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I can never tell with these tea party types if it's massive ignorance or hubris that keeps them going.

Because if I was the subject of an extra-marital sex scandal, I don't know that I would write a book entitled "Can't Is Not An Option." Seems like you're writing the jokes for your detractors.

Furthermore, if I was about to be possibly indicted for tax fraud, I don't know that I would make the rounds promoting that book, lest some very uncomfortable questions are asked.

And if by some chance I ignored all good sense and did the things above, when asked to proffer up proof that there isn't a war on women's rights within the GOP, I sure as hell wouldn't be stupid enough to say, "Well, women don't care about contraception."

But then again, I'm not Nikki Haley.

Because it's "The View", we're not going to be subjected to a deep discussion about it, but co-host Joy Behar pushed back right away and you can see that Haley knew she messed up good and immediately tried to cast about to save herself, conceding that women do care, but not only contraception.

HALEY: While we care about contraception, let’s be clear: All we’re saying is we don’t want government to mandate when we have to have it and when we don’t. We want to be able to make that decision, we don’t need any government making that decision for us.

Excuse me, what? When is the government mandating the use of birth control? Do you even understand the words coming out of your mouth? It's lucky for Haley that they ran up against a break before Whoopi and Joy could say anything.

And pundits sit and try to figure out why women prefer Obama to a GOP candidate by almost two to one.

David Neiwert covered it originally when Eric Bolling went ghetto describing a White House visit by the President of Gabon. I, of course, am not one of the two dozen regular viewers of Fox Business Channel, so I missed it, which is probably a good thing for the switchboard operators at Fox Business.

But like me, Whoopi Goldberg heard it after the fact and decided to let Eric Bolling know just what she thought of his attempt to be street. Surprise, surprise, even Elizabeth Hasselbeck thought it went over the line. Will she remember that the next time she's on Fox?

For what it's worth, this is hardly Eric Bolling's first time being openly racist. Media Matters (who has to be at least 2-3 of the two dozen viewers Fox Business Channel enjoys) has documented Bolling's previous racist statements, but hell, why stop there?

Bolling's History Of Other Inflammatory Rhetoric And Smears

Bolling Habitually Scapegoats And Stokes Fear Of Muslims

Bolling Has Promoted Numerous Conspiracy Theories

Bolling Has Demonized Immigrants

Bolling Has Made Numerous False Claims About Energy And Repeatedly Shilled For More Oil Drilling

Bolling Regularly Mocks, Denies Climate Change

Bolling Has A Long Track Record Of False Claims About The Economy And Taxes

"Crush Collective Bargaining": Bolling Targets Labor Unions

Bolling Has Made False Claims Regarding Obama And Foreign Policy

Bolling Hyped Debunked ACORN Videos, Attacked ACORN

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Bill O'Reilly was in prime "We'll do it live!" form this morning on ABC's The View -- launching into a bigoted tirade, claiming that "Muslims killed us on 9/11!" It so infuriated co-hosts Whoopi Goldberg and Joy Behar -- who just a little earlier had been given the O'Reilly "shut up and listen you stupid bimbo" treatment -- that they walked off the stage together.

It was entertaining, if nothing else:

The Fox commentator was a guest on ABC's talk show Thursday to promote his new "Pinheads and Patriots" book. The discussion got increasingly heated over the "Ground Zero Mosque" debate and he later went on to say "Muslims killed us On 9/11."

Co-Host Whoopi Goldberg disputed O'Reilly's claims that the mosque was inappropriate. "There were 70 families who are muslim who also died in that building," she said.

"Seventy percent of Americans don't want that mosque down there, so don't give me the 'we' business," said O'Reilly to co-host Joy Behar; the studio audience applauded.

Afterward, when pressed by Goldberg and Behar to explain why the "Ground Zero mosque" was somehow "inappropriate," O'Reilly leaned over and pointed at Goldberg saying, "Muslims killed us on 9/11."

Goldberg exclaimed , "That is such bullsh*t," in the midst of a cacophony of back-and-forth yelling. Goldberg shouted that "Timothy McVeigh [the convicted American-born terrorist who blew up the Oklahoma City Building in 1995] was Christian" before she and Behar walked off the set in protest. They later came back to finish the show.

Barbara Walters criticized her co-hosts for walking off stage during the live show. But she said O'Reilly should make the distinction that extremists committed the terrorist act.

Behar and Goldberg returned after O'Reilly said that "if anyone felt that I was demeaning all Muslims, I apologize."

"If anyone felt that"? Gee, I couldn't imagine why they would "feel" something as plain on the nose on your face, Bill.

O'Reilly simply can't escape a simple fact: His position on the "Ground Zero mosque" controversy is innately bigoted, because it is founded on conflating all Muslims with a tiny fringe of violent radicals.

Incidentally, I'm not so sure Tim McVeigh is the best comparison to make to the 9/11 fanatics when it comes to domestic terrorists, other than that he was such a successful mass murderer -- mainly because McVeigh was only nominally a Christian and really was not motivated by religion so much as ideology. A better comparison, frankly, would be with Eric Rudolph, who was decidedly Christian and decidedly motivated by religion.

