I don’t always agree with Sen. John McCain, but he is far more credible and a far more respectable individual than Dick Cheney, the former vice president could ever dream of being. Certainly, Sen. McCain (based on his well-documented personal history and his willingness to be more objectively educated on the topic) is far more credible than Cheney on issues having to do with torture.
In a strong pushback against claims made by former Vice President Dick Cheney, Sen. John McCain insisted on Sunday that the use of torture on terrorism suspects violated international law, didn’t work, and actually helped al Qaeda recruit additional members.
“I think the interrogations were in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the convention against torture that we ratified under President Reagan,” said the Arizona Republican. “I think these interrogations, once publicized, helped al Qaeda recruit. I got that from an al Qaeda operative in a prison camp in Iraq… I think that the ability of us to work with our allies was harmed. And I believe that information, according go the FBI and others, could have been gained through other members.”
The senator, appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation, offered his assessment just hours after Cheney defended the use of torture during an interview with Fox News Sunday.
Cheney, a long-time torture advocate, is definitely at odds with Sen. McCain, but considering Cheney’s dubious history I think it’s better to side with John McCain.
I know far-right blogger Michelle Malkin has a book coming out, but ABC providing her a platform to help her sell books on a panel with far more credible individuals is puzzling at best and indefensible at worst. Was it because she was selling a book and making the media rounds to drum up publicity for the shots she is taking at the Obama Administration? Like some other bloggers, I too found it almost shocking to see her on ANC’s “This Week” trying to talk politics with George Stephanopoulus, Cynthia Tucker, Al Hunt and Gerald Seib. In that group, the almost irrationally-partisan Malkin sticks out like a sore thumb just hit by a hammer.
It’s been 10 years since Michelle Malkin, then a Seattle Times editorial writer and columnist, disparaged Unity ’99 in her column, saying, “I am not a brown jelly bean. . . . For better or worse, I want readers to know me for my ideas, ideology and idiosyncrasies — not for my Filipino heritage. This is why, after more than a half-dozen years in the newspaper business, I refuse to join race-based organizations such as the Asian-American Journalists Association.”
By and large, however, Malkin was considered a rather fringe, Ann Coulter-type character — until Sunday, when she was invited to share the reporter’s roundtable of ABC’s “This Week” with George Stephanopoulos, with mainstream veterans Cynthia Tucker, Al Hunt and Gerald Seib.
It was her first time. “She’s a provocative conservative voice with a new book,” ABC spokeswoman Emily Lenzner explained to Journal-isms.
“There’s no shortage of wingnuts out there, so why would George Stephanopoulos invite on someone too crazy for even Bill O’Reilly?” John Amatoasked on his Crooks and Liars blog.
“Only people with a Malkin brain would believe and push across the notion that Americans would rather collect three hundred dollars a week on unemployment insurance rather than get a job that supplies benefits and pays a salary,” as Malkin did on “This Week.”
“The Huffington Post adds:
“‘Everybody just sort of looked at Malkin, like she was INSANE, and George Stephanopoulos very politely said, ‘Uhm . . . I don’t know if I follow that.’ To which Malkin replied: ‘BUT IT WAS A CLINTON ECONOMIST, BLARGLE!’ Stephanopoulos was still a bit dumbfounded, wondering why anyone in their right mind would take unemployment benefits ‘when a job was available.’”
Certainly she is a provocative voice with a new book, but is this where the bar is set to earn a spot on a show that is supposed to be as prestigious as ABC’s “This Week” is nowadays (selling a book and coming across as provocative)?
To some extent, she tried to hide her partisanship (or at least turn down the volume on it), but it was apparently too difficult for her.
Crooks and Liars gives an example of how obsessed she has become with attacking the Obama Administration (in an interview she did on Fox News with another right-wing extremist, Sean Hannity):
Especially the complete and utter loss of perspective:
HANNITY: Now that you’ve done all this research — and I’ll let the audience, because you really, with great specificity and detail, go into the corruption — how corrupt is this administration compared to others?
MALKIN: Well, I think you have to judge them by their rhetoric. And if you look at the gap between the rhetoric and the reality, this has to be one of the corrupt, most corrupt administrations in recent memory.
Hmmm. I dunno about you, but when I look at the levels of corruption within an administration, I look for actual things like, you know, corruption. Things like Halliburton and Enron.
