NBC hasn't confirmed this yet, but the Huffington Post is reporting that NBC has tapped David Gregory to moderate Meet the Press.

David Gregory will take the reins as moderator of NBC's "Meet the Press," the Huffington Post has learned. Gregory has been a leading contender for the permanent spot since Tom Brokaw stepped in as interim moderator following Tim Russert's death in June.

In recent weeks, a short list including Gregory, Andrea Michell, Gwen Ifill, and Chuck Todd had been considered the top candidates for the position, while Katie Couric and Ted Koppel were viewed as dark horses.

I wrote this back on June 14th:

I would say that Gregory will be the fill-in host for the time being, but in my mind, he's not strong enough to take over the show full time...

{snip}

I think NBC has to either promote some local talent that we haven't had a chance to see yet or look outside their circle and find a strong personality to take over the reigns of the number one Sunday talk show that brings in at least fifty million dollars a year.

I'm sure he'll be aggressive enough, but is the talent pool so bad in TV Land that NBC had to fall back on Gregory? I do agree with Tina Brown's suggestion that Rachel Maddow would be a nice choice.

I say give Meet the Press to Rachel Maddow. She’s smart. She’s quick. She’s witty. She does her homework. And she listens to what the person she’s talking to is saying. She doesn't just go to the next question on her list. If Obama is post-racial, Maddow is post-gender—divested of hair-frosted femininity in the anchor genre and more appealing because of it. Like him, she’s a calm, unflappable new era phenomenon. Sure, she’s a lefty, and in the past week she's been swinging away at Obama's cabinet choices, but I suspect she's ambitious enough to dial it back if she had to.

But please Tina, keep Greta right where she is. And I'm sorry I have to say this, but I was hoping to squeeze out my good pal Glenn Greenwald for a spot on the round table...

Download | Play    Download | Play (h/t Heather)

John Amato has blogged about this and this clip from this week's The Chris Matthews Show is proof positive that the progressive blogosphere must be smart about picking battles in pushing a liberal agenda for America. Let's face it, you and I and the rest of the liberal blogosphere have been right more often than not and certainly exponentially over the Villagers that populate The Chris Matthews Show. But they're not ready to give up their coveted place at the table, and certainly not to upstart bloggers who don't have the decency to take them at their word any longer.

So to those oh-so-wise Beltway bobbleheads, we will be the "angry left" that Obama must marginalize in order to have a successful presidency. It won't be the Republicans with their bag of obstructionist tricks, ones of which WaPo's Ceci Connolly doesn't even have memory, that give Obama a hard time, it will be us, the "angry left." We are the ones to not give Obama a "honeymoon period" and we will be the ones fighting him as he attempts to execute his agenda.

Sigh. Do anyone of these chuckleheads ever consider that the reason the left has been so "angry" for the last eight plus years is that what we've said and what we've valued has been criticized, dismissed, sneered, condemned, denounced and our characters attacked? Of course not. And when the nation shows that they have awakened to what we've been saying all along and announced with their vote that they want to give the left a shot, we're still criticized, dismissed, sneered, condemned, denounced and our characters attacked because we might like to see some people actually reflective of our values in office.

Good to see the open minds of the Very Serious Villagers remain. Would that they would be so condemning of those who have been so very wrong all this time.

Transcripts (courtesy of Heather) below the fold

Continue reading »

Download | Play    Download | Play (h/t Heather)

This is truly a sad statement on the state of journalism in the US today. That the question "How is Obama different from Bush?" even needs to be posed -- much less discussed -- is truly insulting to the intelligence of the waning viewers that these guys get.

Hmmm....let me count the ways: One's a divisive ideologue who has risen to undeserved levels of status given his personal mediocrity and intellectual laziness due to his connections versus one who believes in a post-partisan government that gets things done who has had to overcome many personal obstacles to achieve great levels based on intelligence, charisma and hard work. I can totally see why the public would need this clarified.

The thing that continues to be so frustrating is the continued post facto admissions by the Villagers as to the deficits that we've had over the last eight years with Bush. Sure, now that he is two months away from walking out of the White House for the last time, we can admit that the world hates us and doesn't want to work with Bush, as Katty Kay does, or that he is stupid (to put a more honest term to Woodward and Borger's "intellectually incurious) and finds the whole "understanding other people's points of view" boring.

But where were they for the last four years? Where was their outrage and coverage of this then? How many soldiers' lives could we have saved if the media had been more honest about Bush? How many poor Iraqi civilian lives? Time and time again, the media abdicates their role in presenting context and in this case, their acceptance of the catapulted propaganda has led the country to the brink of ruin. And yet they feel no culpability. Instead, they treat us to these faux-hard hitting dialogues comparing and contrasting Obama to Bush. Brilliant.

