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[H/t CSpanJunkie]

If you ever needed evidence that right-wingers have no boundaries -- in terms logic, ethics, or basic decency -- that they will not trample all over in the defense of conservative "values" and leaders, check out Pam "Atlas Wanks Shrugs" Geller earlier this week on the Joy Behar show (along with Stephanie Miller), trying to tell Ron Reagan Jr. that his father would have been a big fan of Sarah Palin:

Behar: Ronald, let me ask Ron -- why do we pay attention to this woman? She has a point.

Reagan: Well, indeed, and I think we do have to pay attention to her, unfortunately -- it's sad that we have to pay attention to her, because she's totally unqualified for high office. Yet --

Geller: Your father would love her. Your father would love her.

Miller: First of all, his father didn't quit halfway through the term.

Geller: Neither did she. Neither did she. She did not quit. The Lower 48 needed her, and she heeded the call. She did not take the easy way out.

Reagan: No, she quit. No, Pam, she quit. When you leave the governorship halfway through your first term, it's called quitting. She quit.

Geller: She came to lead the next revolution.

Reagan: Quit. Quit.

Behar: Ron, Ron -- no, I want to hear from Ron. Why would your father not like this woman?

Reagan: Because she doesn't have a thought in her head. That's why.

Geller: That's what they said about your father.

Reagan: My father knew what he stood for, you can agree with it or disagree with it, he knew how -- what he stood for, he could explain what he stood for. He was conversant in domestic and foreign policy -- she's neither! She can't explain where she stands on anything!

Geller: Your father would love her, and frankly I don't think you can speak for your father, because you -- you don't even espouse --

Reagan: No, Pam, actually, have you ever met my father, Pam? Pam, did you ever meet my father?

Geller: Did you ever meet the Founding Father. I've read everything he said. I've read everything he said.

Reagan: Did you ever meet my father? I'm asking you a simple question. You can't answer that because the answer is no. So why don't you rely on someone who knew him very well to tell you what he would think of Sarah Palin.

Behar: It's really hard for you to argue with the offspring of the guy and claim you know more than he does.

Geller: He's nothing like the father! He doesn't share the epistemology of the father. He doesn't have the nature of his father, the knowledge -- he has nothing in common with the father. Look --

Behar: He knows what his father would think rather than you.

[Crosstalk]

Reagan: Is Pam still blathering about me and my father? Oh, you are. You still haven't met him, though, right? You still didn't know him, so you're just sort of making things up as you go along, right?

Geller: You never met him either. You know, you never met him either. Do you think you're making your father proud? Do you really think you're making your father proud?

Gateway Pundit thinks Geller "destroyed" Reagan. Um, okaaaay.

See what I mean? These people are from another planet.

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Seriously, is there anyone more annoying than Tucker Carlson? The least self-aware pundit on TV, still nursing his own bruised ego from the thorough spanking he received at the hands of a comedian that took down his show, cried that Jon Stewart is nothing more than a partisan hack in "attacking" Jim Cramer. Mr. "I'm an ideologue, not a partisan" repeats the favorite GOP meme that Cramer was only attacked because he dared to criticize Obama's budget. Hmm ... repeating GOP talking points ... but Carlson's not speaking on behalf of his party, no sirree.

Leave it to Carlson to completely miss the point. Despite Stephanie Miller's and Baltimore Sun's David Zurawik's multiple attempts to reason with the petulant, whiny man-child Carlson devolves into, Tucker can never grasp that the whole event was precipitated by Rick Santelli's rant on the trading floor and that Stewart's focus was not Cramer so much as the responsibility CNBC holds in informing the public rather than giving corporations carte blanche to propagandize on their channel. He's more concerned that Stewart, in his attempt to speak on behalf of the Democratic Party (huh?) is losing 'teh funny,' and will go the way of Lenny Bruce. Double huh?

The best part of the whole segment is after Carlson's plaintive wails (who needs a nap?), Howard Kurtz airs the Crossfire segment where Stewart calls Carlson a "partisan hack", a nice little STFU in not so many words. Perrspectives has more:

Prior to making his case this morning on CNN's Reliable Sources that Stewart is a "sanctimonious, partisan hack" and an operative for the Democratic Party, Carlson on Friday denounced him to the Politico:

Carlson, reached Friday, described Stewart as "a partisan demagogue."

"Jim Cramer may be sweaty and pathetic--he certainly was last night--but he's not responsible for the current recession," Carlson told POLITICO. "His real sin was attacking Obama's economic policies. If he hadn't done that, Stewart never would have gone after him. Stewart's doing Obama's bidding. It's that simple."