Apparently, Malkin has a short memory for presidential administration scandals.
We can restore the ideals of honesty and honor that must be a part of our national life, if our children are to thrive. When I look at the administration now in Washington, I am dismayed by opportunities squandered. Saddened by what might have been, but never was. These have been years of prosperity in our land, but little purpose in the White House. Bill Clinton vowed not long ago to hold onto power “until the last hour of the last day.” That is his right. But, my friends, that last hour is coming. That last day is near. The wheel has turned. And it is time. It is time for them to go.
George W. Bush will repair what has been damaged. He is a man without pretense and without cynicism. A man of principle, a man of honor. On the first hour of the first day he will restore decency and integrity to the Oval Office. He will show us that national leaders can be true to their word and that they can get things done by reaching across the partisan aisle, and working with political opponents in good faith and common purpose. I know he’ll do these things, because for the last five years I’ve watched him do them in Texas.
George W. Bush came to the governor’s office with a clear view of what he wanted to achieve. He said he would bring higher standards to public schools, and he has. Walk into those schools today, and you will see children with better scores, classrooms with better discipline and teachers with better pay.
Uh, right.
What say you Michelle Malkin? … <crickets>
How about the gap between that rhetoric and these scandals (to name a few):
Halliburton‘s Corruption
Iraq’s Decline
Weapons of mass destruction
Mission Accomplished Abu Ghraib Prison Torture CIAPre-9/11 Intelligence Failures HHS Deceptive Ad Campaign
HHS Scully Scandal
Government-wide Accounting Problems
Real Costs of the Iraq War
Right or wrong, a current presidential administration generally blames the previous administration for problems they inherited. In the case of President Obama, he has probably been too nice about the problems he inherited from the previous administration. For example, some officials in the administration of George W. Bush blamed President Bill Clinton’s administration for 9/11. To me, that is laughable since Bush was inaugurated in January and the terrorist attacks happened on Sept. 11, 2001 (and there had been warnings, during Bush’s young administration, about Osama bin Laden).
That leads me to this from a column blog written by Greg Gutfeld:
So in a talk before a local business group, former President George W. Bush finally responded to all the mud thrown at him the previous five months. In the speech, Bush defended his policies regarding enhanced interrogation and rejected the idea of government-run health care. And to top it off, he said the new White House dog sucks.
Well, that dog part isn’t true, but it doesn’t matter. Because I already know how this is going to be played by the media – a group who takes any criticism toward Obama as a personal insult. After all, Obama isn’t just the man. He’s their man. I’m sure right now, Chris Matthews is taking an extra dose of meds to control the “thrill.”
I don’t have any problems with the way President Bush has been critical or expressing his disagreement with President Obama. I think President Bush has been respectful in his disagreement and I find no fault with that. I do find fault with a hack like Vice President Dick Cheney and his approach to trashing President Obama. Cheney’s post-White House behavior is beneath the dignity typically displayed by former presidents and vice presidents.
But, then again, Cheney is at least being consistent.
Steve Doocy, of Fox News, is back on the attack against President Obama. This time, however, ABC is the pawn caught in the middle of the controversy. ABC has tremendous access to President Obama for a big interview it apparently will air. Doocy called ABC the “All Barack Channel.” Like several other hypocrites at Fox, Doocy has the nerve (I was going to say audacity) to criticize ABC for its coverage of President Obama after Fox had tremendous access of President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Doocy has a history of smearing the president (or, is it just a bias?). He was a part of a false report advanced by numerous conservatives (including many on Fox News) that said President Obama attended a Muslim school, a madrassa. Normally, I would not spend much time fussing over a false report, but this one seems to have been driven by an ideological bias against Barack Obama (when he was a candidate for the presidency).
WOLF BLITZER: CNN did what any serious news organization is supposed to do in this kind of a situation. We actually conducted an exclusive first-hand investigation inside Indonesia to check oout the school that Barack Obama attended as a little 6-year-old boy.
From the January 19, 2007, edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends First:
DOOCY: When people find out this stuff, they’re going to go, “Why didn’t anybody ever mention that that man right there was raised as — spent the first decade of his life, raised by his Muslim father — as a Muslim and was educated in a madrassa?”