You know I loves me some Keith Olbermann, but I think when he got to the point where he was doing a Campaign (Special) Comment daily and got pulled off debate coverage by Brokaw because of fears that he would not be able to keep from editorializing that a SNL spoof was coming up.

Ben Affleck tries to hold onto Keith's gravitas as he delivers his #5 story, does Worst Person in The World and delivers a Special Comment against the president of the co-op to which he applied. I lost count how many resignations he called for. Ouch.

Michelle Obama tells Jay Leno how unimpressed their children are with Barack Obama's upcoming media blitz. Sadly, Malia sounds like my ten year old: as long as it doesn't interrupt their Disney Channel or Nick viewing, they don't pay much attention.

However, Nickelodeon, in an ongoing campaign to get children aware of the election, held an online election between the two candidates, with biographies and education on how we hold elections. Over two million children voted online and they selected Barack Obama as their president of choice. From the mouth of babes...

Download | Play    Download | Play (h/t Heather. big video file)

Saturday Night Live offers yet another instant classic with their take on last week's Vice Presidential Debate:

IFILL: Now, tonight’s discussion will cover a wide range of topics, including domestic and foreign policy matters. Each candidate will have 90 seconds to respond to a direct question and then an additional two minutes to for rebuttal and follow up. As moderator, I will not ask any follow up questions beyond, “Do you agree?” or “Your response?” So as to not appear biased for Barack Obama in light of my new book, The Breakthrough: Politics of Race in the Age of Obama, coming out on Inauguration Day and available for pre-order on Amazon.com. And finally, we would like to remind our audience that , due to the historically low expectations for Gov. Palin, were she simply to do an adequate job tonight, and at no point cry, faint, run out of the building or vomit, you should consider the debate a tie. All right, let’s begin. Sen. Biden, how as Vice President would you work to shrink the gap of polarization that has sprung up in Washington?

BIDEN: Well, I would do what I’ve done my whole career , whether it’s been dealing with violence against women or putting 100,000 police officers on the streets. I would reach across the aisle. Like I’ve done with so many members of the other party. Members like John McCain. Because look, I love John McCain. He is one of my dearest friends. But at the same time, he is also dangerously unbalanced. I mean, let’s be frank. John McCain – and again, this is a man I would take a bullet for – is bad at his job and mentally unstable. As my mother would say, God love him, but he’s a raging maniac. And a dear, dear friend.

IFILL: Gov. Palin, how would your administration deal with the current financial crisis?

PALIN: Well, first of all , let me say how nice it is to meet Joe Biden. And may I say, up close, your hair plugs don’t look nearly as bad as everyone says. You know, John McCain and I, we’re a couple of mavericks, and gosh darn it, we’re gonna take that maverick energy right to Washington and we’re gonna use it to fix this financial crisis and everything else that’s plaguin’ this great country of ours.

IFILL: How would you solve the financial crisis by being a maverick?

PALIN: You know, we’re gonna take every aspect of the crisis and look at it and then we’re gonna ask ourselves, “what would a maverick do in this situation?” and then, you know, we’ll do that.

Longer version here  Download | play   Download | play   (h/t Heather)

Make sure you buy: "The Shock Doctrine"

It's so chic of conservatives like Sullivan to blame the American people for the economic crisis, because as Sullivan stated on Real Time, millions and millions of people took out loans on homes that they couldn't afford. Yes, the Kudlow Thesis of the market housing crisis. Don't blame the lenders and grifters that came upon us like a biblical plague of locusts, blame the  people.

Naomi Klein, God love her, told him that it was the Wall Street profiteers that preyed upon society. His ideal conservative world is completely fictional. And as she says, what comes next is the real disaster. Today was Christmas morning to the fat cats on The Street, but what happens next to all the debt we the people have just incurred? Whoever is elected president will have a major role in deciding our fate. Sorry, I can't write the whole transcript, so watch the entire clip. 

Klein: The disaster is far from over. They've actually just relocated. The disaster was on Wall Street and they have moved the disaster to Main Street by accepting those debts and you said they didn't have to bomb, the bomb has yet to detonate.  The bomb is the debt that has now been transferred to the taxpayers so it detonates when, if John McCain becomes president in the midst of an economic crisis and says look we're in trouble, we have a disaster on our hands, we have to privatize social security, we can't afford health care, we can't afford food stamps, we need more deregulation, more privatization. The thesis of the Shock Doctrine is you need a disaster to rationalize these very unpopular policies so the real disaster has yet to come.The real disaster is the debt that is going to explode on the American taxpayers. And then they do economic shock therapy.

