Is it just me, or does Khalid Sheikh Mohammed look just like one of the marionettes from “Team America: World Police?” I digress…

I really don’t have anything to add to the KSM/9-11 trial that folks like Rudy Giuliani, Pete King, and Andy McCarthy have express more articulately and with more effective anger than I ever could. Besides, I’m sure the last thing the internet needs is another conservative blogger criticizing the President. At least, not when it’s so much funner to point out liberals who have been criticizing him as of late.

First is Richard Cohen, who I’m a huge fan of because a) I like hearing from people who disagree with me, and b) Cohen is an actual liberal as opposed just another Obama apologist. Here’s what Mr. Cohen has to say recently aboot the assorted foreign-policy related…it’s Thanksgiving, so I’ll be generous and call them “oopsies….”

But to reread the speech is also to come face to face with an Obama of keen moral clarity. Here was a man who knew why he was running for president and knew, also precisely, what he personified. He could talk to America as a black man and a white man — having lived in both worlds. He could — and he did — explain to America what it is like to have been a black man of Wright’s age and what it is like even now to be a black man of any age.

Somehow, though, that moral clarity has dissipated. The Obama who was leading a movement of professed political purity is the very same person who as president would not meet with the Dalai Lama, lest he annoy the very sensitive Chinese. He is the same man who bowed to the emperor of Japan when, in my estimation, the president of the United States should bow to no man. He is the same president who in China played the mannequin for the Chinese government, appearing at stage-managed news conferences and events — and having his remarks sometimes censored. When I saw him in that picture alone on the Great Wall, he seemed to be thinking, “What the hell am I doing here?” If so, it was a good question.

The Barack Obama of that Philadelphia speech would not have let his attorney general, Eric Holder, announce the new policy for trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four other Sept. 11 defendants in criminal court, as if this were a mere departmental issue and not one of momentous policy. And the Barack Obama of the speech would have enunciated a principle of law and not an ad hoc system in which some alleged terrorists are tried in civilian courts and some before military tribunals. What is the principle in that: What works, works? Try putting that one on the Liberty Bell.

Even the Obama Apologists at the serious news organization MSNBC have been critical (as opposed to the fake news on Fox). Here’s JBdotC 2008 Political Douchebag of the Year Chris Matthews, who sounds like \his leg isn’t tingling as much as it used to…

“I worry about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He’s going to find himself an ACLU lawyer . . . He’s going to use that as a platform from hell where he gets to spew his point of view on the Middle East – that kind of thing he’s going to sell with the beard and everything – The New York Post is going to be reborn with this guy as the enemy. I just worry that he’s going to win this argument for months before he gets executed, if he does get executed. If that ever happens, I worry about this becoming a show for the bad guys.”

You’re doing a heckuva job there, Barry!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  It was very strange to be living a holiday from another time zone — madre texted me that the bird was in the oven when we would usually start eating in the GMT time zone.  Not going to lie, it was definitely a bittersweet day for me in London…but at least there was definitely some sweet.

I started the day at St. Paul’s Cathedral for the Thanksgiving Service for the American Community in London.  It was very strange heading out into a city that was not on the same festive wavelength as me, but as I headed east across the city the American accents became the majority in an even stranger way.  Inside St. Paul’s, I had a new cultural revelation: Americans–no, WASPs–are definitely an identifiable race.  Thanks to flying solo, I snagged a seat within the first section of seats and enjoyed belting out my favorite Thanksgiving tunes (my neighbor even complimented me at the end of the service) and hearing the President’s Thanksgiving Day proclamation, something I never really heard in full, read by the US Ambassador.

I thought I had a celebrity sighting during the service, and it was confirmed on the steps when leaving: Chris Matthews, host of Hardball on MSNBC!  I wasn’t the only one who noticed (there was a group of Georgetown University students) but I was the only one who interned in the same office as his public relations agent this summer

Chris Matthews

Afterward I headed home to a bustling kitchen where my Vassar flatmates hastily decided to whip up a feast.  I tracked down the full Charlie Brown’s Thanskgiving Special on YouTube but failed to find a live stream of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Finally, it was 6:30pm, and I headed over to the Texas Embassy Cantina where I met Annie Black, her visiting parents, her cousin who is here in graduate school, and Jenna Sterling.  It was so sweet of the Blacks to include us in their holiday celebration and it was great to spend time with some sort of family…especially one actually from Texas at the so themed restaurant!  They served a Thanksgiving dinner, but they also put chips and salsa on the table and our first round of drinks were margaritas.  It was a delicious meal out, and I did have turkey, cranberry sauce, and sweet potatoes, but it just wasn’t quite Thanksgiving…most perfectly embodied in the small sliver of pie that equaled about 1/3 of my usual first-round dessert serving.

I headed home again to stuffed Vassar students and a turkey in the oven for a Marist flatmate and his visiting sister.  And that, my dear readers, is when I became that adult who goes out to dinner for Thanksgiving with one family and joins another group for their post-dinner festivity. So strange…but it was very comforting.  We had a great night listening to holiday music, playing games, and just enjoying each others company.  Isn’t that what the holidays are all about?

1. Suicide bomber Barbie – Okay, actually it’s just Barbie in a burqa. This only goes to show that Barbie will never stop keeping women down in society. But I guess at least it’s for a good cause:

Wearing the traditional Islamic dress, the iconic doll is going undercover for a charity auction in connection with Sotheby’s for Save The Children.

2. War on Christmas continues with new athvertisement – And though I really shouldn’t have to say this, of course there’s no such thing as the “War on Christmas.” But it’s fun to play along with Fox News’ little conspiratorial delusion. The American Humanist Association is sponsoring a new nation-wide campaign involving ads with the slogan, “No God? …No problem! Be good for goodness’ sake.” This is the latest variation on a common theme. And despite the fact that it doesn’t say anything negative at all about anyone’s religion, I guarantee that it won’t be long before we hear from outraged Christians who feel personally slighted by the ad.

3. Marietta, Georgia considers dropping “so help me God” from police officer oath – Of course there’s some strange controversy over it. Councilman Van Pearlberg apparently just inquired as to whether it had ever been challenged, which somehow led to the option to remove it being considered. Pearlberg, however, claims he never actually objected to it and thinks it should not be removed, while also saying, “I don’t think anybody should be forced to say anything…I just don’t know what the alternative would be.” Keep it as part of the oath or give people the freedom to say what they want? Which is it? They’re mutually exclusive positions. If what you’re saying is that people should not be required to say it but they can should they be so inclined, then why not just obey the Constitution and remove it while leaving open the option for individuals to unofficially include it should they desire to do so?

4. Matt Barber blames everyone for Will Phillips’ decision except Will Phillips - Matt Barber of the Liberty Counsel, a Religious Right organization, has publicly come out to respond to 10-year-old Will Phillips’ decision to not stand for the Pledge until gay marriage is legalized. Basically, that response is simply ranting about how all of Barber’s ideological opponents are responsible for brainwashing the kid. He’s apparently a pawn of his evil parents, liberals, atheists, gay activists, Hollywood, etc. To whoever that newscaster was who asked Will Phillips what a gay-wad was, Matt Barber’s your man. Hopefully Jon Stewart can dispatch some pro wrestlers to force an apology. What I want to know is, who is responsible for Matt Barber’s being a flaming moron?

5. Small children prove more knowledgeable about evolution than Ray Comfort and Kirk Cameron:

6. Chris Matthews vs. Bishop Tobin over recent Catholic extortion tactic:

“Do you believe President Obama was born in the United States?

“Here‘s my litmus test—are you pushing home schooling?”