KILMEADE: Yeah, is that a problem? Evidently, when he was a little kid, he went over to Indonesia and went to a madrassa. He — in his two best-selling books, he doesn’t really mention this in detail, says, you know, I went to — mostly raised secular but went to a Muslim school, went to a Catholic school, and then a little bit later on, he would become a Christian, almost like a born-again Christian. But Barack Obama had a father born in Kenya who was a Muslim.
[...]
DOOCY: Is it ancient history or do you think madrassa matters? Josh joins us from Colorado. Good morning to you, Josh.
CALLER: What’s up?
DOOCY: What do you think?
CALLER: I think that, ultimately, this will probably be one of the main reasons he’s not elected.
DOOCY: Just the fact that his father was a Muslim, he was raised as a Muslim for awhile, and went to a madrassa school in Jakarta?
CALLER: Right. I mean, where — you’d think that could possibly give him, you know, better insight on the enemy, maybe he doesn’t really consider terrorists the enemy.
DOOCY: All right, Josh.
KILMEADE: Well, we’ll see about that. Yeah, Josh says that. Larry from Tennessee, where do you weigh in?
[...]
CALLER: Hi, good morning. Yes, I think it does matter. The fact that he omitted it must mean that he feels that somebody is going to have an opinion, and President Bush certainly comes under scrutiny, so why shouldn’t he?
KILMEADE: Well, he didn’t admit it. I mean, that’s the issue is that –
CARLSON: Well, she said he didn’t.
KILMEADE: Yeah, says he didn’t come out, and say, look, I was — was over in Indonesia for five years was — or roughly five years, went to a madrassa. And there is some reports that Wahhabism was the curriculum there –
DOOCY: Yeah.
KILMEADE: — which is a problem because they start with “We hate America” and work their way back from there.
DOOCY: Well, the way it was framed in one of his biographies, he said quote, “I was sent first,” this is in Indonesia, “to a Catholic school and then to a predominantly Muslim school.” He doesn’t say, “I went to a madrassa, where they taught Wahhabism.” He simply says, “I went to a predominantly Muslim school.”
From the January 19, 2007, edition of Fox News’ Fox & Friends:
DOOCY: And in today’s Insight Magazine, which is a publication of The Washington Times, they talk about how Barack Obama, raised as a Muslim by his stepfather, also who was a Muslim, eventually an atheist, in Jakarta, Indonesia. And, you know, what have we heard about — coming out of the madrassa schools over in Indonesia? This is huge.
KILMEADE: It’s big about his background. It’s also interesting. He had two best-selling biographies. It did not come up — was not directly addressed. He also — they also found out that some of the characters in his biographies are composite characters, which he did not say up front. And if you think that Barack Obama is under some scrutiny now, just picture what’s going to be happening if he continues to lead over in Iowa and in New Hampshire, like he’s doing in two of the polls.
Fox News has spent most of this week crying about the coverage President Obama is getting from the media (I know, that’s not exactly breaking news). This is the same network that had practically a direct line to the White House (and tremendous access to President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney) … not too unlike the Batphone that allowed Batman and Commissioner Gordon to stay in direct contact.
Here is the summary of a Media Matters story:
SUMMARY: Fox News hosts and guests have criticized a scheduled ABC exclusive broadcast from the White House, but they failed to mention the extraordinary access Fox News had to President Bush and other officials, using those opportunities to lob softball questions and provide a platform for Bush administration talking points.
Media Matters has displayed some examples of the very positive treatment Bush and Cheney received from Fox News during their tenure.
Here is a sample that involves Bill O’Reilly:
On the October 16, 17, and 18, 2006, editions of The O’Reilly Factor, host Bill O’Reilly airedportions of his October 16 interview with Bush, which consisted of such “tough questions” as whether Hillary Clinton is “soft on terrorism,” whether “the anti-Bush press” is responsible for popular opposition to the war, and whether Bush was aware that critics “are trying to destroy you.” O’Reilly also asked Bush, “[Y]ou work hard, right?” In his introduction to the October 16 interview segment, O’Reilly stated that “[b]ecause every presidential interview is finite,” he would concentrate on “what is happening now.” Absent from the interview, O’Reilly stated, would be any questions that “look back,” because, “What good does it do to rehash WMDs?” According to the on-screen text, “Looking back doesn’t do anybody any good.”
