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The conventional wisdom is that whichever party is in power during a down economy will suffer great losses come election time. Certainly, we can look at the '94 and '06 elections as verification of that rule.

But I would argue that we're not in an era of politics as usual. For all the rhetoric the corporate media pushes about anti-incumbent sentiment, special elections between 2008 and now have not borne out those theories. And as former DNC head Howard Dean points out, when the alternative is the insubstantive platform of the Republican Party, it's hard to justify electing them over the Democratic Party, no matter how ineffectual we find them.

I think this is the time to put that stuff behind us. We've got to win this election. And we're going to have -- after the election is over, we'll go back to having our policy fights, but this is about winning. You cannot get anything done unless you have a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House.

And the Republicans have proved it. They are the party of no. They haven't had a single constructive -- name one -- anybody who's watching this show, name one single constructive political initiative that the Republicans have put forward.

And when, finally, somebody did put forward one, Paul Ryan, he was lionized for three days and then abandoned by the Republicans because he wanted to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Name one thing that you could hope for from the Republicans if they should win this. That is not a winning strategy.

Transcripts below the fold

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On the eve of the invasion of Iraq, George Bush, famously or infamously, had to be instructed on the existence of and differences between Sunni and Shia Muslims. He had no idea--despite centuries of warfare between the two sects--that there was a difference.

Sadly, that cultural ignorance of most Americans is still being played and preyed upon when fostering fear of Islam here, especially in regards to the Cordoba House. As has been previously reported, the Cordoba House is being built by Sufi Muslims, a mystical sub-sect of the Shia Muslims and considered apostates of Wahabbist Sunni sub-sect of al Qaeda.

Fareed Zakaria highlights further proof of the al Qaeda hatred of the Sufis with the July attack on a Lahore, Pakistan Sufi shrine during prayers, which killed 41 and injured 175 more. What gets lost in the amped-up "fear of the Other" rhetoric of Gingrich and Palin and driven by media like Fox News, is that this is not a battle of Islam vs. the US.

Why would al Qaeda attack a holy place at a time of prayer? Because it is a Sufi shrine, part of a sect that al Qaeda despises and regards as a deadly foe in the real battle it is fighting, the battle within Islam.

The Sufis are a sector of Islam originating in South Asia. They're all about mysticism, love, brotherhood and devotion, with very little attention to dogma. They believe in saints, shrines, music, dance, and follow a very liberal interpretation of the Koran.

Sufi poets routinely extol the virtues of wine and song, both forbidden in the purer versions of Islam. Sufism has always believed in tolerance towards other people and religion, and in peace. You can see why al Qaeda views it as its mortal enemy. The more Muslims accept some version of Sufi Islam, the more dangerous for al Qaeda and its extreme jihadist philosophy.

It can't be said enough, with all the misinformation out there: Islam doesn't hate us. This is a battle between al Qaeda and everyone else that doesn't follow their own narrow vision of Islam, which includes other Muslims. The opposition to the Cordoba House is exactly what al Qaeda wants to see.

And how sad is it that George W. Bush eventually came around to understanding this divide and was more moderate in his statements about the Muslim world than the current crop of Republican leaders?

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Aren't we all so very grateful for privileged white men who have never known what it's like to be an oppressed minority to inform us what is or is not racism? It's so nice not to have to worry my pretty little mind about things like this, but just let those smart white guys tell me when to worry.

On Reliable Sources, Howard Kurtz is charged with looking at the way the media covers news events of the day. Since it was the major story of the week, it was no surprise that the Shirley Sherrod case came up from discussion.

But, as with David Brooks on Meet the Press, the discussion really wasn't about the failures of the media in covering the case. Both Joan Walsh and Jane Hall try to make that point and get interrupted by Kurtz and Matt Lewis, eager to keep pointing the finger at the White House. In fact, they push even further the same false equivalency theme, with Lewis (who writes for Breitbart's BigGovernment.com) claiming that the real victims are Andrew Breitbart and the Tea Party.

They even go so far to ask if Shirley Sherrod had the right to call Andrew Breitbart a racist and is the media giving her "a pass" for using that kind of language.

WALSH: The woman's father was murdered by a white farmer, and there were witnesses. And the white justice system never found the murderer guilty. She's entitled to talk about race any way she wants to.

LEWIS: Any way she wants to?

WALSH: That's not giving her a pass.

LEWIS: So if you've had a bad experience in your background, you can say just anything you want?

WALSH: Yes, any way she wants to. A bad experience in your background? I'm talking about murder. Murder, Matt.

