constant innuendos that Iraq collaborated with Al Qaeda’s attack on America. Or that he hyped the faulty W.M.D. evidence to the hysterical extreme of fingering Iraq for the anthrax attacks in Washington. Or that he promised we would win the Iraq war “easily.” Or that he predicted that the Sunnis and the Shiites would “probably get along” in post-Saddam Iraq because there was “not a history of clashes” between them.What’s more mortifying still is that McCain was just as wrong about Afghanistan and Pakistan. He routinely minimized or dismissed the growing threats in both countries over the past six years, lest they draw American resources away from his pet crusade in Iraq.

All I can say is if John McCain is pushing for troop surges in Afghanistan, that's all the more reason for me to consider withdrawal.

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In some ways you have to admire the political performance skills of someone like a John McCain. On the one hand he recognizes that the Republicans have a problem attracting Hispanic voters, one that will make it difficult if not impossible for Republicans to win the presidency in the not too distant future. And on the other hand he will likely vote with his wingnut conscience against Judge Sonia Sotomayor, as he did in 1999 for the U.S. Appeals Court.

MCCAIN: On the issue of the Hispanic voter, we have to do a lot more. We Republicans have to recruit and elect Hispanics to office. And I don't mean just because they're Hispanics, but they represent a big part of the growing population in America. And we have a lot of work to do there. And I am of the belief that unless we reverse the trend of Hispanic voter registration, we have a very, very deep hole that we've got to come out of.

And no doubt when McCain makes his usual political calculations and votes against Sotomayor for the Supreme Court he will dress up the decision as a matter of high principle, disavowing the "politically expedient route" of voting for Sotomayor simply because she's a woman and a Latina, glossing over her many years of experience or her record. And a certain percentage of Wingnuttia will swallow his malarkey, as they always do, while another part will remain skeptical of this faux moderate. In the end, John McCain will do what's best for John McCain.

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Ed Rollins, who has run many a Republican campaign, crushed Sarah Palin's decision to quit her job as Alaska's governor on CNN's State of The Union yesterday. He called it a disaster and went as far as saying that he was insulted by it.

I guess she wants to go on the TV and the book tour circuit instead of helping Alaskans who voted her into office. Times are tough right now and she'd rather leave them all behind than try to help them get through this economic meltdown. Rollins didn't pull any punches.

ED ROLLINS, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: I think yesterday was a disaster, Friday was a disaster for her both in the sense that she was very incoherent in articulating why she was quitting and what she wanted to do with it.

And as I always say, you call press conferences to answer questions, not to basically raise questions. I think the serious thing here is 311 days ago, very few people in America, very few Republicans outside of Alaska knew who this woman was. She had a tremendous first few weeks as a campaigner, but she got super imposed on top of the Republican establishment. It's sort of like taking a helicopter and putting her on top of Mt. Everest, which John McCain was flying it.

Everybody else climbed up that ladder, and all of the sudden she's on top of the mountain. She didn't like it -- or she did like the top of the mountain. What she didn't like was coming back to Earth, flying back to Alaska to her job as governor.

I think the reality here is her biggest mistake is walking away from the job as governor. She would have at least had a record to run on. She is going to have a partial record today that's going to be very incomplete. I found her very insulting to other governors. We have 22 other Republican governors, 19 of whom are basically going to be out of this office after running in two years. Nine are term limited and many others have to run. And she basically said in the last year you run around and do all kinds of things, and I would predict to you every single Republican governor like most Democratic governors are at their desk trying to figure out how to get through the economic crisis. I think she insulted them. I think to a certain extent it showed a naivete and I think she basically left a big, big void in her resume.

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Senator Mary Landrieu (DLC, LA) is under "attack" in a radio ad from MoveOn.org. I can't figure out where the "attack" is: the very short radio ad told people factual information about how much soft money the healthcare industry gave to Landrieu and also asked listeners to CALL LANDRIEU and express their opinions about healthcare.

CNN's John King was aghast! {emphasis mine}

...before there's even a bill to vote on, she's being attacked on the radio. Should the president of the United States, the leaders of the Democratic Party tell moveon.org to save its money and get off the radio?