Here is a more general Fox News sample:
On October 13, 2007, Fox News aired “Dick Cheney: No Retreat,” which was described as “an exclusive interview” with Cheney and teased as “a rare glimpse into the life of the vice president.”
Here is a sample involving Brett Baier:
On February 2 and February 3, 2008, Fox News aired a documentary titled “George W. Bush: Fighting to the Finish,” after, as Fox itself described, “FOX News’ Bret Baier was granted unprecedented access by George W. Bush as the president begins the final year of his extraordinarily consequential tenure.”
Right-wing commentator Greg Gutfeld is coming to the rescue of former vice president Dick Cheney, but stumbled on his way to the battle.
Here is what Gutfeld wrote:
So in the latest New Yorker, CIA Director Leon Panetta says Dick Cheney’s biting criticism of Obama’s enlightened approach to terrorism suggests, “he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.”
Now Mr. Panetta is absolutely right about one thing: Cheney has been highly critical of the Obama Administration’s new tact toward terror. But that’s mainly because our new President has been so critical of the previous administration’s strategy, while now pretty much copying most of its key elements.
Here is what Panetta actually said (from Reuters):
“I think he smells some blood in the water on the national security issue,” Panetta said in an interview published in The New Yorker magazine’s June 22 issue.
“It’s almost, a little bit, gallows politics. When you read behind it, it’s almost as if he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point.”
Gutfeld took Panetta’s comment out of context and tried to portray him in the worst possible light. The word “suggests” helps Gutfeld a little bit (a very little bit). However, he clearly took Panetta’s comments out of context. It looks like someone else can begin to understand what U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is going through these days. Gutfeld could have made the same argument and placed Panetta’s comments in a more fair and accurate context.
I pulled this excerpt out of a blog posted at Big Hollywood by Greg Gutfeld:
Having said all that, Letterman still makes me sad. He’s an old, rich man relegated to choosing easy targets for cheap laughs. He has an entire bumbling administration to poke fun of – along with a conference room full of writers to do it for him- and he goes after the daughter of an Alaskan mayor. Letterman was a god in the eighties – now he’s just a mere, sad mortal driven by fumbling bitterness. And that makes me sad for him – and for those who never saw how truly great he once was.
Greg, Sarah Palin makes herself an easy target.
For comedians, she is kind of like a political gold mine.
The American people just retired the bumbling administration (when G.W. Bush and Dick Cheney left town) that got us into wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, presided during the 9/11 terrorist attacks, soiled respect for the United States of America around the world, ran up gigantic deficits, blew a budget surplus, did virtually nothing to stop the housing and mortgage foreclosure crisis, did next to nothing to stop or slow down one of the worst economic situations since The Great Depression and on and on it goes.
Actor Jon Voight, with an Academy-award performance as a knowledgeable political activist, showed his extremism with his own words at a Republican hateraiser fundraiser.
VOIGHT: My most pressing concern at this hour is the safety of Israel.I think Obama has no idea that Israel was built on the blood and sweat of the Jewish people.Every blade of grass, every tree, has been a successful effort because the Jewish people understanding they would have a safe homeland forever. He could not possibly understand this or he would know that the Jewish people are tried time and time again to give the Palestinians land and bring a peaceful solution. But every attempt, every attempt, was returned with violence. The Palestinians used Gaza to attack Israel. As far as I’m concerned, their only agenda is to wipe Israel off the Earth. And he reprimands the Israeli people, Obama. Like he’s a professor and they’re the school children. I was embarrassed to watch his press conference with the great war hero, Benjamin Netanyahu, who has helped keep his country safe for many years. Obama sat there with complete arrogance that he is the new American power, that he is able to dictate what he thinks is best for Israel.So how worried are we supposed to be now? Was I hearing things when he said that Iran might have the right to nuclear power? Are we supposed to be sitting and waiting, watching for the possibility of a new Holocaust? Who’s going to take the responsibility to keep Ameri — Israel safe?