“Do you or don’t you believe in evolution?”

“Are you one of those crazy birthers?”

Those are all questions Chris Matthews has demanded anyone he considers more conservative than normal must answer—no matter how off topic.  When the guest pauses, disbelieving the bizarre turn the conversation has taken, Chris pounces and accuses them of “having to think about it,” and the word “crazy” makes an appearance more often than not.

But last night, Chris stared genuine crazy right in the face in the person of Dennis Kucinich, and he treated him like a wise sage of foreign policy and Constitutional process.  He avoided the obvious question:

“Congressman Kucinich, did you tell Shirley MacLaine that you interacted with a UFO?”

In her 2007 book, Sage-ing While Aging, MacLaine writes that Kucinich:

“…had a close sighting over my home in Graham, Washington, when I lived there. Dennis found his encounter extremely moving. The smell of roses drew him out to my balcony where, when he looked up, he saw a gigantic triangular craft, silent, and observing him. It hovered, soundless, for ten minutes or so, and sped away with a speed he couldn’t comprehend. He said he felt a connection in his heart and heard directions in his mind.”

While he gets a pass on MSNBC in his appearances, the late Tim Russert, (rest in peace, you are missed) did ask the question at a Democrat Presidential primary debate:

KUCINICH: “It was an unidentified flying object, OK? It’s, like, it’s unidentified,” Kucinich said during one of the few highlights at the Democratic  presidential debate in Philadelphia. “I saw something.”

Then Dennis decided to dig a little deeper in the hole.

KUCINICH:  “You have to keep in mind that more — that Jimmy Carter saw a UFO and also that more people in this country have seen UFOs than I think approve of George Bush’s presidency,”

When Russert cited a poll that 14% of Americans claim to have seen a UFO (but not to have communed with it) Kucinich asked Russert to repeat the percentage, and acted satisfied that it proved he was mainstream.

Of course, it is unusual for Dennis Kucinich to be able to claim commonality with 14% the American people, a definite high point in his career.

Of course, it doesn’t take Shirley MacLaine  to remind us that Dennis is a loon. When he announced for President in October of 2003, Kucinich made this statement:

I am running for President of the United States to enable the Goddess of Peace to encircle within her arms all the children of this country and all the children of the world.

Hilariously, the New York Times dubbed this announcement “populist.”

Tuesday night, though, Dennis Kucinich was on Hardball to represent the supposedly respectable Democrat anti-war position on the Afghanistan counter-insurgency plan being endlessly debated by President Obama.  Kucinich was there to be the Left side of the argument, to be sure, but besides his otherworldly nuttiness, Matthews also ignored the fact that Kucinich never was a supporter of the war effort in Afghanistan in the first place, stating in early 2002:

“…the blood of innocent people who perished on September 11 [was] avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan.”

Matthews prompted Kucinich to tell us why the war effort in Afghanistan is doomed and may even be counterproductive:

KUCINICH:  …And it‘s absolutely true, Chris, that the more troops we send, the more enemies we‘re creating.  People are uniting against the United States.  They do not want a foreign occupier.  There‘s been a history of Afghanistan.  You know, Russia tried and their effort collapsed.  And Queen Victoria found she couldn‘t do it.  You can go back through history.  You cannot conquer Afghanistan.

And then the next question is, what are you going to do when you conquer it?  I think that there‘s one other point I want to mention here, Chris, and that is the role of Congress because that‘s not being discussed at all.

MATTHEWS:  Yes, sir.  I want to hear that.

KUCINICH:  Under Article One, Section Eight, Congress makes the decision as to whether we go to war and Congress makes the decision, as courts have decided, whether they‘re going to continue—whether we continue or not to fund a war. .. and Congress should say it‘s time to end the war.

“Yes, sir?”  We’re doing the same thing in Afghanistan as the Russians?  ”Yes, sir?”

Let’s compare that to how Chris treats Republicans or conservatives whose views are shared by a lot more than 14% of the public—though by no one Chris hangs around with:

When Conservative Republican Congressman Mike Pence from Indiana came on Hardball to talk about why the Republicans voted against the Cap and Trade energy tax plan that will amount to a takeover of the economy that dwarfs the health care bill, Chris started screaming about evolution to a surprised Pence.

Matthews demanded “Do you or don’t you believe in evolution?”  sarcastically asked Pence, “Did you ever take biology?”   And seemed to take Pence’s pretty mainstream response that he thought God directed the process as a non-answer before lecturing:

MATTHEWS:”There are people that really are against science in your party who really do question not just the science behind the climate change but the science behind evolutionary fact, that we were taught – you and I – in our biology books. They don’t accept the scientific method. They believe in belief itself…. I think you believe in evolution but you’re afraid to say so because your conservative constituency might find that offensive.”

When Chris Chocola, President of The Club for Growth –which studiously avoids social issues and backs fiscally conservative candidates– appeared on Harball on election night 2009, Chris weirdly changed the topic: (near the end of the clip)

MATTHEWS: Last question—here‘s my litmus test—are you pushing home schooling?

CHOCOLA: We don‘t—no, we support school choice.

MATTHEWS: No, but home schooling, where you don‘t go to public school because you don‘t want to mix with other children. You want to keep the kids at home, so you can teach them about life at home, away from the exposure of other social groups. Are you for that? Because I would consider that culturally conservative — at least.

In another segment last night, after his very respectful treatment of Dennis Kucinich, Chris took this parting cheap shot at  Kate Obenshain, Vice President of Young America‘s Foundation, giving her no chance to respond or defend herself.

MATTHEWS:  Let me just tell you at Thanksgiving time, with really a full heart, the reason people on the left sometimes ask me, why do you have so many Republicans on the show, when so many of the other shows on this network don‘t have as many on like you, I bring you on so that people can see what Republicans are like. Kate, thank you very much for coming on.  Kate Obenshain.  And it‘s great to have you on to remind everybody what a Republican looks like.

Thanks a lot.  Steve, thank you—I‘m being a little sarcastic.  You‘ve been great tonight, Kate.  You‘ve made the point I wanted to make.

It might be hard to fathom, but could there be a few scenario where Sarah Palin—well, you heard a point of view just now like hers—could win the White House?

What was Kate Obenshain’s crime?  She was for tough interrogation techniques for terrorists.  Like most Americans.   The shame!  Just think how she’d have been treated if Chris didn’t have such a “full heart” of holiday spirit!

But Chris was unintentionally revealing, here, besides being incredibly nasty.  By “people on the Left,” did he mean Keith Olbermann whose guests are basically restricted to the same 10 hard leftists night after night?

That same night, Olbermann devoted a segment to trying to figure out Sarah Palin’s take on the book of Revelation.  With a remarkable lack of commentary, he cherry-picked clips from Assemblies of God preachers (though she no longer attends a church in that denomination) and threw in Billy Graham for good measure.  Ostensibly, it was to try to discern Palin’s policy toward Israel.  The subtext?  See how crazy this woman is.

So, here’s the MSNBC standard.  Sarah Palin, Billy Graham and evangelical Christians in general?  Nuts.  Dennis “UFO” Kucinich?  Foreign policy sage.  A respected Progressive voice.

Here’s a question Chris should ask to weed out the conspiracy loons who want to delegitimize a President despite objective evidence to the contrary:

Do you think George W. Bush won the 2000 Presidential Election?

“Matthews showed how inept he is as an interviewer, how misinformed he is as a Catholic, how rude he is as a person and how threatened he is by the Moral truth.”