So what exactly about that ad is 'attacking' Senator Landrieu, Mr. King? Publicizing the amount of money she's received from corporate for-profit healthcare lobbyists? Or perhaps, horror of horrors, suggesting that her actual constituents give her a...wait for it...telephone call?

At least Senator Casey from Pennsylvania points out that New York Times survey showing 72 percent of the American people favoring a public option. "I know that's not the universal opinion in Washington," he says. I happen to think the silver lining in this health care "debate" is that finally that 72% is waking up to whose interests their congress people actually serve. Follow the money.

I guess polite Washingtonians find it distasteful to mention who owns their vote, bought and paid for, and are deeply troubled when citizens without 1.6 million dollars in donations call the office expecting to be, you know, heard or something. Move On emailed me recently, asking me to contact "my" representative, John "CO2 is plant food" Shimkus, who is owned by the coal lobby. I told MoveOn I couldn't help them. since I don't have the same soft money donations as the coal industry, therefore my lawn guy (the one planting the grass that eats Shimkus's CO2) is a better representative of my interests than my congressman.

And it's just sick when television media plays along with this charade, indicating that publicizing soft money and promoting citizen involvement somehow "attacks" a United States Senator? Honestly, John King, being a media lapdog to the Georgetown Senatorial Cocktail Party Set is no way to go through life, son.

Full transcript below the fold... (h/t Heather)

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With DINOs like DiFi, who needs to worry about Republicans?

President Barack Obama may not have enough votes in the U.S. Senate to pass his effort to overhaul the nation’s health-care system, California Democrat Dianne Feinstein said.

“I don’t know that he has the votes right now,” Feinstein said today on CNN’s “State of the Union” program. “I think there’s a lot of concern in the Democratic caucus.” Controlling costs of the new system is a “difficult subject.”

So the very wealthy DiFi, who hasn't met an appropriation she wouldn't try to swing to her husband's company and ended up having to resign from the Military Construction Appropriations committee when this conflict came to light, and lucky recipient of free healthcare, courtesy of the U.S. Senate, doesn't think that the 59 (nay, 60, if Franken ever gets his seat) Democrats can actually pull it together to vote for the health care reform that a HUGE percentage of Americans want?

Pardon my French, Di, but WHY THE FRAK NOT???? Her answers don't make a lot of sense, frankly:

FEINSTEIN: Ergo, you have enormous problems in my state. California’s bigger than the populations of 21 states and the District of Columbia put together. We have an enormous health care industry, 350 hospitals. University of California alone has 34,000 health care workers, has health care worth $4 billion a year. So it’s complicated. Additionally, the state is in a state of financial catastrophe. I think that’s clear. So, if you change the Medicaid rate, for example, it has an impact on California between $1 billion and $5 billion a year. Now, how could I support that? Because it would take down the state.

Er...huh? Does the fact that these costs are offset by the savings to employers not come into play? How about the fact that by creating a public option, health care costs would be a lower percentage of the average income to individuals and companies? How about the greater costs we all absorb now to cover the uninsured and underinsured? This is not that complicated: COVERING EVERYONE WILL SAVE LIVES AND MONEY.

Then Feinstein becomes even more puzzling:

You also have enormous profit centers in the health care industry, in pharmaceuticals, in medical insurance. And I wonder about these profit centers. Because, unless you have some method to control these profits, premiums continue to rise in the private sector, as they have over the past eight years, substantially.

Therefore, controlling costs is a very major and difficult subject, as long as you have a large private-sector involvement. So this needs to be worked out.

The profits in health care are obscene. Look at what CEOs took home. Elizabeth Edwards famously said that $1 out every $700 spent in this country for health care went to pay the CEO of UnitedHealth. But here's where I'm flummoxed by this statement by Feinstein. If we have a public option that lowers the costs to consumers, doesn't the "free market" then naturally depress these profit centers in health care by forcing them to be competitive with the public option? Isn't that a good thing, Di?

The stakes are too high for these kind of nonsensical arguments from ridiculously privileged politicos ignoring the will of the people. Please consider donating to our Campaign for Health Care Choice to make your voice heard.

Transcripts below the fold

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I actually found a pretty good segment on TV: Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services was excellent today on CNN's State of the Union. She spoke clearly and effectively of the importance that there be a public option available for health care to all Americans. No Luntz talking points, just straight talk about how the public option will benefit Americans.