I’ll tell you why this really scares the hell out of me. Because everything Obama has recommended has turned out to be disasterous.His so-called stimulus package and his budgets will leave our grandchildren with great burdens and great debts. The government is now owning car companies and banks and we’re losing job after job. Our unemployment rate is an astronomic 9.4. And of course they send out Joe Biden, one of the great double-talkers of our time, to tell us the unemployment rate is getting better. The government wants to run health care and tell people what doctors they can see. How much they can make. What cars to drive. And they’re killing off the entrepreneurs who are the backbone of our economy. It’s no wonder that the Russian newspaper Pravda, the former house organ for the former Soviet Communist regime, has said the American descent into Marxism is happening with breath-taking speed.We can blame Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Chris Dodd, George Soros, David Axelrod and their ilk for the downfall of this country. It saddens me greatly to think we were the great power for good in the world. We as Americans knew America to be strong. And we were the liberators of the entire world. We are becoming a weak nation. Obama really thinks that he is a soft-spoken Julius Ceaser. He thinks he’s going to conquer the world with his soft-spoken sweet talk. And really thinks he’s going to bring all the enemies of the world into a little playground where they’ll swing each other back and forth. We and we alone are the right frame of mind to free this nation from this Obama oppression.
And let’s give thanks to all the great people like Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, William Bennett, Glenn Beck, Hugh Hewitt, Dennis Prager, Michael Medved, Dennis Miller, Dick Morris, Ann Coulter, John Kasich, Michael Steele, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, Thomas Sowell, Victor Davis Hanson, Shelby Steele, Charles Krauthammer, Michelle Malkin, Fred Barnes and so many others.Let’s give thanks to them for not giving up and staying the course to bring an end to this false prophet Obama.
These are the same old and tired Republican talking points that failed in the election of 2008, are failing now and will fail in the future. The Republicans had power and did little good with the power they had. President Bush and Vice President Cheney left us with mammoth debt, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, opinions of the United States of America at an all-time low worldwide, a collapsing economy, a housing crisis, no health care reform and more. The American people rejected the Republican brand and this pilot-less ship continues to fly toward political oblivion. We can thank Voight for one thing (to partially make up for the lackluster movie Anaconda he gave us): identifying all the right-wing nuts (in the last paragraph).
At least in Anaconda, we had Jennifer Lopez.
In his speech, Jon Voight gave us nothing positive to appreciate.
Well, Sen. Mitch McConnell appreciated it. That should tell you something about him.
President Barack Obama pisses away more integrity than Rush Limbaugh has in his entire body.
Still, that has not stopped Limbaugh, the right-wing nut, from once again trying to smear the president of the United States of America and our commander in chief.
LIMBAUGH: The man cannot tell the truth; he has to dump on predecessors.
What’s wrong with him dumping on his predecessors (assuming that is true)? After all, the previous administration dumped on us for eight years and left the current administration to clean up the mess.
Former President George W. Bush and former Vice President Dick Cheney (who personally is on the Save-My-Legacy tour) had an opportunity to deal with the crisis General Motors is now in, but may not have had the guts to do what needed to be done.
The Dick Cheney Save-My-Legacy tour scheduled a recent stop with Fox News to go On The Recordwith increasingly conservative host Greta Van Susteren.
CHENEY: Well, I thought that, eventually, the right outcome was going to be bankruptcy. … And the president decided that he did not want to be the one who pulled the plug just before he left office.
VAN SUSTEREN: Why?
CHENEY: Well, I think he felt, you know, these are big issues and he wouldn’t be there through the process of managing it, but in effect, would have sort of pulled the plug on GM and that was one of the first crises the new administration would have to deal with. So he put together a package that tided GM over until the new administration had a chance to look at it, decide what they wanted to do.
VAN SUSTEREN: But it’s cost us billions to get — I mean, you know —
CHENEY: It has. … And now the government owns a big chunk of General Motors. That bothers me. I don’t like having government own those kinds of major financial enterprises. I think it’s — it does damage to our long-term economic prospects when we get government involved in making those kinds of decisions.
In other words: Bush-Cheney punked out to avoid another stain on its already-tarnished legacy.
Said former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum:
SANTORUM: President Bush blew it. You know, he went out and convinced the Congress to give him a bunch of money to save the financial sector and then decided to take a little piece of that and give it to General Motors and Chrysler. Why? He punted. He basically said, I don’t want this failure to be on my watch. I want to let Obama deal with it.And we all knew at the time that letting Obama deal with it means the government’s going to come in and run the show, and that’s exactly what’s happened.
What is even more sad is how Cheney wanted nothing to do with solving the problem with GM and the auto industry in genera. Then he says, “And now the government owns a big chunk of General Motors. That bothers me.”
