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Bill O'Reilly was all worked up last night on his Fox News show about that DailyKos poll revealing the Republican base for the collection of nutcases that it's fast becoming -- thanks in no small part to Fox News.

He launched into a vicious attack on not just DailyKos, but the rest of the liberal blogosphere as well, comparing them to the Birthers:

Apparently the leader of the Kos brigade is writing a book comparing Republicans and conservatives to the Taliban, and so this poll was designed to back up his insane point of view.

The survey says 39 percent of self-identified Republicans believe President Obama should be impeached. Sixty-three percent believe he is a socialist. Only 42 percent of GOPers think the president was actually born in the United States. And 31 percent believe he hates white people.

Now, if you believe that poll, you also believe Nancy Pelosi once dated Dick Cheney. The poll is a fraud, as is the Web site. But what is serious is the hatred that ideological Internet nuts continue to spew out there, and they have enablers on TV and radio, as we all know.

In fact, President Obama himself is very annoyed by the continuing intrusion that cable news has upon his administration. On Wednesday, he said this while addressing Democratic senators:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: If everybody here turned off your CNN, your Fox, your, you know, just turn off the TV, MSNBC, blogs, and just go talk to folks out there, instead of being in this echo chamber where the topic is constantly politics.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Now, "Talking Points" understands the president's pique, but when you consider that the mainstream media has been very friendly to Mr. Obama, his concern about cable TV news rings somewhat hollow. I mean, just about every major urban newspaper in America loves the president, so I don't know why he's so annoyed that there are few verbal snipers on the tube.

What Mr. Obama should be concerned about is the growing acceptance of lies by some Americans on both the left and the right. For example, by investigating the birth announcements in two Honolulu newspapers in August of 1961, "The Factor" has proven that Barack Obama was indeed born in America. It would have been impossible for anyone to get bogus birth announcements into two newspapers. And why would anyone bother unless they knew baby Barack would someday become President Barack? The birther deal is just madness.

On the left, we already told you about the crazy Kos people, but somehow folks like Arianna Huffington are now considered legitimate news sources. That's what the president should be worried about.

It is now very easy to demonize anyone in America, to slander and libel them all day long. There's no question the president has been treated unfairly in some precincts, but the garbage flows both ways, and Mr. Obama should point that out.

That's right, it's not right-wing kookery that Obama should be concerned about -- it's the liberal blogosphere.

Of course, O'Reilly neglects to provide any examples in which the liberal blogs, either DailyKos or HuffingtonPost or for that matter any of the rest of us on the "far left", have actually traded in bizarre conspiracy theories or provably false information. Indeed, what we've all tended to be preoccupied with is the provably false information and bizarre conspiracy theories being peddled on Fox News.

So then he brought on Karl Rove to agree with him:

O'Reilly: Now, the DailyKos -- it's interesting, it's not a real power in America but it does get picked up by powerful people, which is usually the way this game works. These far-out websites on the left, and on the right, a little bit, but not so much, uh, filter their little garbage into the New York Times and other people and then it gets mainstreamed out.

They are presenting a picture of the Republican Party as a bunch of extreme loons. You know, they want Obama impeached, they think he's not born here, or that he's a racist, he hates white people. You know, what I'm trying to get at it is this:

There's no doubt there's an extreme element of the Republican Party in the conservative movement. There's no doubt. They're there. But how much do you think that is?

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You know, the Villagers are so uniformly self-centered and oblivious to larger reality that it's too much like shooting fish in a barrel to go after them -- too easy and not quite sporting.

But the bed-wetting Richard Cohen takes it to higher levels than almost anyone else:

There is almost nothing the Obama administration does regarding terrorism that makes me feel safer.

Because it's all about you, isn't it, Richard?

Whether it is guaranteeing captured terrorists that they will not be waterboarded, reciting terrorists their rights, or the legally meandering and confusing rule that some terrorists will be tried in military tribunals and some in civilian courts, what is missing is a firm recognition that what comes first is not the message sent to America's critics but the message sent to Americans themselves. When, oh when, will this administration wake up?

What, you mean the concept that we all have equal rights under the law? Yes, I can see where that idea might cause some problems.

[...] No doubt George Bush soiled America's image abroad with what looked liked vigilante justice and Dick Cheney's hearty endorsement of ugly interrogation measures. But more is at stake here than America's image abroad -- namely the security and peace of mind of Americans in America. Bush stands condemned by the facts for Sept. 11 -- his watch, his responsibility -- and in all likelihood he bent over backward to ensure that nothing like those attacks would happen again.

