If anyone were betting on it, I would happily wager that the right-wing talking point that "this is still a center-right nation" was being ginned up and distributed to every conservative talking head on the planet within 24 hours of Barack Obama's election victory, if not before.

I mean, it's coming out of the mouths of nearly every single right-wing pundit who's managed airtime since Nov. 5. It started the next day, and has only gained volume since.

And of course, it's so risibly false that it really tells us much more about conservatives and their grip on reality than anything else.

David Sirota has the goods on just how prominent the theme has become since the election:

As the graph shows, the use of the exact term "center-right nation" spiked immediately after election day (point "0" is the day my column published, point "1" is election day).

While it's true - this trend study doesn't tell us how many of the "center-right nation" references are saying this is "not a center-right nation." But a look through Lexis-Nexis shows it's safe to assume that the vast majority of these references are asserting this is a "center-right nation."

So we're not talking about theory anymore - we're talking about empirical fact. The media has exponentially increased the amount of times it claims that this country is a "center-right nation" - at the very same time public opinion data shows the country is a decidedly center-left nation. In short, we have the two hard data points proving that as the country has become more progressive and validated its progressivism on election day, the media has increased its claims that the nation is conservative.

Of course, this is just the latest wingnut meme. It tells us, though, that the Republicans' longtime operating motto -- "If you can't beat 'em with brains, baffle 'em with bulls--t" -- is very much still with us.

As the American economy plunges deeper into crisis, the conservative chattering classes are hoping for a replay of their 2001 blame game. Having successfully perpetuated the myth that President Bush "inherited a recession" from Bill Clinton, right-wing mouthpieces from Rush Limbaugh to Fred Barnes began blaming Barack Obama for the Bush recession literally within hours of his election. But as a quick glance at the data shows, across virtually economic indicator from GDP, unemployment and consumer confidence to home prices, foreclosures and manufacturing output, ownership for this mushrooming economic calamity squarely belongs to George W. Bush.

Gross Domestic Product. U.S. GDP shrank by 0.3% in the third quarter (July through September), a decline which followed the downward revision of the Q2 number from 3.3% to 2.8%. But while "recession" is traditionally defined as two consecutive quarters of GDP contraction (which is almost certain to occur), the quarterly Survey of Professional Forecasters by the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia concluded that the United States entered a recession in April.

Recession at the State and Local Level. While there is debate as to whether or not the United States has technically slipped into a recession, at the state and local level there is no doubt at all. According to Moody's Economy, by the end of September 30 states were in recession, up from just five in March. 19 more states were deemed "at risk." (Only Sarah Palin's petro-state of Alaska was forecast to experience economic growth.) 276 of 380 metropolitan areas measured by Moody's had also sunk into recession. Combined with the downward spiral of home prices, these regional economic contractions are having a devastating impact on state and local tax revenue - and government services.

Unemployment. In October, the American economy shed 240,000 jobs, catapulting the losses for the year to 1.2 million. At 6.5%, the unemployment rate hit a 14-year high. The percentage of the adult population now working dropped to 61.8%, its lowest level in 15 years. The Philadelphia Fed survey forecast 222,000 more lost jobs per month through the end of the year. With some analysts now predicting unemployment will hit 8% by the middle of 2009, President Bush's reversal on extending jobless benefits could not come a moment too soon.

Jobless Claims. Of course, the corollary to skyrocketing unemployment is an explosion of new jobless claims. The Labor Department today released figures showing new unemployment claims jumped to 542,000 last week, a 16-year high. First-time jobless claims have now remained above the 400,000 for 17 straight weeks.

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On April 14th, 1912, the largest, most technological advanced passenger steamship in the world, hit an iceberg. Two hours and forty minutes later, the Titanic sank, with the loss of 1,517 lives. Only 705 people survived.

Nearly a century later, the sinking of the Titanic has turned into a cottage industry where, as Harvard historian Steven Biel joked, only ‘Jesus and the Civil War have been written about more.’ Nearly 200 books have been written on the disaster, with countless documentaries, movies, historical and scientific studies analyzing what caused the Titanic to sink. Was it the fault of the captain, running the ship too hard to make a deadline to New York? Was it the fault of the engineers, some defect in the ship’s design? Was the fault of the Marconi wireless officers too busy tapping out passenger’s messages they failed to heed iceberg warning from other ships? Was it the wrath of God angry because the White Star Line didn’t christen their ships? Was it incompetence and the lack of enough lifeboats? Was it just plain bad luck? What they all didn’t know was that a confidential investigation launched by the ship’s builders shortly after the disaster had all too quickly – and all too easily – determined exactly what sank the Titanic.