It doesn’t bother you nearly as much as things you and your administration were responsible for during the prior eight years. Perhaps if Cheney and Bush had the guts to deal with these issues earlier then we would not be in the mess we’re in right now.
It’s easy to criticize someone else for missing the last big shot. But, it’s shameful to do so when you passed the ball because you were too much of a coward to actually take it.
Check out the entire Think Progress story. It’s some compelling stuff.
Sen. John McCain, perhaps as much as anyone, understands what torture issue is all about (even if you take the approach of former Vice President Dick Cheney and distract from the seriousness by using the words “enhanced interrogation” to describe torture). Vice President Cheney has been on this Save-My-Legacy Tour, but has mostly done nothing but damage to his own party.
MCCAIN: When you have a majority of Americans, seventy-something percent, saying we shouldn’t torture, then I’m not sure it helps for the Vice President to go out and continue to espouse that position. But look, he’s free to talk. He’s a former Vice President of the United States. I just don’t see where it helps.
Sen. McCain also seems to take issue with the sugarcoating of torture:
MCCAIN: (Cheney) believes that waterboarding doesn’t fall under the Geneva Conventions and that it’s not a form of torture. But you know, it goes back to the Spanish Inquisition.
Someone needs to tell Dick Cheney that it’s over, his time is up and he should go chill out somewhere.
Paul Begala, writing for Huffington Post, debunks a lot of the garbage we’ve been hearing from former Vice President Dick Cheney on his Save My Legacy tour.
Here is an excerpt:
If 3,000 Americans had been killed on your watch, in an attack that could have been prevented, perhaps you’d be a little hesitant to accuse anyone else of endangering America. And if you had advocated torture, and the torture produced false information that you used to mislead America into an unwise, unjust and unwarranted war, you might be a tad sheepish about defending the use of torture.
Former Navy SEAL Jesse Ventura, the former governor of the state of Minnesota, was a guest on CNN’s Larry King Live recently, and was part of a fascinating interview. Rather than place a big chunk of comments at the beginning of this blog, I will sprinkle them throughout the transcript.
KING: Joining us now, Jesse Ventura, former wrestler, former governor of Minnesota, former Navy SEAL, the author of “Don’t Start The Revolution Without Me.” That book is now out in paper back. Welcome to have you back, Jesse. There you see the cover of the book. How’s Obama doing?
JESSE VENTURA, FMR. GOV. OF MINNESOTA: Too early to tell, Larry, really. In my opinion, George Bush is the worst president in my lifetime.
KING: Have an opinion, will you?
VENTURA: I will. I will. And he’s the worst president in my lifetime. So Barack Obama, President Obama inherited something I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. You know? Two wars, an economy that’s borderline depression. So it’s far too early to judge him 100 days in. I think if you have me back about two years from now, I can give you a much better of how he’s doing.
Don’t try to tell some people this is a mess President Obama has inherited. As we saw at the Tax Day tea party protests, conservatives have forgotten about President Bush and are blaming everything on President Obama. I can imagine the conservatives flipping out over the comments of Ventura, who has never been one to hold his tongue when asked a question. As for George W. Bush being the worst president … that is a sentiment many people will hold. Still, you know many conservatives are angered by such a comment. Personally, I believe Bush is a good man who surrounded himself with corrupt and inept people.
VENTURA: And then you look at Dick Cheney who ran and hid. I have no respect for Dick Cheney. I have tremendous respect for General Powell.
KING: He poked fun at himself at the White House correspondents’ dinner Saturday night. Let’s watch.
I choose to get behind Gen. Colin Powell over Vice President Dick Cheney. I think Gen. Powell’s reputation is far stronger than Cheney’s.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Finally, I believe that my next 100 days will be so successful I’ll be able to complete them in 72 days. And on the 73rd day, I will rest.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: He’s very likable.
VENTURA: Oh, yes.
KING: Right?
VENTURA: Very intelligent, which is a change from our previous president.
KING: All right already with Bush.
VENTURA: No, I live in Mexico now, Larry. So I do a lot of reading. I don’t watch much TV. This year’s reading, I covered Bush’s life. I covered Guantanamo and a few other subjects. And I’m very disturbed about it.