Of course, Jon Stewart's weeklong diatribe against CNBC was initially triggered by the network's Rick Santelli slandering troubled home mortgage owners as "losers." And as it turns out, it is Tucker Carlson who has made a career out of doing someone else's bidding. That someone else is the Republican Party - and his father Richard.

The scandal surrounding the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame and the subsequent conviction of Cheney chief-of-staff Scooter Libby provides case in point. Few voices on television were more strident in Libby's defense than Tucker Carlson. But throughout, he remained silent on his father's leadership of the Scooter Libby Legal Defense Fund.

From the beginning, Tucker Carlson aimed both barrels at Libby prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. In November 2005, he insisted Fitzgerald was "accusing Libby - falsely and in public - of undermining this country's security," adding, "Fitzgerald should apologize, though of course he never will." Reversing his past position in support of independent counsels, Carlson in February 2007 blasted "this lunatic Fitzgerald, running around destroying people's lives for no good reason."

Hey, Tucker "Pot" Carlson, guess what sanctimonious color you are!

John Amato:

At the end of the segment, Howard Kurtz give us his take and informs America that since Stewart is a comedian, he doesn't have to follow journalistic ethics for his humor and thinks Jon unfairly blamed CNBC for the entire economic meltdown. Using a wide brush to paint The Daily Show tries to diminish the impact Stewart had on CNBC because he didn't unfairly criticize them. Cramer's performance justified Stewart's concerns. That wasn't what Stewart was doing at all, but then Kurtz praises Stewart and says talking heads can learn a lot from him in their efforts to get at the truth from our politicians.

Kurtz: He has a way of cutting through the clutter and using clips to show when people were wrong. I think we need more of that.

Ya think?

Boy, even FOX News analysts are calling the Bush Administration (and the military generals--Watch out!) incompetent.

I have to admit that this story seemed completely buried until I heard it this morning on the Stephanie Miller Show. I only found one MSM story on it, which I don't remember seeing at the time, and I get MSNBC news alerts constantly. Maybe the press should try doing their job and ask a few questions at the next presser??? I'd think that it would be in the public's interest to know how well we are going after known enemies before they create even more in Iran, wouldn't you?

Col. David Hunt (ret.) on FOXNews.com (I'm citing the relevant portion if you don't want to give them the hits):

Besides, these things are of little consequence when you realize how we missed, squandered, screwed up, made a mess of and were massively risk adverse - again - when we did not kill Usama bin Laden in Afghanistan just two short months ago.

We know, with a 70 percent level of certainty - which is huge in the world of intelligence - that in August of 2007, bin Laden was in a convoy headed south from Tora Bora. We had his butt, on camera, on satellite. We were listening to his conversations. We had the world's best hunters/killers - Seal Team 6 - nearby. We had the world class Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) coordinating with the CIA and other agencies. We had unmanned drones overhead with missiles on their wings; we had the best Air Force on the planet, begging to drop one on the terrorist. We had him in our sights; we had done it. Nice job again guys - now, pull the damn trigger.

Unbelievably, and in my opinion, criminally, we did not kill Usama bin Laden.

You cannot make this crap up; truth is always stranger and more telling than fiction. Our government, the current administration and yes, our military leaders included, failed to kill bin Laden for no other reason than incompetence.

The current "boneheads" in charge will tell you all day long that we are fighting and dying in Iraq and Afghanistan to stop terrorists there so they do not come here. Nice talk, how about - just for a moment - acting like you mean what you say? You know walk the walk. These incidents, where we displayed a total lack of guts, like the one in August, are just too prevalent. The United States of America's political and military leadership has, on at least three separate occasions, chosen not capture or kill bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahri. We have allowed Pakistan to become a safe haven for Al Qaeda. We have allowed Al Qaeda to reconstitute, partially because of money they (Al Qaeda in Iraq) have been sending to Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

I'm waiting for Boehner to introduce a resolution censuring Col. Hunt now...

Today through Wednesday, progressive talk show host Stephanie Miller gets her chance to shine in Imus's old slot on MSNBC. If this morning's show was any indication, she could easily impact their ratings in the same way Keith Olberman has.

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Former CIA officer Larry Johnson was Stephanie's guest this morning to give his reaction to George Tenet's appearance last night on 60 Minutes. Larry and a group of former intelligence officers have written a letter to Tenet demanding that he donate a portion of the proceeds from his new book to the families of soldiers who have died in Iraq and to give back the Medal of Freedom he was given by George Bush.

