(click image to go to Amazon to purchase)

Harry Shearer is a renaissance kind of guy.  Actor, writer, radio host, satirist and recent awardee of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, you've seen his work in everything from Saturday Night Live to This is Spinal Tap (one of my all time favorite movies) to The Simpsons to the political novel Not Enough Indians. 

And now, he's come out with the satirical album, Songs of the Bushmen, which lampoons the you-couldn't-make-this-stuff-up headlines that is the Bush Administration.  He offers songs like 935 Lies, which we've featured here at C&L before.  And the album has been the cause of its own controversy as well, when Clear Channel banned Harry's songs and any ads for the album because they objected to the cover you see above: 

Comedian and actor Harry Shearer's new album, Songs of the Bushmen, pays comedic "homage" to current and former Bush administration officials like Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Karl Rove. But media giant Clear Channel doesn't want people to buy it. The New York Post reports today that the "notoriously conservative" company's outdoor advertising arm has banned signs for the album "because the cover depicts the president with a bone through his nose."  

You gotta be kidding me.  Rendition, torture, millions of Iraqi and Afghani civilian deaths, more than 4,000 troop fatalities for a war of choice and they're offended by a Photoshopped bone.  I don't know about you, but I find their sensibilities offensive.

To show that we're not going to let Clear Channel determine what's appropriate, we've asked Harry to join us to discuss Songs of the Bushmen and I'm so happy that he's agreed to.

So, please, join me in welcoming Harry Shearer to C&L.  As with all chats, we ask that you keep your comments respectful to our guest and limit your questions to the topic.

This 2004 interview should be required viewing for every journalism student. I admit that I had not seen this video until today, but apparently over a million people already have and I hope that millions more will watch it as well. If the American press corps and our corporate media had asked tough questions like this of President Bush and his administration during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq, there isn't a doubt in my mind that public support for it would have plummeted. This interview was done in '04, but was never aired in the U.S., and it's quite possible that it could have affected the outcome of the presidential election that year. Imagine the outcome if a journalist dared to interview John McCain in this way today.

The Huffington Post:

While surfing the net on 'Stumble', I came across an interview with President Bush on Irish television that caused a bit of a storm in 2004. The interview conducted by the tenacious Carol Coleman of Radio Television Ireland was not aired on American television, and Bush's press officers apparently complained vociferously about the rigorous questioning.

The video shows Bush at the absolute peak of his arrogance -- convinced of his own rhetoric about Iraq, flooded with confidence from international subservience to American power, and high off a crushing military victory that reinforced his childish fantasies of American power and preeminence.

The problem was, Coleman was having none of it, and what transpired was a unique insight into the warped brain of the least respected and most hated president in the history of the United States. Read on...

Last week Bill Moyers sat down with Leila Fadel while she was stateside to receive a George Polk Award for Foreign Reporting. In this interview she bluntly lays bare all the spin on Iraq and Iran in a way that is all too rare these days.

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I can't say enough good things about this brave woman, but I would echo all of what Spencer and Matthew have written about her and then some. McClatchy, one of the few sane voices on Iraq since before the invasion (when they were still known as Knight-Ridder) continues to impress.

Watch the full interview on Moyers' PBS website, and you can check out Leila Fadel's McClatchy blog, Baghdad Observer and her team's Inside Iraq.

Transcript after the jump.

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On 60 Minutes Sunday Lara Logan interviewed Pakistan's President dictator Pervez Musharraf about accusations that he may be to blame for the assassination of his chief political rival, Benazir Bhutto, and what exactly he is doing to combat the resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda, whom his government claims was behind her killing, and whether his government is even trying to find Osama bin Laden.

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On all counts, Musharraf's answers were lacking. He repeatedly denies that he was to blame for anything at all and points fingers elsewhere, callously blaming Bhutto for her own death by saying that "it was she to blame alone. Nobody else. Responsibility is hers." Apparently, in his mind, the man who climbed up on the back of the car and shot her in the back of the head and the suicide bomber who blew himself up and everyone else around had nothing to do with it.

Now I don't know whether or not all of the rumors are true that Musharraf or his government actually had a part in Bhutto's death or whether he should be held accountable for denying her repeated requests for more security, but he certainly did himself no favors in this interview to convince anyone otherwise. It's simply ridiculous to blame her "alone" for her death, and his refusal to accept blame for anything, his claims of successes in combating extremists in his country despite all the evidence to the contrary and his apathy towards whether or not his government is even looking for Osama bin Laden was - well - eerily Bush-like.

UPDATE: (Nicole) Some scary drumbeats being heard as far as Pakistan. According to the NY Times, the US is considering covert push in Pakistan (how covert it can be when it's in the NYT is another story), which Tom Hayden at HuffPo also weighs in on as well with a warning to Barack Obama to ratchet back the rhetoric. Moreover, given the news coming out in international circles (because you'll never hear about it in the US media) from Sibel Edmonds about our own actions in allowing Pakistan to develop their nuclear program, can we afford to take such an aggressive stance against Pakistan without risking any lingering goodwill we still hold on the global stage?