The Obama administration, on the other hand, seems to have bent over backward to prove to the world it is not the Bush administration and will, almost no matter what, ensure that everyone gets the benefit of American civil liberties.

As one of those who have been watching as Obama rubberstamps numerous Bush terrorism policies, I can only shake my head. Can it be that Cohen simply doesn't know how to read?

But the paramount civil liberty is a sense of security and this, sad to say, has eroded under Barack Obama. Repeatedly, the administration has shown poor judgment. Abdulmutallab's silence is a scream that something is wrong.

Really? Really, "the paramount civil liberty is a sense of security"? Your sense of security? I'm sitting here looking at the Bill of Rights and yeah, they do talk about security, all right - but not the way you mean:

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures...

Maybe you should go back and read the rest, you pathetic excuse for an American. Or remember the words of Benjamin Franklin: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

From Think Progress, Ed Schultz tries to tell White House press secretary Robert Gibbs what he apparently doesn't want to hear:

Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz spoke at Minnesota progressive talk radio AM950’s Blue State Bash at the Minneapolis Convention Center. During his remarks, Schultz revealed that he recently had a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (Gibbs appeared on Schultz’s show this past Thursday). “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite a conversation off the air the other night,” he revealed:

SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him. … And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”

From The Uptake--Ed Schultz "I'd Kick Their Ass" If I Ran For US Senate:

Talk show host Ed Schultz says he's not running for US Senate in North Dakota but if he were he'd "kick their ass" referring to Republicans. Schultz also says " We need to get the people who have infiltrated the Democratic-Progressive movement and get them the hell out" and "We need to get rid of Michele Bachmann" (wild applause)

Schultz spoke at AM950's Blue State Bash in Minneapolis. Distributed by Tubemogul.

And Think Progress--Ed Schultz Tells Robert Gibbs He’s ‘Full Of Sh*t’ And ‘You’re Losing Your Base’:

Last night, MSNBC’s Ed Schultz spoke at Minnesota progressive talk radio AM950’s Blue State Bash at the Minneapolis Convention Center. During his remarks, Schultz revealed that he recently had a testy confrontation with White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs (Gibbs appeared on Schultz’s show this past Thursday). “Mr. Gibbs and I had quite a conversation off the air the other night,” he revealed:

SCHULTZ: I told him he was full of sh*t is what I told him. … And then he gave me the Dick Cheney f-bomb. … I told Robert Gibbs, I said “And I’m sorry you’re swearing at me, but I’m just trying to help you out. I’m telling you you’re losing your base. Do you understand you’re losing your base?”

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Give 'em hell big Eddie. Somebody needs to tell them what they don't want to hear. This isn't all that surprising after watching them the other night. The interview was already pretty heated before they got off the air.

If the road to hell is paved with good intentions, then Barack Obama has been in the fast lane when it comes to bipartisanship. Now one year into his presidency, his near-pathological obsession with consensus has only served to resurrect a moribund GOP while leaving his agenda and his own party teetering on the brink.

It didn't have to be this way. Not if Barack Obama had understood Krugman's Law and heeded the lessons of Dick Cheney.

Listened to Cheney, that is, not on national security, but on domestic politics.

Following the disputed 2000 election, the Bush-Cheney transition team prepared to assume the White House without either a popular vote mandate or dominant majorities in Congress. But while the mainstream media consensus concluded that a "weakened" President Bush would have to govern from the center and "build bridges to the opposition," Dick Cheney had a different idea. Especially when it came to the Republican ticket's radical plan of tax cuts for the economy, Cheney insisted:

"We don't negotiate with ourselves."

As Barton Gellman details in his book, Angler: The Cheney Vice Presidency, Dick Cheney made it abundantly clear that the Bush administration would put pedal to the metal in pursuit of its radical agenda. In a series of media appearances that December, Cheney proceeded as if the Florida recount and Bush v. Gore had never happened.

His December 3, 2000 exchange with the late Tim Russert on Meet the Press is particularly telling:

RUSSERT: Governor Bush and you campaigned on a platform of a $1.3 trillion tax cut. Now that the Senate is 50-50, Democrats-Republicans, and the Republicans control the House by eight or nine votes, won't you have to scale down your tax cut in order to pass it? [...] But, in reality, with a 50-50 Senate and a close, close, small majority in the House, you're going to have to have a moderate, mainstream, centrist governance, aren't you?

