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I guess it's asking too much of Chuck Todd to challenge John Boehner when he comes on his show and lies through his teeth. Help me out if I missed something here. He claims they're going to cut Medicare, calls the United States health care system the "best in the world" and again infers that the health care bill is a "government takeover" of the health care system. Todd then allows a guy who was handing out checks from the tobacco lobby on the House floor back in 1996 to go on about House ethics and Eric Massa's problems. To Todd's credit he did at least bother to mention John Ensign, but when Boehner writes that off as not being his problem because he's in the House and not the Senate he lets that go as well.

Here's your supposed "liberal" television network folks. I expect we'll get something similar when Tom Brokaw interviews Karl Rove on Meet the Press.

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Media Matters caught this one -- National Review's Lowry falsely equates reconciliation and nuclear option in order to accuse Dionne of hypocrisy in yet another example of why E.J. Dionne on the panel of Meet the Press this weekend was the only thing that made it watchable.

MR. DIONNE: Rich's point about process, I went back and looked at all the columns I wrote criticizing the Bush tax cuts. I never made a process argument about reconciliation. I argued about the merits of the tax cut, and I think instead of talking about process we ought to talk about the merits of the health plan.

MR. LOWRY: But you really, you did, E.J., you did write a very stirring column about the nuclear option in defense of the Senate...

MR. DIONNE: That was...(unintelligible).

MR. LOWRY: ...as an anti, as an anti-majoritarian institution.

MR. DIONNE: That has nothing to do with--I believe...

MR. LOWRY: And look, just one last thing...

SEN. HATCH: I've got it right here.

MR. LOWRY: ...E.J., the point you're saying if Republicans are united, the Democrats can't govern, is what they're saying. It would have been relatively easy--and Senator Hatch would be an expert on this because he worked so closely with Ted Kennedy on health issues--to get 65 or 70 votes for a major healthcare bill in the Senate. Not this, but $100 billion, $200 billion more for Medicaid, for SCHIP, maybe some version of this Plan B we've seen reporting about that the White House--after Massachusetts came up with a plan where they'd cover just 15 million people at a quarter of the cost. You do something like that and you would have picked off five or 10 Republicans in the Senate, but they didn't want to do it.

MR. DIONNE: Senator Baucus spent months holding hand--Senator Baucus spent months holding hands with Senator Bauc--with Senator Grassley and Senator Enzi and got nowhere.

SEN. HATCH: I, I, I...

MR. GREGORY: OK, quick final point then I'm going to take a break. Senator:

SEN. HATCH: I was a member of the gang of seven. He was so restricted by the Democratic process that he couldn't really do anything for Republicans. So I had to leave just out of honor because I couldn't--I'd walk out of there and, and trash everything they were doing, so I left out of honor. The other Republicans gradually left, too. There has been no real effort to try and get together on all the things we can get together on. It's just been "take it or leave it," and that's been their attitude.

MR. GREGORY: All right, we're going to, we're going to leave, we're going to leave it there.

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I think Tweety brings this guy on his show just to irritate the hell out of liberals, but now Candy Crowley has decided that somehow this corrupt ex-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was worth the trip down to Sugar Land, TX so he could enlighten all of us with his wisdom as well. In what world is this man worth the time for a double length segment on a Sunday cable "news" show?

Of course Crowley doesn't actually ask him about any specifics on the charges against him and why he claims they are false and she also actually asks him if he's thought about returning to politics. As Driftglass said in his weekly Sunday Show run down, "I guess G. Gordon Liddy was busy". Wikipedia actually has a decent list of DeLay's "controversies" as they call it for at least a partial summary how corrupt he was.

Joe Conason has more on the double standard of the media in regard to Charlie Rangel's problems and this was written before CNN decided to grace DeLay with some air time -- A wave of phony indignation over Charlie Rangel. DeLay actually defended Rangel stepping down in this segment since mean old Nancy Pelosi "set the standard" with him.

You know, I might not be some high paid television anchor but if I had a chance to try to get this guy on the record about some of his corruption problems, I'd actually be mentioning the name Jack Abramoff. I'd also ask him why he thought that there weren't any forced abortions or labor abuses going on in the Mariana Islands. I guess that's too much to expect of Candy Crowley here or Chris Matthews for that matter. She'd prefer to ask him if he's thought about running for office again instead of asking him why anyone in their right mind would want him to run for office again. Hope you're proud of yourself there Candy. I thought John King was bad on this show. Crowley just took it to a new low within a few weeks of taking it over. Bravo.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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From The Daily Show Feb. 24, 2010:

President Obama can't win with the Republicans on health care, so the Democrats should push through whatever reform they want.