They had to step in, but I don't think they had to step in in the way they did. The reason why the stock market went up on Wall Street today is because it's Christmas morning. Imagine waking up and being told your credit card debits have been wiped out, your mortgage has been erased. There's a fairy godmother that has taken care of you. A guardian angel. But actually that's the tax payers.

With a smirk, Andrew gets pissed and chimes in

Sullivan:  You're favoring nationalizing the other companies.and most industries?

Klein:  No, I'm just saying. This is socialism for the rich. 

Maher: Why are you so hostile towards this?

Sullivan:  Because I think the fundamental thesis that she is proposing is wrong. I think the reason why we're in this situation is not demonizing a few individual companies, it's systemic. And part of the reason we have this is the American People. The American people since the 70's have had stagnating income, so they decided to get something for nothing. And the government never told them they couldn't. So we have the stock bubble of the 90's and now we have the real estate bubble in the 2000's. 

Klein: That's not why we have this.

Sullivan: And the government never told them they couldn't. Wall Street is to blame for giving these people these loans, but no one is ever forced to take out a bad load they cannot pay.

Klein: The reason why this bubble was allowed to inflate was not that the American people demanded it, it was spectacularly profitable for Wall Street. Just in bonuses last year, they handed out 33 billion dollars in bonuses...  The problem is we have crybaby capitalism where when the times are good they are preaching deregulation and when the times are bad they want the bail-outs. The problem I have with your argument is where is this ideal capitalism of which you speak?

Andrew, the lenders told them they could get the houses for nothing and then lied about how they would pay for it and what they would pay, then bundled the cash and passed it on... And it's not the government's role to tell people what they cannot do. That's why we used to have regulations and background checks and down payments and mortgage lenders to oversee the system. It weeds out the people that can and cannot afford a home. He tried to deconstruct her argument because apparently he wasn't getting enough air time at that point (he filibustered the entire show after that) with nonsensical rationalizations on the current state of affairs. I lived through it and saw it up close and personal. Yea, he supports Obama, great, but his conservative ideology is a sham.

Andrew Sullivan has been conned by a fictitious notion of what conservatism really is. He states his Utopian vision of conservatism, but leaves out the part where conservatives want to deregulate everything and get rid of oversight and government so they can reap a magical harvest of cash like they have been doing during the entire Bush administration. Now we are seeing the results of conservatism. It's a failure. Does Sully really believe that conservatism exists without the fat cats expanding their pie of wealth in America to 1920's or pre-New Deal proportions? They've been trying to undo the New Deal ever since it was instituted and by the way which brought the country back from the brink of destruction.

Do you want Barack Obama or John McCain to make these decisions? I think the choice is easy. Conservative rule rains Armageddon down upon our heads---whether it happens in two years or twenty. It's inevitable.

     Joe Klein is calling the McCain campaign's assault on the media "insidious", "bullying" and "not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme."

The story of the day out here in Minneapolis is the McCain campaign's war against the press ... So what's going on here? Two things. McCain is just plain angry at us. By the evidence presented in the utterly revealing Time interview, he's ballistic. This is a politician who needs to see himself as the man on the white horse, boldly traversing a muddy field...any intimations that he's gotten muddied in the process, or has decided to throw mud, are intolerable. The second thing is more insidious: Steve Schmidt has decided, for tactical reasons, to slime the press. He wants the public to believe that there is an unfair--sexist (you gotta love it)--personal assault going on against Palin and her family. This is a smokescreen, intended to divert attention from the fact the very real and responsible vetting that is taking place in the media--about the substance of Palin's record as mayor and governor. ...There is a tendency in the media to kick ourselves, cringe and withdraw, when we are criticized. But I hope my colleagues stand strong in this case: it is important for the public to know that Palin raised taxes as governor, supported the Bridge to Nowhere before she opposed it, pursued pork-barrel projects as mayor, tried to ban books at the local library and thinks the war in Iraq is "a task from God." The attempts by the McCain campaign to bully us into not reporting such things are not only stupidly aggressive, but unprofessional in the extreme.

Continue reading »

We've talked about China on this blog so you know where we stand on the issues there. But I love sports and I did actually watch some of the Olympics over the weekend. I haven't checked them out in many years, but I was interested in seeing Phelps swim this time around. Apparently---America was glued to their sets for this one.