And the fact of the matter is, the woman turned out to be the antithesis of Andrew Breitbart, who told a story of racial reconciliation and healing and forgiving white people, and going on to help white people --

LEWIS: I just don't think any of us should get --

WALSH: -- and going on to -- the issue in this country --

LEWIS: I just don't think any of us should get a pass to talk about --

WALSH: -- is class as much as race. I'm not giving her a pass. But I think the idea that she shouldn't be able to say Fox or Breitbart is racist preposterous. She gets to say that because it's true, and because from her vantage point it's especially true.

KURTZ: Well, in fairness, it's certainly debatable.

Excuse me, but WTF, Howie? There is nothing fair about that statement. This is a woman who has endured INSTITUTIONALIZED racism her whole life--watching the murderer of her father go free by a white grand jury, who organized and was then denied the ability to create a cooperative for black farmers, who ultimately lost her family farm because of Lester Maddox denying loans to black farmers, who was part of the largest successful civil rights violation lawsuit in the US, whose husband was a leading member of non-violent coordination in Georgia during the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, as the visibly seething Joan Walsh points out. Shirley Sherrod has lived with and tried to rise above the oppression and bigotry that you can't even contemplate, taking responsibility to make the world better for those who come after her.

But privileged Caucasian Howie Kurtz, sitting comfortably in his DC digs with his Republican fundraiser wife, can decide that it's "debatable" whether Shirley Sherrod, who has spent her life trying to help those who are poor and oppressed (rather than navel-gazing on the role of the media), knows racism when she sees it.

Howie Kurtz is earning scorn from both the right and the left for his grasp of the Sherrod firestorm. I'm sure he'll say that it proves he's right, since he's angered both sides of the aisle.

But Howie, it just proves that you're wrong, and EVERYONE can see it. Except you.

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Howard Kurtz had to twist like a pretzel for this, and it's truly ironic to see Politico's Roger Simon step up and set Howie straight.

KURTZ: Now, Rush Limbaugh also loves to stir controversy by design. And this week, he talked about the president and made a bit of news. Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

RUSH LIMBAUGH, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: That's exactly the same thing you could say about Obama. He wouldn't have been voted president if he weren't black.

Somebody asked me over the weekend why does somebody earn a lot of money, have a lot of money? I said because he's black. If Obama weren't black, he'd be a tour guide in Honolulu or he'd be teaching Saul Alinsky constitutional law or lecturing on it in Chicago.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

KURTZ: Of course here we are talking about Rush.

But did you find those comments to be more than just the usual Limbaugh rhetoric?

SIMON: You mean did I find them to be racist and repugnant? Yes, I found them to be racist and repugnant.

KURTZ: Why racist? Can't a case be made just on part of this that if Obama was a white freshman senator, he wouldn't have beaten Hillary for the nomination?

SIMON: I think anyone who beat Hillary for the nomination had something going for him besides race. And let's be fair. His race was not going for him. We only said that after he won.

He had to win in states where there was almost no black population. If he had lost in Iowa, the first Democratic contest, he would have been through. There are no black people in Iowa. He convinced white people that he really was an agent of change.

KURTZ: That's a good point.

First Howie tells us how Rush was just stirring controversy, that he didn't really mean it, but was just stirring it up for the sake of having a discussion. And when that doesn't work he tries really, really hard to convince the audience that there's some grain of legitimate thinking behind Limbaugh's amazing racist nastiness.

This goes beyond any attempt at "objectivity", and really, there's no real reason for any serious reporter to even try and be "objective" about Rush Limbaugh anyway. Objectivity should not apply when the subject is clearly wrong. What happened to pointing out the Emperor's nakedness?

Let's get serious for a minute, Howie. Any argument that starts with "If Obama were a white freshman senator..." is a racist argument. Period. It marginalizes any skill Obama has in favor of his race, status and position.

With each day that passes, CNN is sinking lower into the abyss. The idea of Howard Kurtz hosting a show called "Reliable Sources" is, well...laughable.

After 20 years working for CNN, Senior Mideast Affairs editor Octavia Nasr is leaving. Why? Because she dared to express sadness at the passing of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, stirring all sorts of anger from the right.

Evidently, if you're CNN, it's perfectly fine to hire commentators who refer to a US Supreme Court justice as a "goat f@$king child molester", but God forbid an emotional, somewhat easily misinterpreted tweet should be granted similar mercy.

CNN's internal memo (according to Mediaite) dismisses her with this terse explanation:

I had a conversation with Octavia this morning and I want to share with you that we have decided that she will be leaving the company. As you know, her tweet over the weekend created a wide reaction. As she has stated in her blog on CNN.com, she fully accepts that she should not have made such a simplistic comment without any context whatsoever. However, at this point, we believe that her credibility in her position as senior editor for Middle Eastern affairs has been compromised going forward.