Click here to learn more

Well, I thought I was going to stop writing for a while about the Catholic Church’s blatant attempts to force its will on government officials.  (For instance, see this and this and this.)  Certainly, I thought that I was not going to write any more about the dispute on abortion between Rep. Patrick Kennedy and Bishop Thomas Tobin, since the MSM is writing quite a lot about it.

But then I saw this interview on Hardball with Chris Matthews with Bishop Tobin.

The interview started off with Matthews showing the clip from John F. Kennedy’s famous 1960 statement where he says that he believes in an America

where no public official either requests or accepts instructions on public policy from the Pope, the National Council of Churches, or any other ecclesiastical source.  Where no religious body seeks to impose its will, directly or indirectly, upon the general populace or the public acts of its officials.

Tobin gave a non-responsive answer that was contradictory to what Tobin himself was saying and was completely contradictory to what John Kennedy said on the clip.  Tobin started by saying “what we are trying to do is not dictate what public policy should be in the United States from a purely Catholic doctrinal point of view.”  But then he contradicted himself by saying:

What we are trying to do most of all is instill good human values but also have Catholics who are in political office be faithful to the dictates of the Church and the dictates of their conscience and the teaching of the Church. . . . For any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his faith. . . . No commitment is more important than your committment to your faith because it involves your relationship with God. …  Nothing can become more important than your relationship with God.

Tobin (and by implication the Catholic bishops and Catholic church) couldn’t be any clearer that he  expects that all Catholic politicians must follow the tenets and directives of the church.

Matthews called out Tobin on the contradictions and it was off to the races for Matthews.  What I thought was most interesting was that Matthews kept pressuring Tobin to say, since he was opposed to Patrick Kennedy’s beliefs about abortion, what Tobin believed Kennedy should do about legislation–not beliefs.  In other words, what laws did Tobin think should be made about abortion.  Tobin never had an answer.

Matthews approached some of this from a position that is not often discussed.  He said to Tobin that, since Tobin does not want any law that provides for any form of abortion, if a law was passed that outlaws abortion, that must mean that a woman obtaining an abortion in the United States is breaking the law.  Therefore, the woman is a criminal.  Tobin had no answer to that.

To me, that is a very good question to ask of opponents of abortion.  If they are opposed to abortion, shouldn’t a woman who has an abortion be sanctioned just as is an abortion provider?  (I know that it doesn’t work like that for drug penalties, for instance, where a drug dealer is generally subject to harsher penalties than a drug user.  But the drug user is still penalized–often very severely.)  Matthews is right to press people who have strong anti-abortion views like Tobin to explain what penalties they feel should be imposed on women who obtain abortions.  If the debate has to contain that question, it will be harder for anti-abortion (i.e., anti-choice) people to have a consistent position.

(And by the way, some Catholics think that Matthews was “uncivil” to Tobin. But that’s the way Matthews frequently is to any guest, isn’t it? There’s no reason for Matthews’ to change his style just because the guest is a church official. (And he did refer to Tobin with the ridiculous title of “Your Excellency.” Really, is there any reason to use that title?)

Chris Matthews makes it known to the public that he is a devout Catholic.  However, on Monday Chris actually debated Providence, RI  Bishop Thomas J. Tobin on just why Bishop Tobin has forbidden Rep. Patrick J. Kennedy  to receive the Roman Catholic sacrament of Holy Communion because of his advocacy of abortion rights.

At issue was Matthew’s questions to the Bishop about merging Church and State issues within The Church’s punitive measures toward Catholics who are percieved to ignore the moral teachings of The Church.  This video is excellent.  Here’s a rare glimpse at Matthew’s brilliance in all things political:

Bishop Tobin on MSNBC last night was treated awfully by Chris Matthews.

Ground Zero

Will Barack Hussein Obama become just another name in the long list of defamed, failed, and corrupt Illinois politicians? Will he follow in Governor Blagojevich’s footsteps as another Democrat whose party abandoned him? Has his fall from political grace begun?

In the short span of time this administration has been in power, it has raised many questions in the minds of average Americans about the role of government, its competency and constitutional authority. In a rare flash of rationality, Chris Matthews, host of MSNBC’s Hardball had some questions of his own:

“President Obama has his chin out on about every hot issue out there, health care, terror trials, job losses, even the breast cancer report. He’s exposed and vulnerable. His poll numbers are dropping, is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egg-head? Why did he bow that Japanese emperor? Why did he pick Tim Geithner to be his economic front man? Why all this dithering over Afghanistan? And who thought it was a wonderful idea to bring the killers of 9-11 to New York City; the media capital of the world, so they could tell their story?”

While Matthews’ rambling diatribes are nothing new, keep in mind this is coming from someone who just a year ago said on Morning Joe:

“I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work.”

Now he’s lamenting the fact that Obama bowed to the Emperor of Japan, and worries aloud about the upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

In a segment last Friday Matthews states:

“I worry about Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He’s going to find himself an ACLU lawyer… He’s going to use that as a platform from hell where he gets to spew his point of view on the Middle East – that kind of thing he’s going to sell with the beard and everything – The New York Post is going to be reborn with this guy as the enemy. I just worry that he’s going to win this argument for months before he gets executed, if he does get executed. If that ever happens, I worry about this becoming a show for the bad guys.”

We are all worried Chris.

Matthews  stepping slightly out of line could be an indicator of the disappointment mounting among the disillusioned.

As usual, he still doesn’t quite get it. While he worries about Obama’s polls and a platform for terrorists, he can’t see the problem with giving terrorists the very rights our soldiers died defending- an American birthright.

The unholy alliance between the Left and radical Islam will bring new meaning to “show trial” as they both drag the CIA and American policies through the streets and put on display for the world to see how much we have “changed.”

“But we beseech you, brethren, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.”

(St. Paul, 1 Thess. 5:12-13) 

From the Catholic League:

Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on the way MSNBC host Chris Matthews handled his interview with Providence Bishop Thomas Tobin last night on “Hardball”:

We were deluged with phone calls, faxes and e-mails after what happened yesterday on “Hardball.” After watching the first portion of the interview between Chris Matthews and Bishop Tobin, I wondered what all the fuss was all about: Chris was just being his usual aggressive self. But it didn’t take long before Matthews literally spun out of control.

Matthews proceeded with an extended and quite insulting lecture. He had absolutely no interest in a discussion on the question of the morality and legality of abortion—all he wanted to do was to make the bishop sit there and listen to his rant. Indeed, his tirade was simply over-the-top.

No non-Catholic would ever treat a bishop this way. But too many liberal Catholics, especially Irish Catholics, think they are exempt from the same standards of civility that apply to others. They are flatly wrong.

I was on MSNBC twice yesterday on this same subject and was treated with respect both times. Ed Schultz, who can be quite tough, was totally respectful, and I’m a lay person. Chris could learn a thing or two from Ed, who not only does not insult his guests, he actually gives them a chance to respond.

Contact executive producer John Reiss: hardball@msnbc.com

END OF POST

Chris Matthews is known for loudly demanding answers of guests, then talking over them and supplying the answer he wants from them, himself.  But last night on Hardball, he outdid himself, berating Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence for withholding communion from Patrick Kennedy over Kennedy’s insistence on including abortion in government health care.

This hit Matthews’s two biggest hot buttons:  First, he considers himself the new guardian of the Kennedy legacy.  He was on MSNBC around the clock for the funeral of Mary Jo Kopechne’s chauffeur, while his special on the Kennedy brothers ran simultaneously with the week’s festivities.  Matthews, with leg a-tingling also proclaimed that week that Barack Obama was the new Kennedy brother.