SEBELIUS: Well, I think that competition is a good thing, that most Americans understand that choice and competition is what we want. So, if you look at a health exchange, a marketplace, where people can have some options -- in many parts of the country, private insurers have no competitor, in -- in a state like my own home state of Kansas. There is a dominant insurance company in a lot of the states.

So, we created a public option for state employees, so they could choose side by side benefits and prices. Competition is good. You can write the rules for a level playing field.

The president does not want to dismantle privately-owned plans. He doesn't want the 180 million people who have employer coverage to lose that coverage. He wants to strengthen the marketplace.

But, you know, I -- I don't think it's a big surprise that a lot of insurers say, you know, what we would really like is, everybody who doesn't have insurance to be told they must buy it, and buy it only from us.

The president feels that having a public option side by side, same playing field, same rules, will give Americans choice and will help lower costs for everybody. And that's a good thing

.
Wow, who would have thought that Insurance companies would be against a public option. She beat back the "trigger" that many HICers want to try and put in place. She said that we can't afford to wait for some trigger to go off. The time is now to attack this problem.

KING: ...So, how about a trigger? How about you enact reforms that give the private insurance industry, maybe it's three years; maybe it's five years, and if, by then, they haven't lowered costs, they haven't brought the uninsured into the thing, then the government option would trigger and kick in then"? What's wrong with that?

SEBELIUS: Well, there are a lot of, now, specific ideas being discussed on Capitol Hill. And, certainly, the trigger is one of them.

But what Massachusetts found when they moved to insuring all citizens of the commonwealth is that, unless you address costs from the very first day, unless you have a system where cost control and cost lowering is one of the goals, you don't do so well. You -- you can bring everybody into the system, but the costs may rise.

So, I think having a public option from the outset, having the design, being competitive, and making sure there is some choice, making sure that consumers have a choice of plan, and, for the first time ever in the United States, making sure that insurers don't decide who gets covered -- if you got a preexisting condition, we want you in the marketplace, we want you and your family to be covered, and we want you to be able to go to a doctor of your choice and have preventive care and wellness care. That's part of reforming the system.

Goodbye to the "trigger effect." It won't work and it gives the health care industry a license to fleece us. And I loved what she said here.

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Mitch McConnell joined John King of CNN to discuss judge Sonia Sotomayor's nomination. King asked him to comment on Limbaugh's racist rant against her. McConnell took the cowardly way out by not denouncing Limbaugh-Gordon Liddy and all the rest of them for their hate speech and instead used a different tactic.

RUSH LIMBAUGH: So, here you have a racist. You might want to soften that and you might want to say a reverse racist. And the libs, of course, say that minorities cannot be racists because they don't have the power to implement their racism. Well, those days are gone, because reverse racists certainly do have the power to implement their power. Obama is the greatest living example of a reverse racist, and now he's appointed one.

MCCONNELL: Look. I've got a big job to do, dealing with 40 Senate Republicans and trying to advance the nation's agenda. I've got better things to do than be the speech police over people who are going to have their views about a very important appointment, which is an appointment to the United States Supreme Court.

So I'm not going to get into policing everybody's speech. The important thing here is to look at the nominee, her qualifications, read the 3,600 cases, and do it right. That's what the American people expect of us.

In other words, McConnell is whispering, "hey Rush/Newt/Cheney/Buchanan/Tancredo! Keep saying what you're saying and I'll make believe that the Senate Republicans are above it all."
Think Progress:

Asked if Sotomayor is a "racist," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) ducked the issue on CBS this morning. "I'm not going to get involved in characterizations before I've even met her," Kyl said.

CNN's transcript below the fold.

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From State of the Union April 12, 2009. John King asks Gen. Odierno if US combat troops will be gone from Iraq by the 2011 deadline. You can read the transcript with the rest of the interview here. King does his best during the entire interview to prod the General into criticizing the President, but he doesn't take the bait as in this example.

KING: General Odierno, you are the father of the surge strategy. You pushed for it when even many of your commanders wanted to get troops out of Iraq. How hard is it to develop a rapport with the president of the United States who thought your strategy was a reckless escalation?