History Unfolding: The next round on health care (h/t swimgirl)

Instaputz: David Petraeus and William F. Buckley would've both been booed at CPAC

Bay Area Houston: Republican hypocrisy, volume 926

The Bobblespeak Translations: Meet the Press -Feb. 21, 2010

Empire Burlesque: Crash Program: Halting Terror in the Heartland of the Homeland

The Satirical Political Report: Martin Scorcese films 'Shutter Island' sequel at CPAC

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Many Republican politicians have railed against the stimulus while praising or taking credit for stimulus money provided to their districts. One prominent Republican governor is calling out his colleagues' hypocrisy.

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger was proud to accept stimulus dollars for his state praised the program for creating or saving over 150,000 jobs. "I have been the first governor of the Republican governors to come out and to support the stimulus money because I say to myself, this is terrific," Schwarzenegger told ABC's Terry Moran Sunday.

In contrast to many Republicans, the California governor believes the stimulus has created public and private sector jobs. "Anyone that says that it hasn't created the jobs, they should talk to the 150,000 people that have been getting jobs in California," he said.

Schwarzenegger lashed out at those GOP politicians who voted against the bill then took credit for benefits provided to their states. "Well, you know, to me I find it interesting that you have a lot of the Republicans running around and pushing back on the stimulus money and saying this doesn't create any new jobs, and then they go out and they do the photo ops and they are posing with the big check and they say, 'Isn't this great?'" said Schwarzenegger.

(Check out Roy Blunt's hypocrisy)

We've been watching these Republican hypocrites for exactly a year now attack Obama's stimulus bill and then take credit for the cash it brought into their states.

Think Progress documents the atrocities.

Last month, President Obama admonished Republicans for going to “ribbon cuttings for the same projects that you voted against.” It’s true: Last year, Sen. Kit Bond (R-MO) appeared at a ribbon cutting event for GetAbout Columbia’s MKT Plaza, a pedestrian walking and recreation area funded by the stimulus. (See picture at top right.)

ThinkProgress has investigated opponents of the Recovery Act, reporting throughout the year that many of the lawmakers who tried to kill the legislation have been returning to their home states to claim credit for popular stimulus programs. In a new research report, ThinkProgress finds that over half of the GOP caucus, 110 lawmakers — from the House and Senate — are guilty of stimulus hypocrisy. Among some of the key findings:

– Top Republican Senate Recruits Are Stimulus Hypocrites: As ThinkProgress reported, Rep. Mike Castle (R-DE), a candidate for Senate, touted over $5 million in stimulus programs he voted to kill. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-IL), the GOP nominee for Senate in Illinois, signed a letter urging Gov. Pat Quinn to provide “Recovery Act (ARRA) funding to expand the Illinois Community College Sustainability Network.”

– GOP Leadership Leads The Way In Hypocrisy: Although he regularly slams the stimulus as a waste while in DC, McConnell has returned to Kentucky to take credit for stimulus programs, even taking time to request more funds. ThinkProgress attended two job fairs held by Cantor, where we found dozens of employers able to hire directly because of the stimulus. Indeed, even Boehner’s office released a statement boasting that the stimulus will create “much needed jobs.”

– The Audacity Of Hypocrisy Knows No Bounds: Many opponents of the stimulus have been quite brazen with their ability to try to claim credit for the program. For instance, Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) spent the morning of July 28th railing against the stimulus, yelling “Where’s the stimulus package? Where’s the jobs?” on the House floor. On the same day of his rant, Kingston’s office sent out multiple press releases bragging that he had secured hundreds of thousands in stimulus funds to hire additional police officers in his district. Other stimulus opponents, like Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) — who has called the stimulus a “trillion dollar debt bill” — have printed out jumbo-sized ceremonial stimulus checks to present to local communities to try to garner positive press.

Individually, over half of the entire Republican caucus has hailed nearly every aspect of the stimulus as a success — from infrastructure funds, to food programs, to education grants. But politically, admitting its success might harm the GOP’s chances in November. So with Republicans fixated on winning politically, they have focused on deceiving the public by calling the stimulus a failure, while pretending successful programs aren’t stimulus funded.

Cenk does a great job of reflecting how I feel about the media's treatment of Evan Bayh and his retirement from the Senate. They never bring up all the money his wife has made working for WellPoint -- Evan Bayh's Wife Reaping The Benefits Of Health Care Reform. And they continually call these ConservaDems who are corporate Democrats "centrists" which drives me as crazy as it does Cenk.

Cenk also points out that unlike the main stream media the HuffPo was willing to ask Bayh if there's one job he won't rule out after leaving office and they got their answer here -- Evan Bayh Won't Rule Out Becoming A Lobbyist After His Term Ends.

And for more here's Cenk's post on the subject at hand -- The Media's Billion Dollar Ad for Evan Bayh:

The mainstream media has been giving Evan Bayh a big fat sloppy wet kiss for the last 24 hours. Every single story is about how moderate and centrist and independent he is. Golly gee willikers, Evan Bayh is such a pure and innocent person and he just couldn't take the corruption of Congress anymore. He was so fed up with the partisanship and like any great man decided he must strike out on his own and leave DC.