But I think it was the remnants of Chris Matthews’s conscience that sent him over the top last night.  Bishop Tobin’s stand that Catholics must not be advocates for abortion hit close to home for Chris, who still claims to be a Catholic.  Perhaps he was afraid he might be next?

I’d call it a heated exchange, except all the heat was on one side, while the Bishop calmly tried to instruct him, and Chris did 80% of the talking, so there wasn’t much exchange.

In a moment of priceless contradiction, Chris told the Bishop if he did not propose exact penalties for abortions, he had no right to try to outlaw them, and it wasn’t the Church’s role anyway.  In other words, if he wasn’t willing to actually legislate, then he shouldn’t propose general moral principles for legislation!

That would be like saying in order for the Church to demand the state enforce “Thou shalt not steal,” that the Bishops must also draw up statutes differentiating between grand larceny and petty theft, between armed robbery and embezzlement.

The exchange really must be seen to be believed and to capture the frantic intensity of Matthews’s rant.  It should be noted, that the only “authority” that Matthews quotes is John F. Kennedy, perhaps giving new literal meaning to the term “political idol.”

After an aggressive grilling in which Chris did only his usual overtalking of his guest, Matthews pretty much lost it on camera:

MATTHEWS: I think you’re intervening. I think you’re getting into law here, and you don’t like Congressman Kennedy’s voting record in Congress. That’s what you’re really going after, where he stands on the law. A lot of catholics agree or disagree in every poll I’ve seen about what the law should be. They generally accept the teaching authority of the church, the magistar (ph), your teaching authority, your excellency.

Where the disagreement is where the law should be, what the penalty should be. I’ve never heard of anybody in the church, in the laity, in the clergy, or in the hierarchy saying a woman should be put in prison for having an abortion. And then I said, wait a minute, if you think it’s murder, there’s an inconsistency here.

And if there is a hesitancy to punish a woman for having an abortion, maybe that’s instructive to you, sir, your excellency, because when you realize you don’t really want to punish a woman for having an abortion, under the law, then maybe you should step back from using the law as your tool in enforcing moral authority.

Maybe your moral authority comes from the pulpit and from teaching, and a congressman has a totally different role, which is to write the law. Now, I’ve asked you three times, your excellency, to tell me what the law should be. And if you can’t do it, maybe you shouldn’t be involved in telling Congressman Kennedy how to write the law. You say you don’t know how to do it. Well, you ought to try before you tell him what he’s doing wrong. That’s my thinking.

Because when it comes to the law, it’s a secular question. It has not to do with the moral-we do a lot of things in this country we don’t like, we think are immoral. But the question is, what sanction do you apply to it? And I’m asking you again with respect, because you are here on the show of your own free will, at our request. What should be the penalty for a young woman or a girl, even, to have an abortion? And if there is no penalty for it, are you really outlawing it?

TOBIN: Sure. And it can perhaps be different degrees of penalties, depending on the involvement of the person. There might be some penalty for the woman having the abortion.

MATTHEW: What would be appropriate?

TOBIN: For a doctor performing-

MATTHEWS: No, let’s get to the woman. No, you have no idea, and it’s not your area. And yet this is the very area you’ve transgressed in. You’ve gone into the area of lawmaking, and condemned the behavior of public officials who have to write public policy. And I get back to what John Kennedy said when he was under pressure to explain the separation between church and state, the difference between rendering unto Caesar the things that are Caesar, which is the law, and rendering to your flock and people like me what is right and wrong.

And I would contest that your problem is you haven’t gotten people to obey your moral code through teaching, and you have resorted now to use the law to do your enforcement for you. And the problem with that is you are hesitant, even here, your excellency, to state for me now what the punishment should be under the law for having an abortion, because you know, deep down, if you said one minute in prison, you would be laughed at, because the American people, catholic and non-catholic, do not think it’s a criminal act to have an abortion.

They may not like it. They may think it’s immoral. But they don’t think it’s criminal. And yet you are here bringing the force of the law, the authority of the police, and the bench, the law, the judiciary. You want to bring it all to bear, including the Constitution, to enforce your moral beliefs, which are very valid, and I happen to share them. But how do you do it under the law, your excellency?

Whew!

But here was the main point the Bishop made that Matthew refused to accept; and it seems pretty unarguable to me that one cannot be a Catholic and deny the Church this role:

TOBIN: But the point is that any Catholic in public office, his first commitment has to be to his faith, not just for a Catholic, but for a member of any religious community. No commitment is more important than your commitment to your faith, because it involves your relationship with God.

And if your faith somehow interferes with or your job gets in the way of your faith, as I have said on other occasions, you need to quit your job and-and save your soul. Nothing can become more important than your relationship with God.

Patrick Kennedy is perfectly free to become an Anglican, I’m sure the current Archbishop of Canterbury would welcome him with open arms.  If he chafes under even that, he could become a Unitarian and just define for himself what he wants his religion to be.  But if he finds his “Irish Catholic” cultural label to be politically useful, he’s going to have to deal with some standards every once in a while.  Tough luck.

As for Chris, he might want to carry a lightning rod around for a few days…

UPDATE:  I’ve just learned that the conversation Bishop Tobin had with Patrick Kennedy was 3 YEARS ago, according to the Bishop.  It was on the issue generally, not on the health care debate, obviously.  Kennedy released the info during the health care debate for obvious political reasons, proving he can be just as sleazy as anyone in his family.

popout.
Chris Matthews goes after Catholic Bishop on abortion. I was waiting to see if he asked, “What should the punishment be for a woman who has an abortion,” half expecting he wouldn’t ask it, but, he does. First saw that question asked here, back in 2007:
popout

MSNBC is a painful network to watch, almost all of their on air personalities are not the brightest people out there, guess that is why they are on MSNBC. But never thought they were this stupid.

Last week MSNBC reporter Norah O’Donnell was at a Sarah Palin book signing and went after a thirteen year old almost calling her stupid for supporting Palin, but then this mental giant decided to play the race card and made note that Palin’s fans were “largely white — almost no minorities in this crowd.”

This lead to Chris “MANCRUSH” Matthews “Well, they look like a white crowd to me,” later claiming, “I think there is a tribal aspect to this thing, in other words, white vs. other people.”

But I guess when you have such a diverse lineup of on air personalities like MSNBC  you have a right to point out such discrepancies.

Look At The Diversity at MSNBC

President or Jihad. Car dealer/Birther is exercising his right to free speech. Some segments of America can not deal with the fact that the president is black, but they can’t say that. So they will continue the mission to de-legitimize the president. It has been 10 months since he took office and they can’t get over it. So they will continue to do things like this, but in spite of the billboard President Obama will go to sleep in the White House tonight because like it or not he is the elected leader of this country.

Politically Incorrect News for the Politically Incorrect Reader

Some things you may or may not have read…

Item #1- It’s bad. The New York Times is pointing out that Obama’s spending is on an unsustainable path.

Item #2- Unemployment rose in 29 states last month, including Michigan’s nationwide highest at 15.1 percent. That’s inching closer to doubling the 8 percent Obama promised his stimulus would hold unemployment.

Item #3- President Obama supporter and MSNBC host Chris Matthews said Obama is making ‘Carteresque’ mistakes. I guess Matthews has lost that “tingly-feeling” woo ooo o that tingly feeling. He’s lost that tingly-feeling now it gone, gone… gone, woo- o- o- ooo.

Item #4- No bondholders left behind. The Dodd-Frank bills for unlimited bailout authority. Think Freddie and Fannie on a massive scale. We are in trouble. 