CHENEY: Oh, I think so. [...] But I think there's no reason in the world why we can't do exactly what Governor Bush campaigned on.

Two weeks later, following the controversial Supreme Court decision which made George W. Bush the 43rd President, Cheney made his case even more forcefully on Face the Nation:

"As President-elect Bush has made very clear, he ran on a particular platform that was very carefully developed. It's his program, it's his agenda, and we have no intention at all of backing off of it. It's why we got elected.

So we're going to aggressively pursue tax changes, tax reform, tax cuts, because it's important to do so. [...] The suggestion that somehow, because this was a close election, we should fundamentally change our beliefs, I just think is silly."

When Gloria Borger interrupted to object that "with all due respect, the Democrats are saying that this administration cannot proceed as the Reagan administration did, for example, with a large tax bill, because you don't have the mandate that a Ronald Reagan.," Cheney fired back:

"There is no reason in the world, and I simply don't buy the notion, that somehow we come to office now as a, quote, 'weakened president.' [...] We've got a good program, and we're going to pursue it."

Which is exactly what transpired. By May 2001, President Bush and Vice President Cheney had their $1.35 trillion tax cut, courtesy of precisely the strategy Borger ridiculed as " cherry pick[ing] one or two Democrats here and there and get them to sign on to whatever tax bill you have."

But eight years later, Barack Obama did not follow the Bush-Cheney example.

As it turned out, the deadly combination of Obama's hands-off approach to legislation and unending appeasement of Republicans determined to destroy him was both futile and counterproductive.

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Last night on The O'Reilly Factor, they played the video ad cooked up by Liz Cheney's "Keep America Safe" outfit attacking President Obama for his supposedly slipshod handling of the Underwear Bomber and his slow response while on vacation.

O'Reilly thought the ad was just cracker jack, calling it "devastating." Yeah, devastatingly hypocritical.

Jane Skinner was there to provide some kind of pushback, I guess, and she managed to at least point out that maybe turning the national response to terrorism into a partisan political is not really in the public's best interest. Of course, some of us pointed that out eight years ago, too, but no one listened then, either.

But utterly unmentioned was the fact that, when faced with identical circumstances in 2001, the Bush administration waited six days before responding publicly. Indeed, ignoring this fact is part of the new double standard when talking terrorism: Whatever Bush-Cheney did was right, whatever Obama does is wrong.

This is part of the steady drumbeat of fearmongering we've been getting from the Cheney crowd since the election, and the media -- outside of Rachel Maddow and the left blogosphere -- is letting them get away with it.

More importantly, they are obliterating from public view the fact that Bush’s post-9/11 anti-terrorism policies in toto made us less safe, because they intensified the conditions that lead to terrorist recruitment. This was enunciated clearly by the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, which "found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks."

Some prime recent examples include the recent attack on the CIA base in Afghanistan, in which the perpetrator's wife claimed he had been radicalized by the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Finally, there’s Cheney’s unmentioned (on Fox, at least) role in the release of the two men who founded Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula.

It’s almost as if Bush-Cheney intentionally sabotaged the incoming administration by ensuring future terrorist attacks. Indeed, that question has been raised.

Even more disgusting is that these same connivers are trying to lay the blame for the evil fruits of their malfeasance on the back of the man elected to clean up their mess.

Eric Boehlert has a great piece up discussing the way the press allows Dick Cheney and Sarah Palin to rule their world.

Not content with its lapdog coverage of President Bush over the past decade, the Beltway press has adopted a new, super-soft way to deal with Bush's former vice president, Dick Cheney, as well as GOP media star Sarah Palin. Journalists have set aside what had been decades' worth of guidelines and embraced special new rules for how Cheney and Palin get treated.

In a word, it's stenography.

That's how too many scribes have covered Cheney and Palin in recent months, allowing them to dispense tightly controlled pieces of information, which journalists then trumpet as breaking news. And yes, the trend is unprecedented in modern day American politics.