In other words, she didn't carry the requisite press bias toward Israel?

Her original tweet (now apparently deleted) was this:

“Sad to hear of the passing of Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah… One of Hezbollah’s giants I respect a lot.”

Yesterday she posted a clarification on her blog.

Here's what I should have conveyed more fully:

I used the words "respect" and "sad" because to me as a Middle Eastern woman, Fadlallah took a contrarian and pioneering stand among Shia clerics on woman's rights. He called for the abolition of the tribal system of "honor killing." He called the practice primitive and non-productive. He warned Muslim men that abuse of women was against Islam.

She also clarified her position with regard to his other activities with regard to Hezbollah; in fact, she made it clear that acts of Hezbollah had killed members of her own family:

It is no secret that Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah hated with a vengeance the United States government and Israel. He regularly praised the terror attacks that killed Israeli citizens. And as recently as 2008, he said the numbers of Jews killed in the Holocaust were wildly inflated.

But it was his commitment to Hezbollah's original mission - resisting Israel's occupation of Lebanon - that made him popular and respected among many Lebanese, not just people of his own sect.

In 1983, as Fadlallah found his voice as a spiritual leader, Islamic Jihad - soon to morph into Hezbollah - bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 299 American and French peacekeepers. I lost family members in that terror attack.

At the same time, she notes that he ultimately emerged as a more moderate voice against the harsher, more powerful Iranian clerics.

In later years, Hezbollah's leadership apparently did not like Fadlallah's vocal criticism of Hezbollah's allegiance to Iran. Nor did they like his assertions that Hezbollah's leaders had been distracted from resistance to Israeli occupation of portions of Lebanon and had turned weapons against their own people.

At first, he was simply pushed to the side, but later wasn't even referred to as a Hezbollah member. Rather, he was referred to as the scholar - the expert on Islam - but nothing more. During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, his honorary title "Sayyed" - indicating that he's a descendant of the prophet - was dropped any time he was mentioned on Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV and other Hezbollah media outlets.

The only thing this proves is that when it comes to Israel and the Middle East, emotions run so high and so hot that I doubt anything resembling peace can ever come to pass. There is a centuries-old rift that gets scratched open by the softest fabrics brushing thin skin. It doesn't matter what side the US takes, or what side Nasr takes on these issues. I'm certain Nasr's position at CNN -- even though she is a Lebanese Christian -- has long been a bone of contention among the pro-Israel press.

I will miss her. She was one of the few journalists on Twitter who quoted Pablo Neruda and shared the sheer joy of her travel and her job. She loved that job. I'm sure she's heartbroken.

I agree with the sentiments of her Twitter fan, Bashar Hamad:

I wonder if all these people so quick to jump on @octavianasrCNN comment Re: Fadlallah's passing be so quick to jump on real hate speech

Not only wouldn't they, they're the ones who routinely step up and use it. Whether it's racist comments about our President or libeling Supreme Court justices, they not only don't jump on it, they embrace it in the name of the First Amendment.

Fareed Zakaria gave the collective American media a much needed drubbing for their ridiculously trivial coverage of the catastrophic BP Gulf oil spill. Rather than looking for solutions or presenting a history of BP safety violations to show a long history of negligent behavior, or advocating for sensible regulations to protect the country, what did the media focus their energies on? Whether or not Obama appeared angry enough about the disaster.

This whole discussion is a terrible example of how the media can trivialize political discussion. The presidency is a serious job, the most serious job in the country. And here we are, asking the man to dress the part, to play-act the emotions. Give us satisfaction by just doing something, even if it’s all phony stuff, designed to give the impression of action.

Hard to argue with that.

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Michael Ware reporting from Afghanistan, Sept. 2009

All things CNN:

We won't be seeing any more of Michael on CNN...

In addition to having taken a break recently in order to work on his book, it is no secret that he has been grappling with PTSD, brought on from the hellish years he worked in Baghdad. I was told that, unfortunately, when he needed more time off in order to deal with things, his request was denied. So he will not be returning.

While it is a huge loss for us (and for CNN) I am extremely relieved that he chose to take care of his own needs first. And while I sincerely hope that he will return to US television someday on another network, it is far more important that he gets the care he needs.

His work for CNN over the past four years has been an astonishing and brutally honest look at the causes and results of war. Not easy subject matter to watch… but he made us care. His urgency and passion burst through our television sets and made us pay attention, made us want to understand.[..]