Item #5- Obama says must do more to ease unemployment. He also states that this is his number one job priority. Its a shame that it took him 11 months to figure out IT’S THE ECONOMY STUPID.

They call him Tweety Bird for a reason. Chris Matthews is the guy, with his political talk show on MSNBC, Hardball. He flits around, topic to topic, you never know what he’s going to say next, and he loves to ask strange hypothetical political questions, which he thinks are provocative and really challenge his guests, but when they begin to attempt a response it seems something totally unrelated occurs to him and he starts talking about that, and asking himself question after question, until something else occurs to him. Maybe it’s too much coffee, or a severe attention deficit disorder, but most guests figure out what to do – you’ll be cut off after three words and never be able to even hint at what you might want to say, but you don’t take it personally. You let it all wash over you. You bask in it. You let your mind wander – the wife and kids, what might be for dinner, when you’ll pick up the dry-cleaning. And what the heck, you’re on national television and people can see you, the expert. Visuals will do – any exposure is useful. But watching the show is kind of like being trapped in a working class bar near the docks in Philadelphia with the hale and hearty Irish-Catholic old man who is full of blarney and not terribly insightful political ideas, which he enthusiastically regales you with, grabbing your lapels and grinning and asking you what you think, but not giving you a microsecond to reply before he’s off on something else. It’s exhausting. It makes you wish Rocky would walk in and deck him. They’re both from working-class Philadelphia, after all.

The only one who ever made a dent in all this was Jon Stewart, but that was when Matthews was a guest on Stewart’s show. The occasion was Matthews promoting his book – Life’s a Campaign: What Politics Has Taught Me about Friendship, Rivalry, Reputation, and Success.

What’s that about? Just that “everything in life” is a campaign “to sell products” and get ahead by packaging yourself, just like politicians do. You see, life is a PR campaign in which you get ahead by convincing people you’re listening, even if you’re not, and by saying what people want to hear, even if you don’t really believe a word of it. Stewart countered, pointing out that political campaigns are about slick packaging and not truth, and that Matthews’ readers will find “nothing in this book about ‘be good, be competent.’” Matthews said that’s okay, as someone else had already covered all that stuff – “It’s called The Bible. It’s been written.”

But the classic was this:

Chris Matthews: You’re trashing my book!

Jon Stewart: I’m not trashing your book. I’m trashing your philosophy of life.

That shut him up, for maybe three seconds.

But he was soon off again with off-the-wall observations. During MSNBC’s coverage of the Potomac Primary, Matthews said he was blown away by Barack Obama – “I have to tell you, you know, it’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.”

Much hilarity ensured, and endless bad jokes, and a great deal of outrage from the right, saying it was now clear that MSNBC was in Obama’s pocket and not really a news organization. But mostly people grinned and shrugged. Tweety was at it again. And many on the right let it drop. The guy was just like that. You don’t take the slap-happy garrulous old drunk seriously. It’s better to worry about someone who matters.

And everyone knew he’d change, as about a year later Matthews was saying this of Obama:

He is leading with his chin on just about every issue out there – healthcare, terror trials, job losses, even the breast cancer report. He’s exposed and vulnerable. His poll numbers are dropping.

Is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egghead? Why did he bow to that Japanese emperor? Why did he pick Tim Geithner to be his economic front man? Why all this dithering over Afghanistan? And who thought it was a wonderful idea to bring the killers of 9/11 to New York City, the media capital of the world … so they could tell their story?

Is Obama channeling Adlai Stevenson for heaven sake?

It seems someone wants to start a bar fight and Steve Benen has these comments:

During last year’s presidential campaign, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews had some annoying habits. Particularly when it came to sizing up Barack Obama, the “Hardball” host repeatedly questioned whether the candidate was disconnected from regular ol’ America.

For example, Obama ordered orange juice in a Pennsylvania diner, and Matthews complained ad nauseum – real Americans order coffee at a diner, not OJ. When Obama demonstrated poor bowling skills, Matthews whined incessantly about Obama’s alleged difficulties in making a “regular connection.”

And then there was this. Matthews argued on the air that Obama’s appeal may be limited to “people who come from the African-American community and from the people who have college or advanced degrees.” Matthews couldn’t see how Obama had any appeal for the “regular people.” Only the chronically constipated would vote for Obama?

As for Matthews’ latest, Benen adds this:

It’s a challenge to respond to this nonsense quickly; Matthews said a lot of dumb things in a short period of time. But it’s worth noting that Obama isn’t “leading with his chin” – he’s tackling the issues in front of him. That’s what presidents do. Obama bowed to the Japanese emperor as a matter of protocol, and no one cares except the media establishment. Obama isn’t “dithering” – though it’s good to know Chris Matthews is willing to read directly from Dick Cheney’s script – he’s crafting a forward-thinking U.S. policy, which is what Bush/Cheney should have done a long time ago.

And Khalid Sheikh Mohammed isn’t being invited to NYC for story-telling — he’ll be on trial for mass murder.

As for the general nonsense about “eggheads,” anti-intellectualism, alas, remains alive and well.

One of Benen’s readers adds this:

Chris Matthews makes five million dollars a year. He doesn’t have the right to speak for regular people anymore. He hasn’t seen a regular person in years, and he certainly doesn’t spend any time with them.

His egghead comments are comical; he doesn’t even have a “real” job by his own lights – he just sits and talks into a camera. He’s paid to have the kinds of conversations he’d have in a bar. He’s the luckiest man on earth, and he should keep the pie hole closed. And I often like him…

Yes, the guy in the bar can be charming, but blarney is blarney.

But Digby at Hullabaloo watched the whole show:

He and Ron Brownstein and Susan Page of USA today went on to discuss the fact that Obama is an egghead and an elitist who’s listening to Ivy Leaguers who think they know everything – instead of Real Americans who “went to state schools.” (I’m not kidding, that’s what they said.) I guess Matthews hasn’t heard that song for awhile, and as with his favorite Pat Boone album, he just has to get it out and play it now and again.

Not that I think Obama is doing a terrific job of speaking to the everyday concerns of Americans. But it’s not because he’s too smart and went to Harvard fergawdsakes.

Yes, she spelled it that way, on purpose. But then Matthews is just riding the wave, whatever he finds interesting. Look – something bright and shiny!

And the bright and shiny thing at the moment was Sarah Palin. Watch her interview with Bill O’Reilly:

O’Reilly: Let me be bold and fresh again. Do you believe you are smart enough, and incisive enough, intellectual enough, to handle the most powerful job in the world?

Palin: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the, um, the, ah – kind of spineless – a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with elite Ivy League education and – “fat resume” that’s based on anything but hard work and private-sector, free-enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I’m not saying that that has to be me.

Matthews seems to want to get him some of that. It’s hot, the current bright and shiny thing.

And there’s this:

O’Reilly: Okay, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama’s lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage.

Palin: If you’re talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week. I have been elected to local office since 1992, and was a city manager, strong-mayor form of government, was a chief executive of the state, and was an oil and gas regulator. There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We’ve to remember too that I wasn’t running for president.

O’Reilly: No, but that’s the key question. Because John McCain is up there in years, you had to be qualified to take that office over.

Palin: Right. But I – I’m saying I was running for vice president, just like Joe Biden had been running for vice president. I never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience.

O’Reilly: Well, he’s got a lot of experience.

David Neiwert comments:

That’s the whole absurdity of Palin claiming she has more “executive” experience, as though being mayor of a small town places her on the same level of experience as a United States Senator. The issue of experience isn’t related to the organizational context, but rather the scale of it: Joe Biden has nearly a half-century of wrestling with national and international issues – the kind a president has to deal with – and has an established track record there.