Watch the clip and if you like what you see, send a note to General Manager Dan Abrams and VP Bill Wolff at MSNBC. Let them know that you'd like to see Stephanie Miller on MSNBC in the mornings instead of another Fox wannabe like this guy. Remember, be polite. Personally, I would tune in five days a week....

For those of you that didn't understand the reference Keith Olbermann made to Stephanie Miller in his Special Comment yesterday, After Stephanie Miller's appearance on H&C, she received an incredibly ugly letter from a Fox News viewer who called himself "Sock." Bradblog has full, unedited letter in all its hate-filled glory.

The idiot, er...the Fox fan was dumb enough to give Stephanie his phone number. So of course, Stephanie called him.

The meme we constantly hear from Fox is how "liberals are just full of hate." Well, Fox, look at how much hate YOUR fans are full of.

Update: John Amato

I receive a lot of hate and death threats so I've gotten used to it, but the hatred has really gotten out of hand from the right. Of course the media will not report on it because they are more interested in asking Youtube why a Malkin video got removed then deal with anything hurtful that conservatives say or do. It's very sad.

Mr. Atrios (Duncan Black),David Corn, Jerome Armstrong, Stephanie Miller and Christopher Rabb.

Download | play -WMP its about 40 minutes long

It will be a few minutes before its running because of the size.

I didn't have time to edit it so I posted the whole forum. It's a long clip so downloading will take a little bit. If anyone wants to make a Bittorrent or whatever and pass it around, be my guess.

This is a public service from C&L and a thank you for the donations that are coming in so far!

Palast for Conyers: The OTHER ' Memos' from Downing Street and Pennsylvania Avenue

via BlondeSense: Greg Palast, unable to attend hearings in Washington Thursday, has submitted the following testimony: Chairman Conyers,

It's official: The Downing Street memos, a snooty New York Times "News Analysis" informs us, "are not the Dead Sea Scrolls." You are warned, Congressman, to ignore the clear evidence of official mendacity and bald-faced fibbing by our two nations' leaders because the cry for investigation came from the dark and dangerous world of "blogs" and "opponents" of Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush....read on

writes: Of course, Editor & Publisher is correct to point out these serious questions about how major national newspapers will cover today’s events. I think they will certainly cover the Conyers’ hearing, but it probably will not be given the prominence or detail that it merits. By the way, Conyers appeared briefly on Stephanie Miller’s radio show this morning—and said that his letter demanding answers from Mr. Bush has now been signed by more than….wait for it…

553,000 Americans.

Now if only the media would catch up…

It's an interesting choice for the management of Air America: Promote liberal radio by firing your liberal hosts and replacing them with non-liberals.

I don't know Sam personally, but this really bugs me on his behalf. I think Sam did a great job on his show, and the information I gleaned from it was often fodder for my posts here. When Air America first started, the line up really appealed to me (Morning Sedition, Franken, Majority Report). Now it sounds like they are trying to make over AAR as moderate or left-leaning Limbaughs. Now that Sam is gone, Rachel Maddow and Stephanie Miller are the only things keeping me listening (and Stephanie isn't really AAR).

LTR-Liberal Talk Radio:

In a surprise move, talk show veteran Lionel has been tapped to take over Sam Seder's 9A-12P ET midday slot on Air America Radio, beginning May 14, according to radio industry news site All Access.

"Lionel will be an eclectic mixture of current events and off-the-wall topics infused with his special brand of humor," said Air America President Mark Green. "Because he's one of the biggest names in talk radio, Lionel will be a very important addition to our line-up and affiliate base."

"Air America is about one thing: radio. Not about ideology; but democracy. (emphasis added) Radio that's an alternative to the usual, bumper sticker Rush wannabe. Radio that's listenable," said Lionel. "My goal is to garner and gather listeners. If you've got a radio, I'm your guy. Listeners want smart, funny, thoughtful, thinking, entertaining talk radio.With that in mind, my first show for Air America will be 'Great Polkas of the 20th Century.'"[..]

Seder will wrap up his weekday show this Friday and will soon debut a Sunday afternoon show, to air 4-7P ET.

If you would like to give Air America feedback on their programming, you can contact them here:

Scott Elberg
Chief of Operations
selberg@airamerica.com

David Berstein
Program Director
dbernstein@airamerica.com

As always, please be polite. Nasty-grams aren't very persuasive.