(full transcript after the jump)

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This is what passes for news on Fox's top ranked show?

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We have two foreign occupations costing American lives daily with no end in sight, the economy is teetering, we're about a month out from the first Presidential primaries, there's even a war on Christmas for Pete's sake.

Okay, that last one's a total bunch of BS, but even that would have been better than interviewing a PUPPET!!!!

On Thursday's Countdown Keith Olbermann interviewed Sen. Hillary Clinton, covering a wide number of issues including the swift boating of Graeme Frost and SCHIP, Iran, the pending FISA legislation and even the movement to draft Al Gore. Clinton calls out the right for stalking and smearing a 12 year old boy -- and we now know that the lies behind this hate-fest from the right came in the form of an e-mail to reporters from Republican Senator Mitch McConnell's Communications Director, Don Stewart. Stewart should be condemned and fired for putting the Frost family in such danger.

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Senator Clinton defended her vote on the Lieberman/Kyl amendment, saying it was misunderstood by some and misrepresented by others, and that it in no way gives the president authorization to invade Iran. Hillary also touts the Iran amendment she co-sponsored with Senator Jim Webb and sees it as an opportunity to use diplomatic means to deal with Iran instead of President Bush's cowboy diplomacy. As for a possible Nobel Prize and White House run by Al Gore? You'll have to watch the clip...

60 Minutes' Scott Pelley sat down with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for what can only be termed a surreal interview. Pelley was combative for most of the interview, White House talking points quite literally in hand. Ahmadinejad's responses were frustratingly equivocal. It sparked a great debate in my home as to why...if Ahmadinejad does want to reach some sort of detente with the rising escalation of war rhetoric, his dancing around direct questions did not truly help him. But then again, Ahmadinejad's smile also belied an annoyance with Pelley's attitude, as his final comment indicated:

"This is not Guantanamo Bay. This is not a Baghdad prison. Please, this is not a secret prison in Europe. This is not Abu Ghraib," Ahmadinejad said. "This is Iran. I'm the president of this country!"

But what has to be the kicker of the interview is when Pelley asks Ahmadinejad (who has been called a madman, a terrorist supporter and evil by Bush, mind you) what he likes about President Bush.

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Ahmadinejad responds by asking what do Americans like about Bush. Pelley's answer? Bush is a religious man.

"As an American citizen tell me what trait do you admire?" the president asked Pelley.

"Well Mr. Bush is without question a very religious man for example, as you are," Pelley replied.

"What religion, please tell me, tells you as a follower of that religion to occupy another country and kill its people, please tell me, does Christianity tell its followers to do that?" Ahmadinejad asked.

When Pelley reads a statement from Bush to Ahmadinejad (he's now too cowardly to meet with world leaders on his own and relies on reporters to pass along messages?), my irony meter redlined.

UPDATE: Juan Cole in Salon: Turning Ahmadinejad into Public Enemy #1

Donald Rumsfeld, interviewed at his Taos ranch by GQ Magazine:

"In terms of what's going on in Iraq or Afghanistan today, what the Department of Defense is doing is working. What isn't working is the diplomatic side. The government of Iraq has not been able to find ways to bring the elements of that country together sufficiently that they can create an environment hospitable to, uh, whatever one wants to call their evolving way of life, a democracy or a representative system or a freer system. Look at Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, 28 million people are free. They have their own president, they have their own parliament. Improved a lot on the streets."

All your theories worked there, in other words.

"It's been a big success! The Iraqi government has not been successful as yet. And, uh, it's gonna take some time and some effort."

"When do you see it resolved?"

"I'm not gonna get into that."

Right. But if you distill the general sense…the measured general sense…of what the American public feels about Iraq right now, it would be: a plan in but not a plan out. Do you agree with that?

"No! No, no! The military has to have plans for post-major-conflict stabilization, and they did. And, uh, the focus of the insurgents and the terrorists and the Al Qaeda have put on Iraq… It's enormously important to them."

But you sleep okay?

"I do. Always have."

No nightmares?

"Nope."

Amy Goodman interviews filmmaker Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films of the reality of being on the ground in Iraq.

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...(W)hen General Petraeus says that they're merely applauding these tribes from the sidelines, he's lying. I mean, while we were embedded with the Americans, we saw American military commanders hand wads of cash to tribal militias. And when he says that they are facilitating their integration into the country's security forces, what he means is they're pressuring Iraq's government to incorporate these militias wholesale into the police forces. In fact, that's one of the promises that these tribes are given, that after working with the Americans for a few months, they'll become Iraqi police, be armed by the Iraqi state and be put on regular payroll. So it's completely disingenuous, what he's saying.