When Palin was Wasilla’s mayor (and before that a council member), the issues she was dealing with involved placement of a sewage-treatment plant and deciding whether someone’s driveway needed paving. Oh, and let’s not forget the vital issue of building a new gym with taxpayer dollars.

But she says she’s smart enough, and incisive enough, intellectual enough, to handle the most powerful job in the world. How hard could it be? Obama and the rest may know all those facts, but she was mayor of a small town, and a governor of a minor state, before she quit in the middle of here first term, as she had more important things to do. Mathews seems to be still trying to figure that out.

Matthews should have turned to Matt Taibbi:

Palin – and there’s just no way to deny this – is a supremely gifted politician. She has staked out, as her own personal political turf, the entire landscape of incoherent white American resentment. In this area she leaves even Rush Limbaugh in the dust.

She has found the sweet spot:

The reason for that is that poor Rush is an anachronism, in the sense that his whole shtick revolves around talking about real political issues. And real political issues are boring.

Listen to Rush any day of the week and you’ll hear him playing the old-fashioned pundit game: he goes about the dreary business of picking through the policies and positions and public statements of Democrats and poking holes in them, arguing with them, attacking them with numbers and facts and pseudo-facts and non-facts and whatever else he can get his hands on, honest or not, but at least he tries.

The idea is to move beyond facts or even the idea of facts. That explains her laughing at people like Obama with a “fats resume” and that sort of thing:

Sarah Palin’s battlefield, on the other hand, is whatever is happening five feet in front of her face. She is building a political career around the little interpersonal wars in the immediate airspace surrounding her sawdust-filled head. And in the process she connects with pissed-off, frightened, put-upon America on a plane that’s far more elemental than the mega-ditto shtick.

And there is something to that:

Most normal people cannot connect on an emotional level with Rush’s meanderings on how Harry Reid is buying off Mary Landrieu with pork in the health care bill. They can, however, connect with stories about how top McCain strategist and Karl Rove acolyte Steve Schmidt told poor Sarah to shut her pie-hole on election day, or how her supposed allies in the McCain campaign stabbed her in the back by leaking gossip about her to reporters, how Schmidt used the word “fuck” in front of her daughter, or even with the strange tales about Schmidt ordering Sarah to consult with a nutritionist to improve her campaign endurance when she herself knew she just needed to get out in the fresh air and run (If there’s one thing Sarah Palin knows, it’s herself!).

And pissed-off, frightened, put-upon America doesn’t want facts. They want attitude. And that is often fact-free, or as some call it, lying.

History professor and Alaskan David Noon is not at all happy with Palin for repeating the common nonsense about “Seward’s Folly” – the purchase of Alaska in 1867 by Secretary of State William Seward. Palin says in Going Rogue:

Critics ridiculed Seward for spending so much on a remote chunk of earth that some thought of as just a frozen, inhospitable wilderness that was dark half the year. The $7.2 million purchase became known as “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’ Icebox.” Seward withstood the mocking and disdain because of his vision for Alaska. He knew her potential to help secure the nation with her resources and strategic position on the globe… Decades later, he was posthumously vindicated, as purveyors of unpopular common sense often are.

From David Noon:

So far as public opinion was concerned, most newspapers actually supported the purchase. The major exception was the New York Tribune, which was owned by Horace Greeley, a Republican who was nevertheless one of William Seward’s avowed enemies. (Greeley believed Seward had been too radical on the slavery issue, among other things.) Even Democratically-aligned papers in the North – while not missing the opportunity to crack wise about polar bears and walruses – tended to support the purchase, mainly because there was no compelling reason to oppose it. And at the end of the day, the treaty with Russia passed the US Senate by a vote of 37-2, with no significant expressions of opposition during the floor debate. …

Most educated Alaskans are aware of all this, at least in its broad outline. It’s taught in the schools, and the few textbooks that have been written about Alaskan history all incorporate Wright’s findings into their treatment of the Alaskan purchase. Certainly someone who claims to know and love the state as much as the abdicated governor does should know that the “Seward’s Folly” myth survives because most people outside the state know very little about Alaska and are perfectly comfortable substituting fable for fact when thinking about its history, culture and geography. But since Sarah Palin’s entire shtick requires an audience that believes the myth – that believes, for example, that we can drill the shit out of the state without wrecking its ecology – I’m not surprised that she believes it as well.

Of course that’s just one of many. But it doesn’t seem to matter. And you could argue she didn’t even write the book – Lynn Vincent did. But see Moe Hong, a sarcastic commenter on Amazon.com – “So what if Sarah Palin didn’t write this book? Even God used early scribes to write the Bible.” Matthews has to get him some of that.

And see Bella DePaulo on this matter:

From my post as an outside observer, it seems to me that Sarah Palin doesn’t care much about the truth. In that way, she is a very special liar. Instead, Palin seems to love the effect her disingenuous pronouncements have on her audiences and so she just runs with them. Her fans adore her claims about “death panels” and about Obama supposedly “palling around with terrorists” and all the rest. Look at how they roar with approval and fervor when she tosses that red, bloody moose meat to them – how can the mere (non) truth-value of what she is saying ever compete with that? Plus, the fact that her taunts drive her detractors over the edge – well, that just adds to the fun!

Sarah Palin seems to relish the reaction she gets to her claims and complaints. Among her core fan base, the theme that the mean media and the full-of-themselves campaign staffers were unfair to noble, authentic, small-town Sarah seems to be a winner. Whether it is really true is almost irrelevant.

I do love the irony of Palin flaunting her authenticity with lies.

Matthews has to get him some of that too. It’s all the rage. After all, the man who find facts when there are none, Glenn Beck, on Saturday, November 21, announced his Hundred Year Plan – he will lead a new American Revolution, hold conventions, provide “specific policies, principles and, most importantly, action steps” to move us beyond Democrats and Republicans and all that stuff. It may take a hundred years, but he will be the new George Washington, for the New America. Follow him.

The New York Times’ Brian Stelter talked to Beck for a pre-reveal story. “We’ll be looking for ways to get people involved in politics,” said Beck. “I hear people saying, ‘Okay, now what?’ They’re calling their representative, but it’s time to get more proactive.” Also from the Times item – “He says he will promote voter registration drives and sponsor a series of conventions across the country featuring conservative speakers.” But he seems to mean real conservatives, not Republicans. He will give the thumbs up or thumbs down. Someone had to do it. He’s answering the call. (And it seems Rupert Murdoch is funding the effort – his Fox News gives Beck his national platform and his HarperCollins published the Palin book.)

And you know Beck:

At 18, following high-school graduation, Beck relocated to Provo, Utah and worked at radio station KAYK. Feeling he “didn’t fit in”, Beck left Utah after six months, taking a job at Washington D.C.’s WPGC in February, 1983.

It was while working at WPGC that Beck met his first wife, Claire. The couple married and had two daughters, Mary and Hannah; Mary was born in 1988 with cerebral palsy, the result of a series of strokes at birth. The couple divorced in 1994 amid Beck’s struggles with substance abuse. Along with being a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, Beck has been diagnosed with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He cites the help of Alcoholics Anonymous in his sobriety and attended his first AA meeting in November 1994, the month he states he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.

In 1996, while working for a New Haven-area radio station, Beck was admitted to Yale University through a special program for non-traditional students. One of his recommendations for admittance came from Senator Joe Lieberman. Beck took one theology class, “Early Christology,” and then dropped out.