And exactly how does a news organization justify (to themselves, even!) not giving their war correspondents whatever they need in order to deal with their wounds, whether they are visible ones or not? If ABC had treated Bob Woodruff so callously, there would have been hell to pay. I don’t doubt they wanted him back in the field ASAP — doubly so after losing Christiane Amanpour — but don’t force him to make a choice between getting better and getting paid. That just sucks. Surely it would be better to have him off the air but still yours once he is ready to come back than to have him off the air and someone else’s upon his return? So not only has CNN made a callous move here, they have made a stupid one, as well.

What a tremendous asset he has been to CNN. And how foolish they are to lose him.

Michael War was a breath of fresh air with his reporting in the Gulf. Look at how he blew past the empty rhetoric of Bush and generals,Petraeus, Condi Rice, Lieberman and McCain with brutal and unflinching honesty about the conditions there. I can only imagine the nightmares he still endures. And CNN's response to his pain (which Men's Journal covered in Dec. 2008 in a powerful interview with Ware) was to tell him he wasn't allowed any more time to come to terms with the death and destruction he saw daily for years for their benefit. Instead, they hire one of the great armchair soldiers, Erick Erickson.

Feist isn't exactly wrong about this. Goldman Sachs employees did contribute nearly a million dollars to Obama's presidential campaign in 2008. But Robert Yoon's article linked in his post is wrong, and I can't figure out if it was just an editing error or intended to be inflammatory. Whatever it is, it's probably worth putting a stake through the heart of the ever-recycled rumor of Goldman Sach's PAC donations.

What Yoon says:

According to Federal Election Commission figures compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, Goldman Sachs' political action committee and individual contributors who listed the company as their employer donated $994,795 during 2007 and 2008 to Obama's presidential campaign, the second highest contribution from a company PAC and company employees. Only the PAC and employees of the University of California, which donated more than $1.5 million, topped Goldman Sachs. Federal law prohibits a company from directly giving money to a campaign committee.

What the Open Secrets (Center for Responsive Politics) reports say:

A little perspective

This is important. There is a refund of one effort by a PAC to donate, and an issue-related donation of $300. That is the only PAC money applicable to the Obama 2008 campaign. I can understand how Yoon concluded that such a large total must have included PAC funds. There's a summary at the top of the Open Secrets page which cautions viewers to understand what PACs are and what role they play, since companies can't be direct donors. However, if Yoon had clicked on the donor stats tab on the page he viewed, he would have gotten a little more perspective on the whole Goldman Sachs campaign donation thing, and why he's wrong to make a big deal out of it.

While it is true that Goldman-Sachs employees gave nearly a million dollars to the Obama campaign, it's equally true that no one donor gave any more than any other individual from any other profession, and when taken as a percentage of the total given to his campaign, it was less than 1% of the total given by everyone.

It is also true that the Obama campaign received more from small contributors ($200 or less) than any other campaign in history -- over $25 million. That number represents more than 125,000 individuals.

319,706 people donated $200 or more to the Obama campaign in 2008. 60.5% of them donated $1,000 or less. Those donors represent 21% of total donations, or $73.5 million. In contrast, if every single Goldman Sachs employee gave $2300, it would represent 433 donors. If we added up every Wall Street firm on the Open Secrets list and assumed each employee gave the maximum, it would represent 1,576 donors out of the nearly 59,000 who gave more than $2300 to his campaign.

Now that we have donor information from the Center for Responsive Politics in perspective, what exactly is CNN's point, anyway? Lots of people donated. Who gets more weight? The ones who gave $25 million in increments of $5 each, or the ones who gave $1 million capped at $2,300 each?

I think we can all figure out the answer to that.

(image courtesy of Mediaite)

It's no secret that CNN is tacking hard right, trying to pick up Fox News viewers. Hiring the likes of Bushie, Fran Townsend, and more recently, bringing right wing extremist "blogger" Erick Erickson on board and of course, their inexplicably positive coverage of the ongoing sham known as the Tea Party Express.

Tommy Christoper at Mediaite posted a story on April 4th respectfully refuting some claims made by C&L's Karoli, that CNN was actively pimping the tea party movement:

Upon closer inspection, however, it appears that while the effect of CNN’s coverage may be to promote the Tea Party Express, that’s not the intent. I think CNN is looking for another kind of gold in them thar Tea Party hills.

Fair enough. He disagreed with Karoli's opinion, but he kept digging and what do you know -- it appears that CNN is actively reaching out to far right propagandists like Newsbusters, touting how "fair and balanced" they really are:

A few days ago, I took a look at a Crooks and Liars post that suggested CNN was “pimping” the Great American “Tea Party Express PR and Propaganda Tour.” While I agreed with much of the post, I didn’t think CNN’s motivation was to promote the Tea Party tour, but rather, to be in the right place at the right time when something juicy happens.