ODIERNO: Well, first off, he's our commander-in-chief, and as the commander-in-chief, we take direction from him.

He has -- in all of the meetings I've had with him, he's very attentive, he is very -- he listens, he is incredibly intelligent, he talks through the issues and we discuss it. He makes a decision and then we execute those decisions, and that's all you can expect out of your commander-in-chief.

And he's -- and I've been very pleased with the interaction that I've been able to have with him.

Does anyone think if we had a Republican president right now that John King would be trying to get a sitting general to publicly disagree with their policies or ask them if they're capable of following orders?

Transcript of the above portion below the fold.

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On CNN's State of the Union show Sundays, they have their "Best Political Team on Television" segment, which pits different pundits who we see all week on CNN in roundtable discussions on several topics. In a discussion about the budget, the panel said that some budget cuts were needed and President Obama is going to seriously look at the military. Barbara Starr then said a bad word on TV:

KING: And Barbara, he's asking the Pentagon to come in with a smaller bottom line, even as he sends more troops to Afghanistan, says he wants to grow the army and grow the Marine Corps. So something's got to give, and most people think if you are going to get that money, you've got to get a big weapons program.

BARBARA STARR: Well, that's what Secretary Gates is saying, that he's going to make real deep cuts in all of this. But you know with the president taking off this week for the big trip to Europe, half of it is the economic agenda with the G-20, half of it is with NATO. He's got to take something to Europe and say to the Europeans, a lot of people think, here's what I want to have happen. He can't go and just listen. And so he's going with both the economic agenda and the security agenda and a lot of folks are watching to see what he actually comes back with.

KING: And in terms of the Pentagon finding something to cut, whether it's the F-22, whether it's something else down the road, when are we going to know?

STARR: That's being worked on in those 17.5 miles of Pentagon hallways right now. Nobody's talking about it, but you can sure bet that the lobbyists are scurrying all over Capitol Hill already.

YELLIN: Lobbyists?

KING: Lobbyists?

YELLIN: Bad word.

STARR: The defense contractors, they're trying to preserve everything they can.

We spend billions of dollars on weapons programs that we do not need, but the "lobbyists" will try to protect their precious contracts. Starr quickly pivoted to "defense contractors" instead of using their proper name: Lobbyists. Is there an attempt by TV talking heads to cover up for lobbyists? Will we now hear them referred to as "contractors?"

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz on CNN's State of the Union responding to John King questioning her with the media's latest talking points on bipartisanship and about what's going to happen to the bill once it goes to conference committee. She explains that Republicans refused the hand of bipartianship. The only people surprised by that are the media.

KING: As you know, the new president came to town promising a new era of bipartisanship. Eight years of George W. Bush, eight years of Bill Clinton, not much true bipartisanship in this town. Your speaker after the Senate compromise was reached on Friday, made clear she doesn't like it. She said this, "Washington seems consumed in the process argument of the bipartisanship when the rest of the country says they need this bill."

The process argument of bipartisanship. The president said it is a critical spirit to have in this town. Your boss in the House, the speaker, doesn't seem to think it's important.

SCHULTZ: On the contrary, Speaker Pelosi has made bipartisanship and reaching out in the Republicans in the House a priority. We made sure that we had markup after markup in committee this week and in the last few weeks which included Republican amendments that we heard, that some that we accepted.

We reached out our hand across the aisle, asked them to help craft this legislation. That was rejected. So we have made an effort at reaching out our hand across the aisle. They really seem to be more interested in making sure that this whole process fails. It's really baffling to me why they don't want to pass an economic recovery package. They'll have to answer the American people as to why that is.

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Lindsey Graham on CNN's State of the Union responding to John King's question about the closing of Guantanamo Bay calls it a "well run jail" and an "image problem" for the United States. King gives him an opportunity to continue with the 61 prisoners have been released to the battlefield propoganda that we saw earlier on Meet the Press from John Boehner as well. Talking points accomplished.

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Hey look who else apparently has their fax machine from the RNC in good working order. John King. King opens up this discussion on the stimulus package with Mike Pence by citing the nonexistent CBO report which was debunked by the Huffington Post. I guess it's a good thing these guys don't get their "news" from blogs, huh?