It was the lack of regulation.

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Back in 1999, John McCain acknowledged his role in the 1980's Keating Five savings and loan scandal that rightly stained his career. "The fact is," he said, "it was the wrong thing to do, and it will be on my tombstone and deservedly so." But again facing withering criticism as a second financial crisis grips the United States, his campaign today instead claimed McCain's intervention 20 years ago with federal regulators on behalf of future convicted felon Charles Keating was merely "a political smear job."

As AmericaBlog and Politico reported, the campaign deployed McCain's lawyer John Dowd to rewrite history on his client's behalf during a conference call Monday:

McCain lawyer John Dowd described McCain's "former relationship with Charles Keating as 'social friends,'" and called the situation a "classic political smear job on John."

Sadly for McCain, Dowd's yarn matches neither the facts nor McCain's self-proclaimed resurrection as a reformer in the wake of his near-death experience in the Keating Five imbroglio.

Earlier this year, the Boston Globe summarized McCain's close relationship with Keating and his decision to intervene with federal regulators on his behalf:

McCain met Keating in 1982, during McCain's successful run for Congress, and soon began accepting offers from Keating to fly McCain's family on a corporate plane to Keating's house in the Bahamas. McCain did not pay for most of the trips until years later, when the matter became public.

Keating, meanwhile, complained regularly to McCain that a proposed regulation would hurt his business. Known as the "direct investment" rule, it limited the amount that savings-and-loan institutions could invest from their assets. In 1985, after having "heard frequently from Charlie on the matter," McCain decided that Keating's complaints "were sound enough to warrant our assistance." He cosponsored a resolution sought by Keating, but it failed to postpone the regulation, McCain wrote in his autobiography.

By then, Keating was one of McCain's most important benefactors; McCain received $112,000 in campaign donations from Keating and his Lincoln associates, mostly between 1982 and 1986.

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The Washington Post yet again manages to produce an op-ed only fit to wrap fish in, as neocon Michael Rubin - ex of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, the Office of the Secretary of Defense as an advisor to Rummie, political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority and unpaid hack for propaganda articles produced by the Pentagon's PR firm, the Lincoln Group - blames Joe Biden for eight years of Bush administration foreign policy failure in a desperate attempt to label Biden as "Iran's favorite Senator".

Here's how Rubin's logic works, as explained by Ilan Goldenberg of Democracy Arsenal:

Rubin makes a convoluted and nonsensical argument that A.  Joe Biden supported engagement with the reformist Khatami government of Iran during the late 1990s and first half of this decade.  That B.  During that time trade between Iran and the EU increased.  That C.  A National Intelligence Estimate found that Iran had stopped working on its nuclear weapons program in 2003.  From this he deduces that it's Biden's fault that Iran has moved ahead on its nuclear weapons program because it used increased trade with Europe to fund a nuclear weapons program.  What???

... Rubin basically takes a bunch of unrelated facts and uses them to conclude that Iran must have spent 2000 to 2003 working furiously on its nuclear weapons program and that it did it with money from Europe that somehow Joe Biden was responsible for.  Yup, putting those rigorous analytical skills that he learned that the Office of Special Plans to work.

Rubin also forgets to mention little details.  Like the fact that under this Administration trade with Iran has actually increased ten-fold and is at its highest levels since before the Iranian revolution.  Or the fact that the 2007 NIE concluded that Iran did in fact stop working on its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and was still years away from building a bomb.

Rubin then claims that Biden's vote against Kyl-Lieberman was partisan politics because Biden said that he didn't trust this Administration.  Ummm.... Trying to prevent war with Iran is not exactly a partisan activity.  It's not partisan to fear that an administration that has a track record of escalating conflict and misleading the American public might do it again.  That is in fact the exact opposite of partisan if you believe that war with Iran is against America's interests.

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Who has the better judgement, the man who advocated a Surge that had a minor role in saving Iraq from being an even bigger disaster or the man who said we shouldn't embark on that disastrous war to start with? 