Well, George Washington wasn’t perfect either – wooden teeth, you know. And see the Alexander Zaitchik book-length bio of Beck:

Whatever else it may be, the Glenn Beck Story is a radio story. It begins in the early 1980s, decades before Beck’s famous televised breakdowns, when a talented young DJ turned a fascination with Orson Welles into a successful career in the high-rolling here-today-gone-tomorrow world of Top 40 morning radio. It continues into the 1990s, when Beck made a name in talk radio by identifying the sole unoccupied niche in the industry: confessional, lighthearted, “independent” conservatism. Now, in the new century, Beck has taken his radio formula to TV, and with it his bipolar unpredictability and maudlin dramatics.

And his playground is the entire landscape of incoherent white American resentment. No wonder Matthews wants some of that.

You may have seen this video flying around the internet.  In it, NBC reporterette Norah O’Donnell ambushes a teenaged Palin supporter wearing a funny anti-bailout tee shirt, and confronts her on the “fact” that Sarah Palin “supported the bailout.”

On its face, there is a certain “gotcha” aspect to it, though it’s easy to say that Jackie Seal, the 17 year-old who was caught unawares—and who didn’t have a truckload of producers feeding things into her earpiece– ultimately got the better of the exchange.

But when you know… the REST of the stooo-ry, the cheapness of O’Donnell’s stunt, and the poise of Jackie Seal is rather amazing.

First, it’s a little over general– and overstated– to say that Sarah Palin “supported the bailout.”  WHICH bailout?  Palin has opposed every bailout since TARP. During the campaign, as Jackie notes in her very engaging and entertaining blog (more on that later) it would have been pretty extraordinary for even Sarah Palin to go so “rogue” as to oppose McCain on TARP.

Of course, had McCain opposed TARP, he might very well be President today.  He suspended his campaign to run back to Washington so he could vote the same way Obama did on a wildly unpopular trillion dollar measure.  Thus McCain showed the only difference between him and Obama that week was that Obama could focus on 2 things at once.

But of course, Palin was the reason McCain lost… right?

But back to Jackie and Norah.  MSNBC hosts chuckled all night long over this moment, while many on the right decried the tactic.  However, it was surprising how many pros on BOTH sides assumed that the scene played out as spontaneously as it appeared on tape.  Sometimes it happens that way; but in my experience national reporters don’t go on live television without knowing exactly what they are getting– like an attorney asking a question of a witness in open court.

It’s also hard to believe that anyone who’s watched Norah O’Donnell for more than 5 minutes would think that SHE was quick on her feet to battle a smart 17 year-old girl to a seeming draw.  That should have aroused some suspicions.

Fortunately, we have Jackie’s very entertaining and well written blog post to fill in the details and give us an inside look at how Big Media really works:

I was first approached by a New York Times writer who wrote what my shirt said and then asked me a couple questions. She asked me what it was I liked about Sarah Palin. I said, “As a young female she is someone I can look up to, before her the only prominent female in politics I had known about was Hilary Clinton, whom I respect don’t get me wrong, I respect her but when you don’t agree with someone it’s hard to really look up to them. I like how Sarah Palin will speak her mind, regardless of what the media will say about it.” After that I just stood in line eagerly waiting for Sarah Palin to arrive.

I then see Norah O’Donnell approach a man all decked out in Palin garb. She asked him a few questions (camera not rolling) then said she’d like to have a woman in the shot. She asked a woman who refused then pointed at me and said “Hey talk to her” So I walked over. I knew I was walking into hot water with MSNBC- thought I was prepared….Seconds later I met her… One of the many faces of liberal media bias. She asked me my name and then before going on air asked me why I liked Sarah Palin, I repeated what I told the NYT reporter. Norah didn’t seem to like that much. So what did she do? I mean she couldn’t ask me that question on television, heaven forbid her not have a biting response.. I noticed her look down at my shirt then, she turned around blackberry in hand spoke to a man, thumbs tapping the blackberry (I don’t remember if she called or not, she may have. But she was on her blackberry), then jotted down a quick note. Little did I know that note would be used against me.

She told us she’d be walking up to us. You know like she just stumbled upon us. The shot began… I kept telling myself answer her question  well, don’t freak out. Well, I thought she’d ask me the same question. She asked the man beside me (who by the way is NOT my dad) the same question she had before we went on air. Myself on the other hand, not the same story.

She had me read my shirt and then proceeded to ask me “Did you know Sarah Palin supported the bailout” to be 100% honest I was like, are you kidding me? She is trying to use my shirt against me. I was so shocked by the craftiness she had that I was truly stumped. I asked her where she got her fact and she read her little note. Then she asked me what I liked about Sarah, and I talked about the Constitution.

It’s a closer call than what’s coming, but if you handicap this at all, it’s easy– Jackie 1, Norah 0

Immediately after the interview I said to my dad “Oh man, I have so many great responses now about my shirt” I could have said, well my shirt doesn’t say anything about Sarah Palin supporting the bailout or “Hey Norah, have you read the book? She talks about how during her debate prep she was handed a list of note cards that had questions and ‘non-answers’” Of course they told Sarah Palin to support everything McCain did. Call me crazy but it would have looked pretty bad had Sarah Palin been against something John McCain was against while they were running together.

Jackie takes a knuckleball on the outside corner and slaps a clean double to the opposite field–Jackie 2, Norah 0

Norah also claims I told her I voted (on her twitter). That is not true. She never asked my age or if I voted. I’m 17 I couldn’t have voted…and I don’t live in an ACORN district so I didn’t have a chance to even register illegally. Making that statement by Norah completely false.

Jackie slam dunks over the flat-footed defender.  In the NBA, they call this “posterized.”  Jackie 3, Norah 0

If this wasn’t pathetic enough, once Chris Matthews’s panel of mean white girls got done calling Sarah Palin a “mean girl” who appeals to white racists, they actually tried to do a little end zone dance over Norah’s supposed triumph over a teenager standing in line to get an autograph.

JOAN WALSH: Norah did great reporting, by the way.  I was watching when she interviewed these people who were wrong about TARP and who just started babbling about she will defend the Constitution, as though Obama won‘t.

MATTHEWS:  Right.

WALSH:  So, I think you‘ve got that same kind of paranoid tea party, maybe even birther crowd that talks about the Constitution, without really understanding what they are talking about.  They love her.

Yes, anyone who thinks the U.S. Constitution does not provide for the Government taking over 2 out of 3 car companies, printing money to bail out states who overspend their budgets and calling it “stimulus,” and taking over health care with the threat of jail to anyone who doesn’t buy health insurance, typifies the crazed militia birther fringe.

It’s not surprising that Joan Walsh would be willing to savage a teenager that way, it’s hilarious that she would do it a minute and a half after throwing a Mean Girls reference in Sarah Palin’s direction.

All night on MSNBC, their classy lineup of  hosts crowed that Norah O’Donnell exposed the ignorance of the Palin support base.  But, like in most things having to do with Sarah Palin, the elite media revealed a lot more about itself than about the Americans in flyover country that they can’t even begin to understand.

If only other NBC reporters– like David Gregory– would put half as much thought and preparation into asking tough questions of Barack Obama as Norah O’Donnell did of a 17 year-old bystander.

Someone ought to get MSNBC’S Chris Matthews a towel … or a cigarette. His incessant gushing over everything the President does and says is going to leave a nasty stain on the carpet. Perhaps a sedative, or one of Keith Olbermann’s famous back rubs, would help. That Matthews’ legs have not been rendered lame from all of the thrills running up them is, in a word, miraculous. If he hasn’t already had an accident on the set, it’s only a matter of time.