Or how about Scott Roeder? That's a comparison O'Reilly knows all about. And it just might sting a bit harder.

There have been a number of right wingers who have been accused of plagiarism and lifting other's work in recent years. Most notably, Cindy McCain, Ann Coulter and Ben Domenech and more recently, Sarah Palin was caught lifting passages from Newt Gingrich. Now, an author has accused wingnut Elisabeth Hasselbeck of lifting her content "word for word" in her new book:

BOSTON – The author of a health book has sued Elisabeth Hasselbeck, accusing the co-host of ABC's "The View" of plagiarism.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in federal court in Massachusetts, alleges that Hasselbeck lifted "word for word" content from a book written by Susan Hassett, a self-published author on Cape Cod.

Hassett said in the lawsuit that she sent Hasselbeck a personal note and copy of her "Living With Celiac Disease" book as a courtesy after the television celebrity disclosed she had the illness last year.

Wasn't that nice of Elisabeth? Hassett was kind enough to send her a copy of her book, only to find out that she lifted parts of it to write her own. Not only does she lift passages, Hassett claims that Hasselbeck's book contains bogus and possibly dangerous information:

Hassett said Hasselbeck's book "slavishly reproduces" lists and passages from her own work and includes inaccuracies about celiac disease that can be "misleading and dangerous" for people with the illness. Read on...

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Sure, like Duncan says, Glenn Beck is a WATB. We knew that the first time he cried on-air for us.

He's also an evasive guy when confronted with his falsehoods. We saw that yesterday on The View. Whoopie Goldberg's epithet for Beck -- A Lying Sack of Dog Mess -- is a name that's going to stick, like something on the bottom of his shoe.

In fact, we now have a new acronym for him: the LSDM. We don't need to use his actual name anymore.

Oh, yeah, besides being a WATB -- check out his website's report in which he claims he was "ambushed" -- he's also seriously FOS. As when he called in sick for his own show that same afternoon, leaving us to the tender mercies of Judge Napolitano and Michelle Malkin.

Then, at the very end, he called in all plugged-up sounding and claimed he had "a case of the 24-hour swine flu". And then proceeded to once again prevaricate about the "ridiculous" interview we had all just watched that morning.

Beck: Apparently I was a liar because I said that -- which is true -- uh, that she -- I, I, Barbara Walters said hello to me, instead, it was I said hello to Barbara Walters. I walked up to her -- I guess that's we need to spend our time on for seven minutes.

In Beck's truncated version of what transpired at The View, the only reason to call him a liar was that he and Walters had different views on who said hello first. But that's BS On A Stick.

Roll the tape: You'll quickly note that the greeting disagreement started things off, but the main reason they called him a liar was that his whole story on the radio was a narrative about how you can't reserve a seat on an Amtrak train, and here these two media elites came and got reserved seats! The audacity!

But as both Walters and Goldberg explained to the LSDM, they hadn't gotten reserved seats at all. They had worked their ways back to that car after finding no seats in the front cars.

The LSDM, as is his wont, was just making stuff up. No wonder he kinda accidentally omitted that from his lamestain excuse -- it would have made it just that much lamer.

In any event, we remain indebted to Whoopie Goldberg for her masterful contribution to the Wingnut Lexicon.

Krugman:

There are now three big questions about economic policy. First, does the administration realize that it isn’t doing enough? Second, is it prepared to do more? Third, will Congress go along with stronger policies?

On the first two questions, I found Mr. Obama’s latest interview with The Times anything but reassuring.

“Our belief and expectation is that we will get all the pillars in place for recovery this year,” the president declared — a belief and expectation that isn’t backed by any data or model I’m aware of. To be sure, leaders are supposed to sound calm and in control. But in the face of the dismal data, this remark sounded out of touch.

And there was no hint in the interview of readiness to do more.

A real fix for the troubles of the banking system might help make up for the inadequate size of the stimulus plan, so it was good to hear that Mr. Obama spends at least an hour each day with his economic advisors, “talking through how we are approaching the financial markets.” But he went on to dismiss calls for decisive action as coming from “blogs” (actually, they’re coming from many other places, including at least one president of a Federal Reserve bank), and suggested that critics want to “nationalize all the banks” (something nobody is proposing).

As I read it, this dismissal — together with the continuing failure to announce any broad plans for bank restructuring — means that the White House has decided to muddle through on the financial front, relying on economic recovery to rescue the banks rather than the other way around. And with the stimulus plan too small to deliver an economic recovery ... well, you get the picture.

Sooner or later the administration will realize that more must be done. But when it comes back for more money, will Congress go along?

My guess? No.

Republicans are now firmly committed to the view that we should do nothing to respond to the economic crisis, except cut taxes — which they always want to do regardless of circumstances. If Mr. Obama comes back for a second round of stimulus, they’ll respond not by being helpful, but by claiming that his policies have failed.

The broader public, by contrast, favors strong action. According to a recent Newsweek poll, a majority of voters supports the stimulus, and, more surprisingly, a plurality believes that additional spending will be necessary. But will that support still be there, say, six months from now?