NBC Universal's Olympics coverage is drawing huge audiences, helped by the extravagant opening ceremony and swimming star Michael Phelps, and setting the stage for what could be record TV ratings for the Games. NBC Universal said the first two days of the Beijing Olympics drew an average audience of 29.1 million, making it the most highly rated broadcast of the Summer Games held outside the United States since 1976.

In total, 114 million viewers tuned in for at least part of its broadcast in the first two days, about 20 million more than the 2004 games in Athens, NBC said, citing figures from Nielsen Media Research.

I was shocked it received these ratings. Watching Bush sit next to Putin while the invasion of Georgia was happening was pretty pathetic, even for him.

Thx Driftglass for the image.

Download | play   Download | play  

American speed skater Joey Cheek has done a great deal to bring global attention to the immense suffering of the people of Darfur, forming Team Darfur and even going so far as donating his $40k Olympic bonus to the cause in 2006. Unfortunately, the gold and silver medalist was punished for his activism by the Chinese government -- who has contributed to the genocide in Darfur by fueling and supporting Sudan's murderous military government -- when they revoked his visa this week, preventing him from attending this year's Olympics in Beijing. 

During the opening ceremony NBC's Bob Costas discussed the controversy surrounding Cheek and the Chinese government, noting that he made it clear he would not protest the Chinese government during the Olympics: 

Costas: "Joey Cheek had planned to invoke the Olympic truce, the time-honored concept of an Olympic truce, to call attention to the humanitarian crisis in Sudan.  He did not intend to directly protest the Chinese government. The fact that they pulled his visa is so contrary to the Olympic ideal it is simply outrageous." 

I wondered if NBC was going to cave on this or take a stand and defend Cheek against the reprehensible actions of the Chinese government.  I applaud Costas for choosing the latter. 

Ron Suskind has a new book coming out called: "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism"

 It has some explosive information about the White House's plan to forge documents to persuade the American public that we should attack Iraq. This is incredible stuff. Suskind appeared on the TODAY show and gave his first interview about it...He says it's "one of the great lies in modern political history."

Download | play   Download | play

George "Slam dunk" Tenet denied the report, but there's this Sunday Telegraph article that describes what happened. Worse than Watergate.

I've used notes from CBS's Dan Raviv to highlight the action:

His new book THE WAY OF THE WORLD is about the war on terrorism and the Bush Administration since 9/11 and especially since invading Iraq in March '03. (You can easily Google details of the alleged letter from "Habbush" to Saddam Hussein dated July 1, 2001, which says (future) 9/11 hijacker was trained in Baghdad, AND that Iraq received shipments from Niger.) [..]

The book reports (or charges) that the Bush White House faked a letter from Saddam Hussein's intelligence chief to President Saddam in late 2003, backdating it to July 2001 and reports that Saddam's intelligence chief (Habbush) was in the protective custody of the C.I.A. at the time-- even while the U.S. military had him in the "deck of cards," a list of Saddam officials wanted dead-or-alive. The White House ordered the C.I.A. to arrange for Habbush to write the fake letter in his own handwriting. The controversial letter did find itself to the world media in December '03.

Habbush was in the deck of cards -- the (approx. 50) Saddam officials wanted dead-or-alive by the U.S. after the March 2003 invasion -- while in reality he was in C.I.A. protection. And in October 2003, Habbush was paid $5 million by the C.I.A. AFTER the C.I.A. asked Habbush to write -- in his own handwriting and in a convincing way -- the note that the White House suggested.

Britain's Sunday Telegraph in December '03 caused a sensation by reporting the discovery in Baghdad of that letter... and a few days later NEWSWEEK reported strong doubts that the letter was genuine. Among other things, experts wondered, why would Saddam's intel chief write about both Atta & nuclear material in the same letter?

Exact quotes from pp. 369-372 of Suskind's book are in bold print below:

Continue reading »

  Download | play   Download | play   (h/t Heather)

We've long since documented the desperate lengths that John McCain is willing to go to win the office of the Presidency, even to the point of hiring the same people responsible for those whisper campaigns in 2000 that he might be a little off his rocker from his years as a POW and that he fathered an illegitimate black baby.  Chris Matthews seems a little surprised that John McCain is actually seeking to win the election.  Not sure what Chris thinks McCain's been doing for the last 18 months, but it's Howard Fineman who gives the real answer to the $64,000 question.  The White House wants McCain to win because they know there would be no accountability for all their criminal acts with another Republican in office.

FINEMAN: If you're in this White House, you want another Republican administration to follow. You don't want a Democratic administration coming in there while the evidence is still fresh, so to speak. To look at it the way...

MATTHEWS: With the subpoena power...