Come on, are these people this naïve or do they have a stake in this? Do you really think Evan Bayh only has pure motivations and was the last good man in Washington? This is absolutely absurd, and on many fronts it's the exact opposite of the truth. No one made a deal with corporate lobbyists faster than Evan Bayh. He wasn't sick of the problems of DC, he was the problem of DC. Read on...

As Cenk notes, like about half of the people who leave Congress, Bayh is just another name on a long list who might be looking for a big payday after their retirement from "public service". All of this might be just slightly easier to stomach if these assholes weren't lining their pockets while the rest of the country rots beneath them.

Rachel Maddow talks to Eugene Robinson about whether the Republicans rank hypocrisy on claiming they want bipartisanship while being the party of no, co-sponsoring bills that they later vote against and claiming credit for the good legislation they voted against is ever going to make them embarrassed enough about their actions to get them to stop. As Rachel notes if they are going to continue this, they should not be taken seriously because they do not care about policy. They care about playing politics.

As John noted, even the American public is getting tired of the filibuster if they have the concept explained to them since so much of the public doesn't know what the word means. Whether they ever pay a price at the polls is another matter. I don't know why the Democrats haven't adopted the same language the Republicans used when they were in the same boat -- "up or down vote". The public understands that and it gives the largely lazy press a sound byte to play instead of them being allowed to act like needing sixty votes to get anything passed in the Senate is normal, Rachel being one of the few exceptions.

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I still can't understand why David Gregory has a job, when it takes another reporter from another network to show the hypocrisy Gregory's own guests are displaying right at his Meet The Press desk.

Fareed Zakaria argued on February 4 that the budget Obama inherited was completely broken in the first place, first by the Bush tax cuts and secondly by the prescription drug plan for the elderly and two wars that were "off budget." The Bush Administration set the next several generations up with a massive budgetary mess that will not go away with politics running the governmental show.

But Zakaria points out that even those who are NOT elected officials, including Hank Paulson and Alan Greenspan, are so subservient to the corporate overlords that they will not hear of rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy even after they wail over the horrible-ness of the deficits.

Until some grown-ups run the show in Washington, our Federal financial house will be a condemned hovel.

The arrest of ten Baptists in Haiti for attempting to kidnap and deal in child trafficking (allegedly) brings out the usual right wing defenders. Too bad the religious right acts more like a partisan political party instead of promoting true religious thoughts.
Glenn Greenwald documents the hypocrisy.
To J-Lo, human decency and real human rights are only to be delivered to her tribe.

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From Meet the Press Rachel Maddow calls out Rep. Aaron Shock for taking credit for what the stimulus bill has done for his district while at the same time touting his vote against the stimulus bill. Schock tries to shift the argument to whether any Republicans were included in drafting the bill or not. David Gregory follows up and asks Schock if that means he won't take any federal money for his district or not and Schock responds that he thinks it is a ridiculous argument and is Rachel Maddow going to give back her Bush tax cuts she rails about and says his district deserves their share of federal spending. As Rachel points out though, that's not the problem but rather the rank hypocrisy of voting against something and then touting it.

If MSNBC actually cared about their ratings on this show, they'd get rid of Gregory and let Maddow host it.

MR. GREGORY: Congressman Schock, where are the Republicans going to be on this?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, look, I think, unfortunately, it's more of the same. I mean, all of this talk about bipartisanship, and yet the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. As David Brooks mentioned, there was some, some Republicans who worked with Democrats in the Senate to come up with a jobs bill only to have their leadership put the kibosh on it. We, we are for creating long-term economic growth. You do that by incentivizing entrepreneurialism, risk taking, and investment. You do that through creating certainty in the markets through certain tax incentives. And that's where we'll be on a jobs bill.

MR. GREGORY: So it sounds like you're--you like what the Democrats are doing here?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, I don't like all the pork that was in the bill. Seven hundred eighty-seven billion dollar stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in, in history, one of the reasons why it didn't create long-term growth is it didn't have stimulative tax cuts in it, but rather a lot of pork and spending.

MS. MADDOW: Which are the least stimulative things in the stimulus. I mean, when you assess what creates jobs, in the stimulus band it's the tax cuts that were put in in order to try to win Republican votes that didn't come anyway that are the least effective thing in the stimulus bill. So the theory doesn't match the practice here.

But, I mean, you, in your district...

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Bill Moyers smacks the Democrats and Republicans for sucking up to corporate lobbyists at their retreats and Mitch McConnell for the hypocrisy of his statement on the Citizens United v. FEC Supreme Court ruling.