Indeed, his viewership may be the only thing dropping quicker than the President’s poll numbers – or the New York Jets’ season – but every once in a while, Matthews can offer a unique touch of insight.

And so it was that on his show Hardball – yes, it is still on the air – Chris Matthews offered an actual criticism of Barack Obama.

Sort of.

With the President’s poll numbers falling off the table, Matthews asked his viewer(s) to consider the possibility that President Obama is just too smart for his own good.

President Obama has his chin out there on just about every hot issue out there: health care, terror trials, job losses, even the breast cancer report. He’s exposed and vulnerable. His poll numbers are dropping. Is he just too darned intellectual? Too much the egghead? Why did he bow to that Japanese Emperor? Why did he pick Tim Geithner to be his economic front man? Why all this dithering over Afghanistan? Who thought it was a wonderful idea to bring the killers of 9/11 to New York City?

Yes, of course.

It should have been obvious, but I chose not to see it. My ideological blinders have kept me from weighing the possibility that the rest of us are simply not cerebral enough to keep up with him.

He is that He is.

Barack Obama is too much of an intellectual. It is his “eggheadedness” that has caused his numbers to slip. You can hardly blame him for not being able to mingle academically with the non-water walkers of America.

Matthews, again, leads the way.

*cough*

Incidentally, the answers to Matthews’ questions are, in order:

- Not in your wildest dreams.

- Only if he dips his face into a quiche.

- Because, as a liberal, his goal is to present America as weak and vulnerable.

- Because his ability to pick friends, mentors and associates of character is on par with his ability speak coherently free of teleprompters.

- Because once he does, he owns it, and he can’t use George W. Bush as an excuse any longer – although, he will.

- Only those people who can never, ever, ever, ever, ever be trusted with national security – liberals.

-

Chris Matthews has been covering “Palinpallooza” all week, alternating between gushing over her personal popularity and condescending jabs at her intellect.  Mostly, however, he’s been saying not to underestimate her, and exclaiming “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

So, Wednesday, on the opening day of Palin’s huge book signing tour, it was time for Chris to get back in the MSNBC fold, and call her a racist and a “mean girl.” (I couldn’t find a na-na-na-na-NAH-nah in the transcript, but I could’ve sworn I heard one…)

NBC’s Norah O’Donnell was covering the Palin tour on location, while Chris brought in Salon.com’s resident hater, Joan Walsh, San Francisco’s female version of Keith Olbermann.

The first thing this group of faces so pale that color TV is irrelevant noticed was that the crowd did not look like they were in line for the next Tyler Perry movie.

O’DONNELL: … This is a largely white—almost no minorities in this crowd….

MATTHEWS:  Well, they look like a white crowd to me.  Let‘s go back to Joan Walsh.  Not that there‘s anything wrong with it, but it is pretty monochromatic up there.  Joan, no surprise in terms of the ethnic nature of the people showing up.  Nothing wrong with that.  But it is a fact

Yeah, well I’d like to get a look at the racial demographics of Hardball with Chris Matthews sometime… oh, wait, I buy TV commercials for a living.  I have seen them.  They’re as “monochromatic” as the line for Sarah Palin’s book signing.

Oh, and Chris’s lineup for the night, was 8 white people out of 9.  “Nothing wrong with that.  But it’s a fact.”  Indeed.

The fact that Norah O’Donnell went to Grand Rapids– which is so Dutch that the most common use of “van” is not to describe something you drive the soccer team in, but is the first part of the family name– and found white people(!) is quite a scoop.

But believe it or not, the conversation went downhill from there.

And of course we couldn’t have a Palin conversation with this group without a Tina Fey reference, no matter how oblique…

MATTHEWS:  Let me go to this intramural—the nastiness—and I want to get back to Norah on this, Norah covered the campaign and—the nastiness of this, the attacks on you might call them the “little people,” Steve Schmidt, Nicolle Wallace, in the campaign.  Here‘s somebody who was governor of a state taking whacks in a published book, her only book, trashing little people, and at the same time, she‘s looking out for little…

JOAN WALSH, SALON.COM:  I—there are questions about who‘s right, but they strenuously deny it, and other reporters who were around also deny her version of things. So, I think that there are a couple of whopping lies, as well as just a mean-spiritedness that doesn‘t serve her well.

It‘s why she will never be president.  She is a very divisive, mean-spirited person.  She is fighting down with her 19-year-old ex-future-son-in-law, who should really be ignored, if anything.

So, you know, I think you see a side of Sarah Palin—Norah is right.  People who love her love her.  But the general public doesn‘t trust her and sees this kind of mean girl persona that she‘s never grown out of…

Why is Chris Matthews in the junior high girls locker room with Joan Walsh talking catty?  This just beggars description, but let me try.

To act as though the year of leaks, anonymous sniping and backstabbing over just who was responsible for everything from Sarah Palin’s wardrobe to her media scheduling– to selecting her in the first place– was initiated by PALIN is just plain nuts.  To characterize 12 pages out of 400 as a dominant mean streak is just goofy.  Frankly, after the way McCain’s staff has spent the last year acting, I’m a little disappointed it’s not 12 chapters.

Part of what Palin is now being criticized for is not getting on board with the worst campaign tactic in recent Presidential history– the official announcement that McCain was abandoning the swing state of Michigan.  Yeah, they were the political pros…

But who cares about that, it turns out that Sarah Palin is a… racist!   (Of course, Chris Matthews and Joan Walsh have blown this “dog whistle” before.)

MATTHEWS:  … on “Sean Hannity” last night. I think there is a tribal aspect to this thing, in other words, white vs. other people.  I think she is very smart about this.  Here she is on the issue of—of what happened down at Fort Hood, obviously, an ethnic issue, as many people see it.

WALSH:  Right.

MATTHEWS:  She sees it that way.  Here she is going at him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “HANNITY”)  SEAN HANNITY, HOST, “HANNITY”:  Do you think Fort Hood was an act of terrorism?

SARAH PALIN ®, FORMER ALASKA GOVERNOR:  I certainly do.  And I think that there were massive warning flags that were missed all over the place.  And it was quite unfortunate that, to me, it was a fear of being politically incorrect, to not—I‘m going to use the word—profile this guy, profiling in the sense of finding out what his radical beliefs were.

Now, because I used the word profile, I‘m going to get clobbered tomorrow morning.  The liberals, their heads are just going to be spinning.  They are going to say, she is radical.  She is extreme.

But I say profiling in the context of doing whatever we can to save innocent American lives, I‘m all for it then.  (END VIDEO CLIP)

MATTHEWS:  No.  Profiling has a particular meaning.  Joan, you go at it.  Everybody knows what profiling is.

WALSH:  Right.

MATTHEWS:  It‘s driving while black.

Or, it’s shooting while Muslim.  Or calling al Qaeda while Army.  Or lecturing about killing infidels while teaching at Walter Reed.  Or trying to prosecute your own patients for war crimes while a psychiatrist….

WALSH:  Black.

MATTHEWS:  We know what it means.  If you come from a Middle Eastern country, keep your eye on this guy.  Check him out.

MATTHEWS:  That‘s profiling.

O‘DONNELL:  Listen, the same day she is complaining about the “Newsweek” cover, which, actually, I also did find sexist, but she is making herself a victim around the “Newsweek” cover while endorsing profiling?

Yes, I remember that NBC TV show called “Profiler.”  I’d forgotten it was about a woman FBI agent who tried to stop black people from driving.  Oh, and that CBS show “Criminal Minds,” isn’t it about a whole klan of FBI agents who try to suppress voting rights?

The only thing more pallid about this ditzy crew than their skin tone is their opinions.