Matt Duss writes: "The good news is we have Al Qaeda on the ropes in Iraq. The bad news is we allowed Iraq to become a sanctuary (and recruiting poster and training ground and sectarian killing field) to start with, by invading Iraq."

McCain helped create the war in Iraq and, like many another war-booster, predicted it would be a cakewalk. He wants us to ignore his terrible judgement of 2001-2003 and is careful to only talk about 2007 onwards as if the rest happened in a different dimension. Now that better COIN tactics and a lotof help from folks who used to shoot at US troops have reduced violence but done nothing to usher in a new era of Iraqi reconciliation, he wants us to ignore all that and credit a small increase in troop numbers which he happened to support for "victory".

The mainstream media seem willing to do just that, but that's no reason why he and they should get a free ride.

On Sunday's Late Edition Rep, Roy Blunt (R-MO), a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee who reliably votes in favor of the Oil & Gas industry and against renewable energy bills and has been rewarded in return, joined the month-long chorus of Republicans including McCain that have been making the demonstrably false claim that there weren’t any major spills caused by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

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Blunt: If there was ever a test of this system it's in the one place that we do drill which is the gulf - 4,000 platforms in the gulf - thank God we've got them. 238 of them were injured by either Katrina or Rita. There was really no oil loss of any appreciable kind at any of those. Less oil was lost than used to seep up out of the gulf floor."

In fact, as we continue to note each time a new version of this claim has been made, there were at least 124 oil spills as a result of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The website Skytruth.org even has posted satellite images of the spills as seen from space. Blunt added to his false assertion a repeat of what must be the new talking point on this issue that was offered on Thursday by McCain’s policy adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer (an energy lobbyist) after she was called out by MSNBC's David Schuster after trying to claim that "hurricanes Rita and Katrina and did not spill a drop” of oil, a downplaying of the spills by comparing them to the amount of oil that naturally seeps into the ocean floor.

As ThinkProgress notes, “the effects of seeps and spills differ hugely” in their environmental impact. It's an apples and oranges comparison, as seeps are natural, thus not preventable, and they have very little adverse ecological impact due to the fact that they result in a much lower rate of release over time over a larger area, while the effects of spills on the surface can be devastating.

Rep. Blunt also attacked Speaker Pelosi's calling for a release of 10% of the oil in the strategic oil reserve and her pointing out many of the same facts I had written about a month ago that the oil industry has yet drilled in just 19 percent of the more than 40 million acres they already can that are not covered by the current ban — 40 million acres that represent 79 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore oil reserves. Using generous estimates from the latest analysis from Bush’s own Department of Energy, allowing for unlimited drilling both offshore and in ANWR “would lower the price at the pump by less than 6 cents" a gal. by 2025.

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In a segment ending with the disclosure that "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace is brought to you by "The People of America's Oil and Natural Gas Industry" and immediately followed by the American Petroleum Institute (API) front group's misleading ad, the Fox News host seized on one of John McCain's more recent flip-flops siding with President Bush's recent call to rescind the ban on offshore oil drilling and asked over and over why McCain won't cave all the way to big oil and also allow for oil exploration in the Alaskan Arctic Wildlife Refuge, ANWR.

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In the process of spewing talking points on behalf of his show's sponsor, Wallace brings Obama into the discussion by joining the growing list of conservative dittoheads in the media who have been repeating this same false claim made by McCain last Tues. about oil spills and Hurricane Katrina:

Wallace: Obama talks about environmental damage from drilling offshore but the fact is the moratorium was put into effect in 1981. There's been a lot of technological advances since then. We had Hurricane Katrina go through the heart of the Gulf of Mexico and ravage these oil rigs and there were almost no oil spills, so what's he talking about?"

As ThinkProgress points out, that's not true at all.

The truth is that Hurricane Katrina caused oil spillage so significant it was clearly visible from space. It also wreaked environmental havoc near the scale of the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster. ...

As Sen Reid correctly pointed out, this recent push by George Bush & John McBush represents "nothing more than a cynical campaign ploy that will do nothing to lower energy prices, and represents another big giveaway to oil companies already making billions in profits." and the NYT went further to note that "the only real beneficiaries will be the oil companies that are trying to lock up every last acre of public land before their friends in power -- Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney -- exit the political stage."