It's actually a two-fer. First, it's unprecedented because the Beltway press has never showered attention on political losers, such as Cheney and Palin. Meaning, the press has never cared what a former VP had to say about current events right after leaving the White House (think: Dan Quayle), or what a failed VP candidate had to say just months after losing in a landslide (think: Geraldine Ferraro). Traditionally, pundits and reporters disdain political losers (think: Mike Dukakis). But for Cheney and Palin, the rules have been generously reworked.

The second oddity is that journalists now allow Cheney and Palin to completely dictate the media ground rules and afford them the chance to have one-way relationships with the press. Palin, for instance, perhaps still bruising from her woeful 2008 media performances, still hasn't allowed herself to be interviewed by a single independent political journalist since she launched her book in November. Instead, she mostly communicates with the mainstream media via Facebook. And now that she's signed on to join the Fox News staff, the chances of Palin ever speaking with the serious press seem to be less than zero. That lack of openness stacks the deck and leads to dreadful bouts of stenography; of literally recording what controversial Republicans say, and nothing more...read on

You never see Cheney or Palin in a situation where they are forced to either debate someone or are even asked to defend their views by the media. All Cheney and Palin have to do is send a press release to Politico or write something on Facebook and it's taken as fact by the media. You can bet that Palin will never be on a Fox show in which she is forced to debate a progressive. She'll always just be there to answer questions by hosts who agree with her opinions -- one-on-one on Fox & Friends, Hannity and Bill O'Reilly. The internal politics will be interesting: Glenn Beck is the Teabagger King and probably views Palin as a threat to his authority. Likely we'll see her on Hannity a lot.

Since her book came out, has Sarah Palin been interviewed by any member of the press other than her loyal Fox brethren and wingnut radio talkers?

The truth is that since the launch of her book last November, Palin has refused to sit down with a single serious, independent reporter. Instead, she's stuck close to lifestyle interviews (i.e. Oprah and Barbara Walters) as well as taking questions from her professional right-wing media enablers.

Can you imagine the media caterwauling if, for instance, Hillary Clinton published a book and then refused to sit down with a single nonpartisan cable TV host, radio talker, or political reporter from a major newspaper or magazine? If Clinton roped off the press while she only did interviews with The Nation, Rachel Maddow, and Air America? The Beltway press would go berserk mocking Clinton for her timidity. But Palin completely snubbed the D.C. press corps, and rather than calling her out, journalists rewarded her with probably tens of millions of dollars in free book publicity. (Not that most Americans even cared about her book launch.)

And if Palin continues to avoid the press then they should stop quoting her Facebook page. How lazy can our media be? Yeah, that lazy.

Then there's Cheney. Have you ever seen as much press being heaped on an ex-VP as soon as they left office?

And let's not lose sight of just how extraordinary it was for Allen/VandeHei/Harris to even care what Cheney had to say in early February of 2009, because I can't stress enough how completely unprecedented it is for any major Beltway news outlet to turn to a dislodged vice president as a partisan newsmaker less than one month after he left office. And for Cheney to be the object of Politico's newsroom desire last February was even more bizarre since the Republican had just completed his stint as arguably the most unpopular politician in modern day White House politics. (Somewhere Richard Nixon was smiling.)

That is not an exaggeration. According to a CBS/New York Times poll at the time of the Cheney's White House departure, his job approval rating stood at a how-is-that-possible 13 percent. Yet despite his historically poor standing with the public, and despite the fact that his party had just been trounced in an electoral landslide, and despite the fact that former VPs were never considered to be newsworthy just two weeks after they packed their White House bags, there was the Politico brain trust in February 2009, sitting at Cheney's knee ("Suddenly a man of leisure ... his own mood was relaxed, even loquacious") and treating him like he was still vice president -- treating him like he was a popular vice president. Treating Cheney like a man with all the answers.

Of course, Cheney probably was at least as responsible for the disaster that was the Bush administration as W. -- and so when he sat down to spew vicious attacks on the Obama White House, it not only should have been portrayed as the breach of protocol that it was, but each journalist should have considered it their duty to bring up the Bush administration's actual record in dealing with terrorism and the economy -- glass houses being crappy stone-heaving sites and all.

But then, real reporting is much harder work than stenography.

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Not all Republicans are slamming President Barack Obama's handling of the failed Christmas day bombing of Northwest Airlines flight 253. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger offered praise for the president Sunday.

"I think that he's doing everything that he can," Schwarzenegger told NBC's David Gregory. "I think that, you know, Democrats, a lot of times get the rap [that] they are not strong on security and those things. I think he has talked about the issues. I think he has been fighting for the issues."