I’m bothered over Guantanamo because it seems we have created our own Hanoi Hilton. We can live with that? I have a problem. I will criticize President Obama on this level; it’s a good thing I’m not president because I would prosecute every person that was involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law.
KING: You were a Navy SEAL.
VENTURA: That’s right. I was water boarded, so I know — at SERE School, Survival Escape Resistance Evasion. It was a required school you had to go to prior to going into the combat zone, which in my era was Vietnam. All of us had to go there. We were all, in essence — every one of us was water boarded. It is torture.
KING: What was it like?
Torture is torture and we can’t allow ourselves to sink down to the level of people that we consider terrorists. As the Crooks and Liars writer points out, it would be interesting to see if Sean Hannity would have the guts to straight up debate Jesse Ventura on his prime-time Fox News show. I doubt it would happen, and if it did Hannity would no doubt do everything he could try and stack the segment or segments in his favor.
VENTURA: It’s drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you — I’ll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I’ll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders.
KING: Even though you know it’s not going to happen — even though before it, you know you’re not going to drown.
VENTURA: You don’t know it. If it’s — if it’s done wrong, you certainly could drown. You could swallow your tongue. You could do a whole bunch of stuff. If it’s it done wrong or — it’s torture, Larry. It’s torture.
[.....]
KING: A lot of things to go into, Jesse. What do you make of the Cheney/Limbaugh –
VENTURA: I don’t have a lot of respect for Dick Cheney. Here’s a guy who got five deferments from the Vietnam War. Clearly, he’s a coward. He wouldn’t go when it was his time to go. And now he is a chicken hawk. Now he is this big tough guy who wants this hardcore policy. And he’s the guy that sanctioned all this torture by calling it enhanced interrogation.
Those are some strong words for Dick Cheney.
KING: Do you think Rush Limbaugh’s a better Republican than Colin Powell?
VENTURA: No, not at all. In fact, if you compare the two, let’s look at Colin Powell, who’s a war hero, who strapped it on for his country, and didn’t run and hide.
KING: Twice.
If anyone thinks Rush Limbaugh is a better Republican than Gen. Colin Powell then that speaks volumes of how low a state the GOP is in these days.
I will be the first to admit, some of comedian Wanda Sykes jokes definitely pushed the envelope too far. In particular, some of her jokes that referenced 9/11 definitely were over the top (even though some of them involved notorious right-wing hater Rush Limbaugh) and made more than a few people visibly uncomfortable.
Here is a lengthy excerpt from a column written by Ben Shapiro (when you read the entire piece you can feel the conservative bias oozing out of him):
Wanda Sykes, by contrast, is the most gutless and feckless performer ever to grace the White House Correspondents Dinner.
Sykes, for those who haven’t seen her stellar work in gems like CondomNation, Brother Bear 2, and Over the Hedge, is a militantlesbian with a grating voice and an obnoxious strut. She recently proclaimed during the California Prop. 8 debate that “Everybody that knows me personally, they know I’m gay … Now, I gotta get in their face. I’m proud to be a woman. I’m proud to be a black woman, and I’m proud to be gay.”
Well, apparently she’s not so proud to be gay. Because when given the opportunity to make jokes about the nation’s leading proponent of opposite-sex marriage, President Barack Obama, she said precisely nothing. Instead, she chose to gently stroke his ego with jokes about his pecs, his dog, and his basketball skills.
Meanwhile, she saved her real ire for non-federal or non-active politicians and non-governmental figures like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. To Obama’s hysterical laughter, she said that she hoped Limbaugh would suffer kidney failure and accused him of being the 20th hijacker. She said she wanted Sean Hannity waterboarded by Keith Olbermann. She attacked Dick Cheney, stating that if her child had a choice between getting in a car with Dick Cheney and a car with a stranger, she would tell her child to choose the stranger.
Obviously, Shapiro is most angry about the shots taking at the people to the right of the political mainstream. As much as I detest Rush Limbaugh, his racism, his classism, his homophobia, his xenophobia and his hope our president fails in leading our country … joking about him as the 20th hijacker was inappropriate. Later in the column, Shapiro laments the lack of more aggressive jokes about President Obamaand even offers some of the usual lame stuff (teleprompter, his meeting with Hugo Chavez, cabinet appointees with tax problems … yadda, yadda, yadda). Shapiro clearly does not feel Sykes was aggressive enough in jumping on the president even though she made fun of all the photos of him topless, saying how she didn’t need to see his nipples anymore, questioning his basketball skills (joking people guarding him would not hard foul him with the Secret Service around), joking about the dog (the most overhyped dog in United States) and more. That was not good enough for Shapiro who apparently did not get the memo that Sykes likes President Obama and had little use for what she viewed as the hateful words of people like Rush Limbaugh.