In fact, the oil industry has yet drilled in just 19 percent of the more than 40 million acres they already can that are not covered by the current ban -- 40 million acres that represent 79 percent of America’s technically recoverable offshore oil reserves. Using generous estimates from the latest analysis from Bush's own Department of Energy, allowing for unlimited drilling both offshore and in ANWR "would lower the price at the pump by less than 6 cents by 2025."

How much do you reckon a gallon of gas will be in 2025, with or without the hypothetical $0.06 a gal. savings?

After lauding Oliver North for his new book that apparently has more pictures than it does pages (No doubt North's picture-book tells a much different story than the truth-laid-bare photos and accounts from an award-winning unembedded photojournalist like Dahr Jamail, but I digress), Sean Hannity asks North for his opinion on whether the President was right to compare the want to hold diplomatic talks with Iran to the appeasement of Nazis in the 1930’s.

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Oliver North: As you know, I’m the history guy at Fox News Channel, right? I’ve done this WWII series – 52 of our episodes about WWII. Had it not been for Chamberlain going to sit down with Adolf Hitler and try to cut a deal in Munich, WWII might never have happened, but it emboldened the dictator. That’s what the President said yesterday in Jerusalem. And a little reminder today, a shot across the bow here at the NRA, when John McCain got up and said, 'You cannot have these kinds of unconditional, no preconditions discussions, with despots and dictators' - dead on the mark.

For someone who was lucky not to have spent the better part of the last two decades making license plates, he's got some nerve touching this topic. This is the guy who oversaw the arms for hostages deal with Iran in 1985 (among other crimes), right in the middle of the Iran-Iraq war in which the US was actively and openly arming and supporting Saddam Hussein. Ollie North didn't just talk with Iran at a time they were our enemy in a proxy-war, he actually helped to arm them, bypassing Congress by violating the Boland Amendment to help fund an illegal war in Nicaragua.

Lacking even a shred of credibility, Fox News' "history guy" is to the truth in the historical record what Dick Cheney is to gun safety. He shouldn't be allowed anywhere near the subject, and anyone who believes a word of what he says about it is a fool.

Negotiation is not appeasement and there are zero parallels between simply opening up a diplomatic dialogue with Iran and the capitulation to Adolf Hitler in the Munich Agreement. It's a ridiculous assertion, especially considering that the Bush administration itself has negotiated with Libya and North Korea, yet Iran's previous offers to put everything, including its nuclear program, on the table and peacefully negotiate have been completely ignored even after Iran had been an important ally of the coalition against al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Oliver North, just like John McCain and other conservatives, don't even have a clue what they are talking about. Apparently no one in this administration ever thought to ask Bush's own Sec. of Defense, Neville Chamberlain Robert Gates, for his opinion:

We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage with respect to the Iranians and then sit down and talk with them. If there's going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander with them not feeling that they need anything from us.

Exactly.

(illustration by Tom Tomorrow)

Revisionist wingnut Jonah Golberg, aka Doughy Pantload, is asking for input on what you "think Bush’s legacy will be."

Not kidding. I suspect we may have at least a few readers who wouldn't mind helping him out.

The Politico is reporting that Fran Townsend, former Homeland Security Adviser, is joining her buddy Tony Snow as a contributor to CNN. PERRspectives:

Politico is reporting that President Bush's former homeland security adviser and current intelligence advisory board member Fran Townsend is joining CNN as a contributor. Joining former White House press secretary Tony Snow as the second Bush sycophant to join the network in the last two weeks, Townsend's addition is apparently designed to help make CNN the "right choice" during its election '08 coverage.

While George W. Bush may be most disliked President in modern American history, his one-time mouthpieces are very popular at CNN indeed.

Yes, they certainly are. You know, I'm not afraid of conservative voices on the air, but I'm curious where is CNN's responsibility to provide thoughtful voices on the left? Especially when they make a point of including someone only too happy to pimp White House talking points like this one, upon her departure from Homeland Security.

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Is Paul Begala to be the only voice of the left on CNN?

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I've said it before: Democrats need to stay the hell off FOX. Not because we should be afraid of their questions, but because it legitimizes a clear and overt propaganda unit of the RNC. And frankly, when Democrats do stay off FOX, it gets under their craw, and forces them to do WATB tactics like the Obama Clock. And that worked well for Democrats until just recently, and then both Democratic presidential contenders appeared on FOXNews Sunday. Now it is DNC chairman Howard Dean's turn to try to contextualize host Chris Wallace's crowing that Democrats are now appearing on FNS. The problem is that he just didn't do it strong enough.