Few other top Republicans have been so kind to Obama. Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Politico that Obama was "trying to pretend" that the U.S. is not at war with terrorists. While Sarah Palin took to Facebook to criticize Obama for using the criminal justice system to prosecute the bomber.

"Now he must back off his reckless plan to close Guantanamo, begin treating terrorists as wartime enemies not suspects alleged to have committed crimes, and recognize that the real nature of the terrorist threat requires a commander-in-chief, not a constitutional law professor," wrote Palin.

But Schwarzenegger avoided the opportunity to take a jab at the president. "It's not like the president has done something wrong because he was in Hawaii or anything. It's nothing to do with that at all. What it has to do with is simply they didn't connect the dots and within the agencies," he said.

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Larry King brought on Mr. Noun a Verb and 9-11 and touts him as some sort of national security expert. Sorry Larry, but just because Giuliani's been milking being the Mayor of New York for every dime he can get since 9-11 doesn't make him an expert on anything besides how to exploit a situation for personal gain. Of course Giuliani defends Dick Cheney's remarks when the Republicans would have been calling someone treasonous if we'd heard the same sort of attacks on President Bush right after 9-11 as we're seeing from the Republicans now with President Obama, and he conflates what is being said now to criticism of Bush for invading Iraq.

Of course Larry King wasn't going to call him out for any of this and just allowed Giuliani a chance to make partisan attacks which went completely unchallenged.

KING: Back with Rudy Giuliani. The president is fighting two wars, trying to keep the country safe at home. What kind of message does it send when the former vice president openly says that he is not seriously fighting the war? Do you think it's a good idea what Dick Cheney did?

GIULIANI: You know, Larry, nobody was really concerned about that when everybody criticized President Bush day in and day out including Democrats calling him all kinds of names when he was trying to prosecute the war in Iraq. And the reality is, that's just part of the First Amendment, part of debate. Vice President Cheney is entitled to his view. I share some of them. I don't share all of them.

My hope is -- and I really mean this. I hope that this administration does a mid-course correction much like President Clinton did, which I always thought essentially showed President Clinton's practicality in terms of being fair. I think he has gone way too far to the left, President Obama. President Clinton had some of those problems early in his administration. He made a mid-course correction and then accomplished a lot of good things -- welfare reform, other things like that, criminal justice reform.

I hope President Obama is in a learning process and we see a change for the good of the country. Forget partisan politics. I would like to see him reverse his decision on the trial in New York. And I would like to him treat these people who are trying to attack this country as enemy combatants so that we can get the maximum amount of information out of them. If he made corrections like that, I think that would show great leadership.

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As Chris Matthews explored yesterday on Hardball, the Republican right is going nuts trying to claim that President Obama is "weak on terror," led by the likes of Dick Cheney and his clan. The conversation featured ex-Cheney aide Ron Christie, who mostly fumbled around trying to, as Matthews put it, "defend the indefensible". (And he didn't even mention the fact that it was Cheney himself who secretly freed two of the terrorists from Gitmo later credited with forming Al Qaeda on the Arabian Peninsula.)

Matthews also played a clip of Republican Jane Norton, a candidate for Colorado's Senate seat in 2010, taking the Cheney Offensive another step:

Matthews: This is Republican Senate candidate Jane Norton at a town hall in Colorado this week. Let’s listen because it is the same anthem.

[Video clip] Jane Norton: And what I believe is happening, Steve, is the fact that the rights of terrorists are more important in this administration than the lives of American citizens. We are seeing it in the criminal field. We are seeing it in the health care field. We are seeing it in almost every area that we are looking at.

Matthews: What do you make of that? What do you mean the lives of Americans aren't as important, that’s why there is a health care bill because the Democrats don’t care about the lives of Americans?

Here's what we make of that: These people are insane.

Transcript here:

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Rachel Maddow has some advice for Michael Steele and company who can't stop lying about the president's use of the word terrorism. What's pitiful is they pay no price for doing this day in and day out because almost no one besides Rachel is calling them out for it.

MADDOW: But first, Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele has told our booking producer on this show that he would love to do an interview with me, which is great. I would love to interview Michael Steele. The other folks at the RNC who decide what interviews Mr. Steele actually does, however, seem rather less certain that it will ever happen.

So, Mr. Chairman, between you and me, the invitation is open anytime.