FINEMAN: With the subpoena power and looking through all the records and looking at all the decisions that were made. You want to cover over your two terms with a third term the way Ronald Reagan did with George HW Bush.

All of which is undoubtedly true, and one can only hope that there might be a depressingly rare accountability moment coming from a Democratic White House (although nothing about the current Democratic majority would lead us to believe they have the fortitude to pursue it).  But the thing that chaps my hide is the tacit admission by Fineman that the Bush administration would have stuff to hide.  Not that they don't...we've been saying so since the beginning of C&L, but that after years and years of having Fineman and Co. make excuses for the Bush administration and be content to regurgitate their talking points (just as Kelly O'Donnell unapologetically does in this clip), NOW Fineman admits it as if it's been common knowledge all along. 

Transcripts below the fold

Continue reading »

While addressing Obama's recent horrible poll numbers from Newsweek on the TODAY Show Monday morning, Harold Ford was asked if Obama's flip flopping on some issues had impacted those numbers and Ford--without provocation--attacked MoveOn and the entire liberal blogosphere for not being happy with his FISA vote. There was no need to criticize us, because we weren't part of the question she asked.   So I can only conclude that Ford was referring to FISA and he took an opportunity to throw us all under the bus. I think there were a few other issues that we didn't even complain about. Why would Ford pull those attacks out of thin air? It's all to please the Villagers. That's why you're a loser, Harold.

Q: There's also a lot of accusations now about both campaigns about flip flopping, specifically against Obama about flip flopping? Do you think there's something going on, does Barack Obama have to worry now?

Ford: No....this race is fluid, this race is finally forming. Two things. Barack Obama is running for the President of the US, not the President of MoveOn.org, the President of any liberal group. He's running to lead, be a decision maker and a visionary for the country on the economy, national security and the immediate issue of Iraq.

I'd say McCain has flip flopped on many more positions than Obama has so the question is way off, which how a good Democrat should have responded, but beside that, what is Ford talking about? The country wants to move left. Check out all the numbers. Almost eight years of Bush have decimated the conservative movement and the economy, so people want a real change. Running as a liberal should be a goal to run towards, not a problem to move away from even if the media wants this race to be about personalities and not policies.

Here's a message to Ford: I want Obama to win the presidency very badly for all the obvious reasons, but I will not sit by idly while he allowed retroactive immunity to be passed. There was no need for that issue to even have been brought to the floor of Congress or for him to vote for it. He wasn't the only one to vote for it either, by the way. You can donate here to our Blue America page to help the cause. Is Jonathan Turley a dirty f*&king hippie too?

I'm sure you got the appropriate props from your media and DLC buddies for slipping that one in. Harold.

Email him here and ask why he went out of his way to attack us, but be gentle. You know how fragile he is .... harold@fordfortennessee.com

Download | play Download | play

Emptywheel makes the case that Scotty McClellan admitted as much this morning on the Today Show:

During the interview, Scottie revealed the two things that really pissed him off with the Bush Administration. First, being set up to lie by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. And second, learning that Bush had--himself--authorized the selective leaking of the NIE. [...]

Thus far ... we only had Dick Cheney's word that he had actually asked Bush to declassify this information. We didn't have Bush's confirmation that he had actually declassified the information. In fact, we've had Dick Cheney's claims that he--Dick--had insta-declassified via his super secret pixie dust declassification powers.

But now we've got George Bush, confirming that he, the President of the United States, authorized the leaks of "this information."

Now, though Scottie refers, obliquely, to "this information," he explicitly refers only to the NIE. But as I've described over and over again, it's not just the NIE Bush authorized Dick to order Libby to leak. ...(more)

Do give the rest of it a read. You can watch the entire interview here on the MSNBC website.

Hopefully Keith Olbermann will follow up on this as McClellan is due to appear on tonight's Countdown.

John McCain appeared on SNL's Weekend Update to give a little advice to the Democratic voters out there.

Download | play Download | play (h/t Bill W)

McCain: I’d like to begin tonight by thanking Republican voters. We’re gearing up for one of the most pivotal elections in this nation’s history. And I’m honored to be part of it. But I also want to speak to Democrats. I know we don’t see eye to eye on every issue, but I also believe we respect one another. That’s why I want to give to you this piece of advice: Democrats, I have to urge you—do not, under any circumstances, pick a candidate too soon.

Myers: Oh, so you don’t think Hillary should drop out.

McCain: Absolutely not.

Poehler: I told you.

Myers: Cool it.

Poehler: You cool it.

McCain: That’s right, fight amongst yourselves.