BILL MOYERS: Everybody's been talking about that Republican retreat last weekend, where President Obama engaged his opponents in a give and take. But what you may not know is that it was organized by something called the Congressional Institute. Nice highfalutin civic bunch, you might deduce from its name. Turns out the Congressional Institute is funded by corporate contributions and run by top Republican lobbyists. There are fourteen members on its board--twelve are registered lobbyists. And the contributors to the Congressional Institute read like a who's who of corporate America. Among its benefactors have been General Motors, Lockheed Martin, Time Warner, UPS. The institute's chairman lobbies for among others, Goldman Sachs, B.P., Health Net and AHIP. That's the trade group for the health insurance industry that fought tooth and nail against the public option and brought the White House to its knees.

Now if any Democrats out there are gloating over this, I'm not finished. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee also had a cozy little retreat last weekend at a Ritz-Carlton resort in Miami Beach, which boasts "sumptuous marble baths," a spa, and a two million dollar art collection. The website Politico.com reports that in addition to prominent Democratic senators there were plenty of representatives from industries the Democrats regularly attack when they wear their populist hat: the American Bankers Association, the tobacco giant Altria, the oil company Marathon, several drug manufacturers, and the defense contractor Lockheed Martin, as well as Heather and Tony Podesta -- two of the biggest corporate spear carriers on K Street and two of the biggest Democrats in town. Very, very intimate. And very, very politically incestuous.

One final note: after the Supreme Court handed down its decision two weeks ago, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the leader of Senate Republicans, praised it from the senate floor. He dismissed the notion that the decision might allow a flood of foreign money to influence our elections. Now we learn from TalkingPointsMemo.com that Senator McConnell has received substantial funds from a subsidiary of a big foreign defense contractor that's currently being investigated by the Justice Department for bribery. Senator McConnell has been quite good to that subsidiary -- this year alone he's requested seventeen million dollars in earmarks for its Louisville facility. Yes, the sun, and the dollar signs, shine bright in Senator McConnell's old Kentucky home.

Let's face it, two political parties; equal opportunity hypocrites.

That's it for the Journal. Go to our website at PBS.org and click on Bill Moyers Journal. You can read Dr. Margaret Flowers' letter. You'll also learn how your state's laws will be affected by the recent Supreme Court decision. We'll also link you to websites where the debate rages on.

That's all at PBS.org.

I'm Bill Moyers. And I'll see you next time.

Colbert ripped into McCain's obvious hypocrisy that contradicted his own statements from 2006:

MCCAIN: My opinion is shaped by the view of the leaders of the military. The reason why I supported the policy to start with is because General Colin Powell, who was then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the one that strongly recommended we adopt this policy in the Clinton administration. I have not heard General Powell or any of the other military leaders reverse their position, just like when on other issues, that people are expert and knowledgeable of, I rely on their opinion. But this is unique. These military leaders are responsible for the very lives of the men and women under their command, and that's why I am especially guided, to a large degree, by their views.

Cut ahead to 2010 and those same leaders are all calling for a repeal of an outdated policy. But John McCain remains fixed and immovable, the consummate panderer. McCain's someone who has somehow managed to get away with this crap for thirty years, mainly I suspect because those in the traditional media do not do their job, leaving it up to Colbert, Stewart and a handful of others.

We haven't heard a peep from the Commandant of the Coast Guard, the Chief of Naval Operations, Cap'n Crunch, Major Garrett, Sgt. Slaughter, Lt. Dan, 'Private Practice,' or Col. Sanders.

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From Think Progress -- ABC Panelists Criticize Ailes’ Evasion Of Why Fox News Cut Away From Obama-House GOP Conversation:

Guest host Barbara Walters cut off the conversation though, since the show was over. However, discussion on the topic then continued in the green room, even though Ailes wasn’t present. Both Huffington and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman criticized the network for its hypocrisy:

HUFFINGTON: Their framing of the President is that he’s radical, that he’s taking us down a dark, fascist or Bolshevik future — depending on the day. And there he was, rational, charming, and in full command of his facts. So the narrative fell apart and so the cameras stopped showing what was happening.

KRUGMAN: Yeah, I mean it’s — I thought it was actually quite funny except it has real consequences. There you have Roger Ailes, with this powerful, popular news network, whining about how the media are unfair to Republicans. I mean, he is a powerful person in the media — and of course, you know, “Fair and Balanced” is truly Orwellian and we know that. So it’s clear that Fox — I felt like yelling to him, “you can’t handle the truth,” because that was what was actually happening on the Fox coverage.

I wonder where Ailes and Walters were for this after the show segment. And of course George Will decided to defend Ailes and Fox News saying that the media we have now is better than what we had back when there were just three networks to choose from. Not without some push back from Huffington and Krugman. And of course Will feigns ignorance on just how bad Glenn Beck's show is by claiming he never watches it. I highly doubt George Will doesn't actually know just how bad Glenn Beck's show is. That just gives him an easy out to pretend he doesn't.