Dean: No, I think it was the right thing to do (boycott Fox debates and appearances) because there are some things in the news department that really have been shockingly biased. And I think that’s wrong. And I’ll just say so right up front, but it is important also for us to not…we shouldn’t punish the viewers of FOX by staying away. Now those viewers have had an opportunity to look at the debates on other channels, now they're going to have an opportunity viewing on this channel and I think that's fair.

Are you kidding me? The network that aired the "Dean Scream" ad nauseam should be given a place in the Democratic primary race?

Wouldn't it have been better if Dean had been tougher when he decided to go ahead and appear on FOX and said something to the effect of "the Republicans have done such a poor job of managing this country that their party is falling apart, and we wanted to go to the one network that we know caters to conservatives and try to get some truth on this network, so that the voters understand that conservative politics--such as FOX News advocates constantly--are not in their best interest. So I'll give FOX a chance to show that 'fair and balanced' is more than a catchy phrase to fool their viewers."?

Transcripts below the fold

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image from here

Talk To Action:

Every year, there are controversies over the "National Day of Prayer," which has somehow become the exclusive province of the Dobson empire. This year it is being held on May first -- and the fireworks have already started. But lest you think that this is an obscure bit of Bush administration taxpayer financed pandering -- note that even Democratic governors in blue states -- such as the Democratic governor of my state, Massachussetts, Deval Patrick -- are issuing proclamations as drafted by Focus on the Family.

The problem, of course, is much larger than a single day of pandering by politicians to the Religious Right. Mother Jones points out there are even efforts to exclude non-Christians from the National Day of Prayer!

And our President thinks of the Constitution as providing an "important bridge between church and state." Um, Mister President? Thomas Jefferson said it was a wall, not a bridge, and as an architect of both Monticello and the nation, he ought to know the difference.

As First Freedom First co-director Barry Lynn points out in this video, the Religious Right and their battle against church-state separation impacts Americans in their everyday lives. More of this program is available here. (h/t Progressive Media):

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Contessa Brewer: On the campaign trail in Raleigh North Carolina yesterday Obama made an unfortunate gesture. [...] Some think it looks like a flip off.

There really is no excuse for anything posing as a news network to claim that 'the blogs are buzzing about this one" and promote it so when any cursory search on the internets would have found numerous examples of just how specious a charge it was -- like the video shot from the side here. As John Cole put it: "Notice something problematic? Like a few extra fingers? What a total joke."

As Media Matters notes, this is a story that made the rounds on sites like RedState and FoxNews.com but had already been thoroughly debunked before Contessa gave new life to the ridiculous lie. Speaking of offensive fingers, did I just miss the time any of the major news networks gave any attention at all to the only presidential candidate I can ever recall that actually gave anyone the finger with the video rolling?

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Hannity's laughing at you, George, for making him the only clear winner of last Wednesday's debate.

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Hannity: The liberal blogs are losing their minds today in part because I suggested the question to George Stephanopoulos Tues afternoon on my radio show.

While we've had plenty of criticism for MSNBC's and CNN's debate coverage this season, nothing they did came anywhere near to what ABC pulled last Wednesday and Stephanopoulos' on-air dumpster diving for gotcha questions on Hannity's radio show will likely go down as one of the dumbest moves by a debate moderator ever. We've come to expect smear jobs like this from the likes of Hannity, and the Dems have rightly refused to attend any debate on the GOP/Fox News Channel because of it, but now we have ABC News's Chief Washington Correspondent and former Democratic presidential political adviser openly seeking their advice and unapologetically emulating them.

How is it that Stephanopoulos, of all people, thought this was a good move? Josh Marshall offers this depressingly valid observation:

I was mulling over the ABC debate this morning and the moderators' claim that knocking Obama with a more or less uninterrupted stream of Swift Boat gotchas was justified by focusing the debate on 'electability'. And it occurred to me that we have now crossed an important threshold where the Republican operative cadre has sufficiently disciplined and trained the press (and more than a few Democrats) that their own role may simply be redundant. ...

Thankfully, there are still more than a handful of journalists who aren't GOP pawns who together have penned a letter slamming ABC for its debate debacle.