Don‘t let your handlers hold you back. We‘d love to have you.

The reason you‘ve seen a lot of Michael Steele on TV recently is because he‘s promoting a new book, which is called “Right Now.” Its subtitle is more interesting. The subtitle is, “A 12-Step Program for Defeating the Obama Agenda.” Twelve steps, just like A.A.

The first and second steps, according to Mr. Steele, are that Republicans should “admit we have a problem, then admit our mistakes.”

In the spirit of trying to help Mr. Steele out so maybe some day he‘d come on this show, we have decided to try to help Republicans out with steps one and two. We have identified a problem that we‘d like to help Republicans admit to, because it is a political mistake.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney has encouraged Republicans to believe that President Obama and his administration don‘t talk about war and terrorism. Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Congressman Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, even Chairman “Admit Our Mistakes” Michael Steele have also been out in public reiterating that, insisting that it‘s true—even though it‘s really not.

Congressman Peter King of New York has even taken this assertion to, as Mr. Steele would say, “beyond the cutting edge.”

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Jay Rosen recently wrote a post about an issue we've all discussed over this last five years. How to fix the lies that are spewed on the Sunday Talk Shows.

John Cole follows up with:

So instead I propose this modest little fix, first floated on Twitter in a post I sent out to Betsy Fischer, Executive Producer of Meet the Press, who never replies to anything I say. “Sadly, you’re a one-way medium,” I said to Fischer, “but here’s an idea for ya: Fact check what your guests say on Sunday and run it online Wednesday.”

I would extend it to the hosts, as well, although that might spur initial resistance. As some of you have noted before, it is amazing that Pardon the Interruption on ESPN has a fact-check segment at the end of every single show, but the bobbleheads and their guests get to spew whatever nonsense they want, with little to no accountability.

And for us, it is a win/win. If people lie or make things up, there will be a publicized forum for correcting them. And once the guests start to realize they are going to be fact-checked, folks like President McCain might not be on every Sunday spewing bullshit.

During the Scooter Libby trial it was revealed that Dick Cheney manipulated Meet The Press for years which helped lead us into war with Iraq. The trial gave us tangible proof about the consequences this nation faces if distortions and manipulations are allowed to continue on our teevee's.

I'd love it if these shows brought on a bunch of interns and did hire a staff to fact check on the spot. They could do it very cheaply, but don't hold your breath. It's not only the Sunday shows that are the problem, though. I wrote about it in 2008 in my post below, and think it's relevant to have the discussion again.

(The above graphic is by Michael O'Hanlon, who is a perfect example of a warhawk who has been wrong most of the time.)

Punditocracy: A group of pundits who wield great political influence.

Here's a review of Eric Alterman's book called: Sound and Fury: The Making of the Punditocracy

Jake Tapper makes this observation on CNN's Reliable Sources in response to Jon Stewart pointing out how many pundits got their primary predictions wrong. This is something we've all been talking about on the liberal blogs for years now:

TAPPER: It's too bad there is no accountability for pundits the way that there is for doctors and brokers.

C&L and many other blogs have become the magnifying glass that scrutinizes the pundits who inhabit our airwaves and call them out when they are culpable for the many wrongs we see on a daily basis. Tapper hints at the fact that there should be some sort of culpability factor, but when we do it, they usually recoil in outrage.

Glenn Greenwald's email chain to John King is a perfect example of this reaction to valid criticism. Forget about the predictions game on an election cycle, because voters end up deciding the outcome, but how about when an issue like a possible WAR is being debated and the public only has the Pundit Class as their information messengers, so to speak ?

Here are a few things the networks can do to clean up their act. (h/t Nicole for some suggestions)

1) Set up an Ombudsman with a staff for each network that isn't an employee of their corporation and have a weekly segment devoted to policing the media. They will also be available to take complaints reported by individual citizens and investigate them thoroughly.

2) Replay clips of each pundit when they've been proven wrong and let them explain their positions and why they thought they were right and ask them how they will correct their mistakes in the future.

3) Keep track of their infractions and set up a benchmark, like a 3 strikes your out rule for pundits. When they hit the benchmark, suspend them for a period of time so they can reflect on their mistakes.

4) When they return to work, ask them why they should be believed in the future.

5) It would be nice if they stopped using pundits that we know have been wrong over and over again.

Please add to the list...