Also, an overwhelming majority believes that the government is spending too much to help large financial institutions. This suggests that the administration’s money-for-nothing financial policy will eventually deplete its political capital.

Yeah, politicians don't seem to recognize that most people have grasped the difference between economic stimulus (Good!) and the never-ending banking bailout. (Bad!)

So here’s the picture that scares me: It’s September 2009, the unemployment rate has passed 9 percent, and despite the early round of stimulus spending it’s still headed up. Mr. Obama finally concedes that a bigger stimulus is needed.

But he can’t get his new plan through Congress because approval for his economic policies has plummeted, partly because his policies are seen to have failed, partly because job-creation policies are conflated in the public mind with deeply unpopular bank bailouts. And as a result, the recession rages on, unchecked.

O.K., that’s a warning, not a prediction. But economic policy is falling behind the curve, and there’s a real, growing danger that it will never catch up.

Barbara Walters: Where are the Republicans? Why is he now the leader of the party?

Joy Behar: He said 'I hopes he fails.' That's very unpatriotic as far as I'm concerned.

Sherri Shepherd: If Obama fails, let's say with this whole stimulus package, this is coming off the backs of children. If this fails. America could fail. So, you can't separate Obama from America.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck: There were plenty of people who wanted Bush to fail. Let me redirect it a little bit. What concerns me even more than what Rush Limbaugh said was Obama's reaction. I just hope that when talking to Democrats, let's not solely rely on Keith Olbermann or Chris Matthews. Did he give them the same lecture?

Walters: The Democrats are not picking these people to be their leaders. Republicans are, Elisabeth.

The Republicans in a sense are relying on Rush Limbaugh, the Democrats are not relying on ... I think what was more upsetting was when he brought race into it.

The race-baiting by Limbaugh didn't bother Palin's pal. After 9/11 (since they brought it up), America hoped George Bush would succeed. Partisanship was at an all-time low, but poor EH is just clueless. She's dismissing Limbaugh's outrageous comments at a time when America's economy is hanging by a thread, and to make Rush appear to be sane, she plays the conservative game: Blame other people for different behavior on the left.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck thinks that Rush Limbaugh begging for Obama to fail is on the same level as Keith Olbermann calling out all the lies told by the Bush administration.

Excuse us, Ms. Hasselbeck, Limbaugh went on record saying that he hoped Obama failed. Did Olbermann and Matthews ever go on record and say that they hope President Bush failed? They may be very critical of Bush but did they ever say they wanted him to fail?

NOPE, there is difference, a big difference between being critical of a president and hoping he fails. Given the over the top knee jerk reactions that the wingnuts had whenever anyone was remotely critical of Bush, Limbaugh’s words could be considered treasonous.

Does anybody remember what happened to the Dixie Chicks?

For a right-wing woman to apologize for a man who basically hates women (except when he has his little blue pills) is pretty appalling.

I watched only a few minutes of The View today, but here's an interesting tidbit that TP captured:

On ABC's The View today, host Joy Behar complained to John McCain that "you used to be more of the Maverick, then you sort of turned." "In what way?" McCain asked. "You became much more lockstep, I think, with your party, with George Bush's policies," Behar answered, adding, "I don't see the old John McCain. ... I understand why - you want to get elected." McCain issued this challenge in his defense:

I've been through this litany before, where I say, "ok, what specific area have I quote changed?" Nobody can name it. ... I am the same person and I have the same principles.

Here at C&L we'll take that challenge and it only took a few minutes to prove him wrong.

John Kerry did a good job on McCain

And we have: John McCain’s Evolution on Abortion

John McCain flip flops on Taxes on Social Security

Flip-Flopping On Oil Drilling Proves Lucrative For McCain

Or how about this one: McCain Sets a New Record: 10 Flip-Flops in Two Weeks

I wonder if McCain was expecting a soft-ball interview today on "The View" because he sure didn't get one. Joy Behar and Barbara Walter grill McCain on how he could possibly approve of ads that are so riddle with distortions and outright falsehoods.

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"There are ads running from your campaign... Now we know that those two ads are untrue, they are lies. And yet, you say at the end of it you 'approve these messages.' Do you really approve these?"

Who would have thought the ladies of "The View" could be so hard-hitting?:

CNN: McCain Gets Grilled on The View.

Republican nominee Sen. John McCain, appearing Friday on ABC's "The View," was aggressively pressed on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's qualifications to be vice president as well as his new campaign ads that several independent fact-check groups have called misleading...read on

HuffPo has more clips.

Informed Comment: McCain, Palin and NOLA

Democurmudgeon: Have you noticed how Republicans love the idea of a Republican, like Palin , going after the major American oil companies so she could tax them?

Oliver Willis: John McCain and his roommates

Ken Silverstein: Since Obama's pastor was vetted more carefully than McCain's running mate, now seems like a good time to examine the viewpoints of Sarah Palin's two most recent pastors.

Economist's View: The Death of the Credit Card Economy

Politics in the Zeros: In Minneapolis, Federal and local thugs with badges are violating the law.