As it turns out, reporting by conservative Newsbusters seems to confirm elements of liberal Crooks and Liars‘ thesis, or at the very least, that CNN is trying to have it both ways.

Apparently, CNN has become so desperate to boost ratings and attract Fox viewers, that they've actually stooped to wooing conservative bottom feeders like Michelle Malkin. (warning, link goes to her site) Christopher also posts an e-mail sent to Newsbusters from someone at CNN attacking their lefty critics:

“Clearly our critics from the left don’t think we should be covering the Tea Party movement in the way we are and clearly CNN thinks it’s a legitimate and important story.

If anyone from Newsbusters is interested in this angle – let me know.”

Well, this CNN employee is right - we lefties would definitely prefer that they not cover an illegitimate, astroturfed group of white, angry, racist fringe lunatics and militia nuts as though they were a legitimate, grass roots political organization. What next? Will CNN hire Charles Dyer as a "military analyst?"

Alan Grayson really lets this Young Americans For Freedom twerp have it on a CNN interview hosted by Rick Sanchez:

SANCHEZ: Well this is what a lot of the Democratic congressmen, folks like Alan Grayson, says proves that the Republican Party is not only in line with the tea party movement but has actually created the heated rhetoric that has caused some of those acts of incivility that we have seen. How would you respond to that?

MARKS: Well, I would hate to believe that Chairman Steele, an African-American, would go and be one of the people to incite these, you know, the responses and really the disgusting behavior of a few individuals. I don't think he --

SANCHEZ: Wait a minute. Are you saying that because Chairman Steele is an African-American he's incapable of using heated rhetoric that may cause someone to become or say something racist?

MARKS: Well, I don't think he was calling for people to have racist response.

SANCHEZ: Well, I'm not talking about Chairman Steele. I'm not talking about Chairman Steele.

MARKS: OK.

SANCHEZ: I am talking about the congressmen who were outside. And I don't know, do we have that picture? We don't have that. All right.

MARKS: I mean, are you going to judge the entire Democratic Party by a few people that hold up Nazi symbols at their rallies? I don't think -- I think this is a double standard that we're seeing here.

(CROSSTALK)

GRAYSON: That's ridiculous. That's absolutely ridiculous.

MARKS: And to say it's because of the ideology to point to the ideology, this is the actual prejudice that conservatives face on college campuses --

GRAYSON: Oh, how sad.

MARKS: -- in the nation to say automatically anything that you say is going to be considered racist.

SANCHEZ: No, no, we weren't saying that. I wasn't. But let me just ask you --

MARKS: Well, I think Congressman Grayson was.

SANCHEZ: What Democratic congressman has held up a swastika?

GRAYSON: It's never happened. He's lying. Stop lying.

MARKS: I never said the congressman held up a swastika. But what Republican congressman did you see holding swastikas. And wasn't it a Democrat Senator Byrd that was a member of the KKK? Are you going to hold the entire party accountable because of that?

SANCHEZ: Senator -- I mean, Congressman Grayson?

GRAYSON: Well, that's premature. But listen, we have now reached the point of absurdity. OK. The right has fomented a national nervous breakdown. They keep pushing the panic button on their followers over and over and over again, trying to get them stoked on hatred and on fear. And they've succeeded. They've succeed in driving these people to the point where they're threatening my 5- year-old son.

Now why don't you just say you're sorry? That's what you ought to be saying, I'm sorry. Don't try to push it off on the Democrats. Say you're sorry. Apologize to my 5-year-old.

MARKS: Tea party should not be accepting responsibility for this. The Republican Party should not be accepting responsibility for this.

GRAYSON: Well, look --

MARKS: The Democratic Party should not be accepting responsibility for this. Individuals need to accept responsibility. When you -- when you --

GRAYSON: You're not accepting responsibility.

MARKS: When you said that the health care bill is similar to a holocaust, they didn't hold the Democratic Party responsible.

GRAYSON: You were in that crowd. You were cheering.

MARKS: You went ahead and apologized for your individual remarks. Am I wrong? Did you apologize for saying that this health care bill is going to cause, if it's not passed it's going to cause a holocaust? And you apologized for it, is that right?

(CROSSTALK)

GRAYSON: You know, listen, people like you -- people like you -- and it's very apt that your name is Marks -- people like you, your dreams turn into other people's nightmares. And it's time you owned up to it.

MARKS: We as conservatives believe we have winning principles and we stick by these principles. Small government.

GRAYSON: Your principles are violence.

MARKS: I don't think anyone and my principles are --

GRAYSON: Anger, hatred and violence.

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