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Maybe a better question for Chris Matthews would be why MSNBC treats the gossip rag The Politico who servers as Cheney's 'news conduit' as a credible news source that they bring on their network constantly. The Politico's Jonathan Martin did look like he was caught off guard with this one.

From Think Progress--Matthews: Politico Serves As The Drudge-Like ‘News Conduit’ For Dick Cheney:

Does Cheney “have a thing with Politico?” MSNBC’s Chris Matthews asked Politico’s Jonathan Martin today on Hardball. “He uses you like he’d use Drudge or somebody,” Matthews charged. A stunned Martin had no response for why Cheney has been so willing to give Politico “exclusives.” “You’d have to ask the Vice President, Chris,” Martin responded, “I’m not sure.” Matthews kept pressing the issue:

MATTHEWS: I mean, he’s got his own news conduit.

MARTIN: You know, we aggressively report on both sides.

MATTHEWS: It’s not reporting. He feeds you this stuff. … I do like Politico. He’s feeding you guys this crap. [...]

What’s he call up and say? “I got a hot one for you, Jon. Can you take — what’s your email address?” Is that what he does?

As Raw Story noted, Mike Allen has already been roundly criticized in the blogs for his fact-checking free interview with Dick Cheney. If The Politico wants to continue to work with and act like Matt Drudge with being willing to recycle Republican smears without question, none of them should be surprised when they finally get called out for it on the air.

Why is it if The Politico's Mike Allen decides to play stenographer for Dick Cheney, the rest of the media feels they must follow suit and ask others to respond to Cheney's remarks? David Gregory takes his turn on Meet the Press and Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan hits back.

MR. GREGORY: Republicans have been very critical of this president and accuse him of returning to a pre-9/11 mentality, of becoming lax in the face of terror, of essentially letting America's guard down. Former Vice President Dick Cheney said this to Politico this past week. Let me put his comment up on the screen. "As I've watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war. ... He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of September 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core al-Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won't be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, `war on terror,' we won't be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe." How do you respond to that?

MR. BRENNAN: I'm very disappointed in the vice president's comments. I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. I've worked for the past five administrations. And either the vice president is willfully mischaracterizing this president's position, both in terms of the language he uses and the actions he taken--he's taken, or he's ignorant of the facts. And in either case, it doesn't speak well of what the vice president's doing. The clear evidence is that this president has been very, very strong. In his inaugural address, he said, "We're at war with this international network of terrorists." We continue to say that we're at war with al-Qaeda. We're trying to give it some clarity. And we have taken the fight to them. We've continued, in fact, many of the, of the activities of the previous administration. I would not have come back into this government if I felt that this president was not committed to prosecuting this war against al-Qaeda. And every day I see it in the president's face, I see it in the actions he's taken, and so I'm confident that this country is, in fact, protected by this president's position on al-Qaeda and against terrorist activities. We're going to continue to do this, we're going to do it hard, we're going to do it constantly.

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So what does a good little Bushie do when he gets all of his talking points shot down by the liberal guest on the air? Why start talking over them of course and say you don't want to talk about the past any more. Tanya Acker whacks around Bushie Terry Holt's talking points on how Dick Cheney is supposed to be some terrorism expert, and since she's getting the better of him of course he just starts talking over her until Candy Crowley throws him a life jacket and ends the segment.

One thing Acker didn't call Holt out on is that "vast bureaucracy" he was carping about, was put in place by his former boss, not the Obama administration. I don't know why anyone ever thought making The Department of Homeland Security was going to make any of the agencies functioning under it work better. Of course Candy Crowley wasn't going to correct Holt for any of his hackery. That might be expecting her to act like a journalist instead of a referee.

CROWLEY: Terry, you know, listen...

HILL: Sure, Candy.

CROWLEY: ...I just think that people out there sit and listen to the former vice president sort of going after the president, saying he's not taking this seriously enough. And I want to read you a quote from Congressman Eric Massa. He is a Democrat of New York. And he had this to say when he wrote on the Huffington Post: "I, for one, am sick and tired of these Bush-era chicken hawk politicians that never served in uniform attacking Democrats on national security when, in fact, they are largely to blame for our nation's current national security problems."

Is anybody covering themselves in glory when -- I've got to believe most Americans were certainly frightened when they heard about the attack on Christmas -- about the near attack on Christmas Day. And we've got everybody sort of firing about who's to blame.

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