Complete transcripts available at DemocracyNow!

Tucker Carlson had the chutzpah to insinuate to Dennis Kucinich that meeting with the Syrian leadership was unAmerican and cavorting with the enemy. Nevermind that Congressman Kucinich was checking up on the over 1.5 million Iraqi refugees that our war-based-on-a-lie has placed firmly in the Syrian front yard. One point five million. No other country has taken in more Iraqi refugees, refugees from the direct result of our invasion, than Syria.

Be sure to catch the incredulity of the Syrian interviewer when she asks (at about 7:09)

Q: "So does George Bush actually not see himself as having failed in Iraq? Does he think he has done something right?"

A: [Obviously straining at choosing just the right words] "I would expect that... he probably believes... that he is doing the right thing."

Kudos, Mr. Kucinich, for reining in your desire to yell, "Well duh! The Preznit's a borderline dominionist neocon, what do you expect?" The congressman gives a nice slap to Halliburton in this one, too.

Transcript is here.

Via Mother Jones:

Listen to the interview

Henry Rollins is best known as the frontman for the hardcore punk band Black Flag and later for his solo project the Rollins Band.

He performs regularly as a spoken word artist and a comedian, and has written and published books of prose and poetry. Rollins is a radio and TV personality, actor, and voice-over artist. He's done several USO tours to Iraq since the war began.

Mother Jones recently spoke with Henry Rollins about his USO tours, punk rock, the newest season of his television show, and the art of storytelling.

Mother Jones: The first thing I wanted to ask you about was your USO tours. Can you tell me about how and why you got involved doing those tours?

Henry Rollins: I do it because that's my way of protesting the war, and it's my custodial duty to go behind this president that started this needless war that's hemoraging [sic] everything from needless lives to money and everything else. And the fact that the soldiers don't dictate policy; they just go and do what they are told, leads me to believe I don't really have a beef with the troops, I have a beef with the people who sent them into where they are deployed. So I go and I meet these people without any hesitation and I quite like them. Read more...

(guest blogged by Howie Klein)

For most Americans, following the tragic and utterly depressing ins and outs of the Bush Regime's mad rush to war in Iraq and their devastating and willful agenda of death and destruction both by lethal weapons and gross incompetence, can get very overwhelming... very fast. First time film maker Charles Ferguson has written, directed and produced a documentary so powerful and so precise that 102 breathtaking minutes will catch most people up with most of what's gone down in Iraq in the last 4 years. The movie tells the unembelished story of what the Bush Regime has wrought in the Middle East through the eyes and through the words of reliable on-the-scene actors like Colin Powell's Chief of Staff, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, ex-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine, Bush's first Iraq "viceroy," General Jay Garner, as well as through the experiences of Iraqi civilian leaders and American military personnel in Baghdad. It is showing in NYC and DC now, opens throughout the L.A. area today and all over the country a week from today.

No End in Sight doesn't attempt to draw conclusions about whether the tragic melding of arrogance and ignorance-- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their cronies-- purposely created the chaos that has destroyed civil society in Iraq; the movie just documents that destruction in the most compelling way the medium of film can be used and leaves the conclusions to the viewer. The uniqueness of this film lies in Ferguson's ability to bring the viewer right into the space of the decision makers (if not The Decider). "The film," he explained, "is the first detailed dissection of the extraordinary way in which some of these decisions were made-- in secret, by a small number of men who had virtually no relevant experience and who either failed to consult with, or overruled, the people on the ground and the military."

Please take a look at a short segment of film chosen for C&L by Magnolia Films, read the rest of our report at Down With Tyranny or Mark Groubert's review of the film, and then help us ask Charles questions about his film and our national tragedy, here at Crooks and Liars at 11am, PT.

(Nicole: We want to thank Charles for joining us and Howie for hosting this live chat.

We ask that all commenters keep their posts on topic and respectful of our guest. For the sake of all who are participating, any posts not falling within those confines will be deleted without comment. Persistent comments outside those confines will result in banning.)

(Guest blogged by Howie Klein)

Tomorrow NO END IN SIGHT, one of the most intense and informative films on the Iraq war and occupation, opens in the L.A. area (Pasadena, Orange County and L.A. proper). It has already been showing-- to rave reviews-- in DC and New York City. And next Friday it opens nationwide. Tomorrow at 11 am Pacific/2 pm Eastern, the film's director, writer and producer, Charles Ferguson, will be doing an EXCLUSIVE live chat here at Crooks and Liars.

Please watch the riveting preview and think about taking part in the discussion.

Amy Goodman is one of the best interviewers in the country.  Today, Howard Zinn speaks to the uses of history and how it applies to the "War on Terrorism".

You can download the program (about 1 hour long) here.

Howard Zinn's brilliant book "People's History of the United States" should be on your reading list.