More from Friday's Real Time

I took off on a rant earlier today about the lies and distortions that Rep. Jack Kingston and former Bush speech writer David Frum were spewing on Real Time Friday night. Certainly not unexpected, but what creased me was how Maher just sat there on his hands. He put up a bit of a fight, but most of the time, he just swallowed his tongue. C'mon Bill, you're just a bit better than that.

Some of my particular favorites...

Kingston: "If you want to talk about change, McCain is the candidate of change..."

Perhaps Maher gave him a bong hit backstage before the show started.

More Kingston: "What left-wing interest group has come out against Hillary or Obama. They've got all the usual suspects; the unions, and all the wacko environmentalists..."

That's just the sort of contempt for the environment that Bush has made de rigueur among Republicans. When will voters make the GOP pay the price? Polls clearly show that Americans are overwhelmingly in favor of tougher environmental regulations. I guess we have to wait for a new president. Even McCain would be better than Bush in this area. (Wouldn't he? Please? He couldn't possibly be worse, could he? Let's hope we don't find out.)

What's more, I guess I missed the memo that candidates' qualifications hinge on how many normally friendly interest groups come out against them. Asinine.

Even more Kingston: He refers to McCain as having bona-fide bipartisan credentials. I have to give McCain credit here - he has worked with Democrats on a number of important bills. This is one of his strengths.

But to suggest that Obama and Hillary have not worked together is flat-out false. And I laughed out loud at this Kingston comment: "I have served with both of them," implying that he knows them personally. First of all, I don't know how well he knows either one of them, but they are both U.S. Senators, and Kingston is in the House. That's not serving with either one of them.

Kingston, Part IV: "[McCain] wants to win the doggone war and bring the troops home."

Really? Is this the same McCain who said that our troops could end up being in Iraq for over 100 years?

I can't leave out Frum, either: "I think that the day is going to come, if Obama becomes president, a year or two into his administration, when people are trying to remember what went so terribly wrong, they will look back to that line of Hillary Clinton's about the difference between "'making speeches and making changes.'" Frum was referring to Clinton's assertion earlier recently that Obama is good at giving speeches, but not bringing about change.

The irony is not lost on me that Frum is putting Obama down for making speeches and not doing much about it. Isn't that the embodiment of what the Bush Presidency has been all about? This guy has given more lip service to more problems in this country, and done so little. What's more, Frum spent a great deal of time putting those words into W's mouth.

I also got a kick out of Frum's putting Obama down for his "windy cascades that he goes into..." Again, coming from a speech writer, that's the height of hypocrisy.

h/t to Crooks & Liars for the video clip