Shapiro took exception to the jokes about Sarah Palin (nothing gets the conservatives in an uproar more than anything said even remotely negative about the Alaska governor).
Here is the excerpt:
But she saved her most despicable gibe for Sarah Palin, who was not attending. Apparently, Sykes isn’t only a shrinking violet when it comes to her lesbianism – she’s a shrinking violet when it comes to her sex. Noting Sarah’s absence at the dinner (her husband, Todd, attended), Sykes said that Palin had pulled out at the last minute. “Somebody should tell her that’s not really how you practice abstinence,” she chided.
This is sexism of the highest order. Sarah Palin didn’t get knocked up before her marriage – her daughter did. Why didn’t Sykes blame Todd, who was sitting right there? Or why didn’t she blame Levi, who knocked up Bristol? Or why didn’t she blame Bristol? By focusing on Sarah, she perpetuated the stereotype that the woman is utterly and totally responsible for each and every individual act of the child – a stereotype Sykes would surely reject were she not so blindly hateful of Palin.
To say that it was “sexism of the highest order” is an over-the-top statement to say the least. Sexual harassment, domestic violence, the pay gap, reproductive freedom, sexual assault and other issues probably rank far higher on the list of sexist concerns for women and feminists. Sykes was making a joke (whether people liked it or not) about her pulling out of the event and tied it together with the whole abstinence thing. Palin defenders need to relax a little. The last couple of sentences are head scratchers … to say the least. Any criticism of Sarah Palin leads to the charge that one is “hateful” of her. She picked on Sarah Palin because Sarah Palinpulled out of the event. Todd did not pull out of the event and neither did Levi. Anyway, I’ve spent enough time on this column, but from an entertainment standpoint it was an interesting read. Shapiro is angry about “attacks” on Sarah Palin, but then attacks Sykes as a “militant lesbian with a grating voice and an obnoxious strut” and makes fun of her works. So much for consistency.
These kinds of performances are supposed to make people feel a little uncomfortable. Some of it definitely was over the top, but that generally is the case during these kinds of events.
I was amused to read this about Fox News host Greta Van Susteren hosting fellow conservative Newt Gingrich (disguised as an analyst for the network conservatives love). Read as Crybaby Gingrich just loses his mind in trying to portray President Barack Obama as some kind of extremist dictator in retaliation because Fox News correspondent Major Garrett did not have an opportunity to ask a question at a recent presidential news conference (even though Garrett has had a lot of access to Obama during and since the campaign).Why should Fox care anyway? Fox did not think the press conference was important enough to be broadcast on the Fox broadcast channel did not want to pick it up so it could slap Obama in the face and sell some ads for regular programming to make some money.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, you know, Fox News Channel got, quote, punished – Fox News Channel didn’t get a question the other night – Major Garrett, our White House correspondent – because the Fox broadcast, not the Fox News Channel, but the Fox broadcast decided not to air the press conference.
GINGRICH: Right. Which should tell all of you about the abuse of power inherent in this administration. They now control General Motors, they basically control Chrysler, they control Citibank, they control AIG, and they are prepared to punish people.
I think that’s very dangerous, to have a president who thinks he should get up in the morning and punish Americans. You know, appease foreigners, bow to the Saudi king, embrace the Venezuelan dictator, and punish Americans? I think that’s a very dangerous attitude.
More fearmongering from an increasingly desperate Republican party trying to paint Obama as being anti-American and as sympathizing with dictators. Not all people of color get along and love each other, although that is what Fox wants you to think when analysts like Gingrich get on there and continue to blow out of proportion brief meetings that Obama has had with some leaders of other countries that some people don’t like. Coming off of some of the things that happened during the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, it’s laughable for Gingrich to make such a statement. The best thing the Republicans could ever do for the Democrats would be to nominate an out-of-touch extremist like Newt Gingrich for president in 2012 or at any other time in history.
Sandy Gholston
