Kevin James gets beaned by a Hardball

This is another piece of footage that slipped through the cracks last week, amidst all of the appeasement coverage, when President Bush disgraced himself, America and the presidency by likening Barack Obama to Neville Chamberlain during a speech in front of the Knesset, the Israeli legislature. Chamberlain is the British prime minister who carved up Czechoslovakia for Adolf Hitler before World War II in the hopes it would satiate Hitler's lust for territory and power. Likening Obama to Chamberlain because Obama believes it's a wise course of action to at least talk to our enemies is laughable enough, but some of the dopes who attempted to join the Bush chorus on television was probably the funniest thing about the whole incident.

Anyway, the video above is probably the best single piece of footage I've seen this year, maybe even since I started this blog over two years ago - it's Chris Matthews absolutely taking apart conservative radio talking head Kevin James, who wouldn't know appeasement if it bit him in the face. By about the mid-way point of Matthews' thundering away at James, I almost started to feel sorry for the guy. Almost.

A partial transcript, courtesy of C&L:

Matthews starts out by saying:

Chris: I want to do a little history check on you—what did Neville Chamberlain do wrong in 1939? What did he do wrong?

Kevin: It all goes back to appeasement. It’s the key term.

Chris: No, what did he do, tell me what he did?

Kevin: It's the key term.

Chris: You have to answer this question. What did he do?

Kevin: It's the same thing, it puts it all…

Chris: Well tell me what he did?

Kevin: It's appeasement.

Chris: What did Chamberlain do wrong...

Kevin: His actions, his actions enabled, energized, legitimized...

Chris: What did Chamberlain do?

Kevin: It's the exact same thing.

Chris: No stop, Kevin. I'm not going to continue with this interview unless you answer what that thing is. What did Chamberlain do in '39, tell me? '38?

Kevin: Chris, it's the exact same thing alright?

Chris: What did he do? [yelling] What did he do![/yelling]

Matthews just took him apart. I loved how Chris ends the interview, too: "Don't use the term appeasement if you don't know what it means."

Ouch!

I also thoroughly enjoyed Matthews' reference to the fact that Dana Perino, President Bush's press secretary, didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, and admitted as much, during an appearance on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! program a few months ago. Wow - if I'm the press secretary in the White House (Heaven forbid) and I didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was, I certainly wouldn't admit it.

Chalk up Kevin Jones (and Perino, for that matter) as two more conservatives who don't know what the hell they're talking about. And I have to confess, it's pretty fun pointing it out.

Some on the right accuse "libruls" of being "elitist" and "arrogant" when pointing these things out. Quite the contrary, but when you use these terms or claim to be some sort of expert, you really should know historical references before you start throwing them around to back up a president who doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, either.

For the record, I know who Neville Chamberlain is - he's the NBA player who once scored 100 points in a game, right? Just kidding.

How is our president like OJ? Read on...

I heard this one on the radio this morning, and I let out a whoop when I heard Bill Press mention it. I like Press, but he is a liberal radio talk show host, so I wanted to verify it.

This whopper involves White House Press Secretary Dana Perino (above) answering a question about Osama bin Laden:

Q: As far as Osama bin Laden and our national security is concerned, he has issued another tape and warning Europe and it may affect the United States. And also, yesterday Senator Obama called on the President to bring Osama bin Laden, who is in Pakistan. Does he think he's still alive, Osama bin Laden?

MS. PERINO: I would put it this way. The intelligence community analyzed the tape. They do believe that that was his voice. So that would mean that for all things - for all that we know, that he is still alive. And the President has a very aggressive hunt on for Osama bin Laden. [Emphasis Mine] And I think in the tape, what Osama bin Laden was trying to do is to suggest that he stands for all Muslims, and I think that if you look at the facts across the board, especially what's happening in Al-Anbar province and across Iraq, that Arabs are starting to turn against them, and that is of huge strategic significance in the global war on terror.

That is quite simply the funniest, most ridiculous thing I've heard come out of a White House press secretary's mouth in a long, long time. It gets even funnier when one listens to Bush's comments about bin Laden a few years ago:

All you have to do is watch the first 1:45 to get the point. Looks like Dana's credibility fall down and go boom. But, what should we expect? This is the same Dana Perino who didn't know what the Cuban Missile Crisis was in an interview last December, too.

Don't get me wrong - I think every reasonable American and member of the press expects and even tolerates a certain amount of b.s. coming out of the mouth of any press secretary, under any president, but this takes it to a whole new level.

When I read "Bush," "aggressive hunt," and "Osama bin Laden," all in one sentence, it made me think of OJ. Yes, that OJ; you know, the one who has hired private detectives to conduct a thorough investigation and to aggressively look for Nicole Brown Simpson's killer(s). (At left is OJ, hot on the trail of his ex-wife's killers - they must have been grounds keepers or something.)

Maybe Bush and OJ could golf together - by the 18th, they could have the Simpson killers and bin Laden, all in jail.

Dana Perino clears it all up

This is some pretty grand footage of Deputy White House Press Secretary Dana Perino clearing up trying to spin Vice President Dick Cheney's position on just what freakin' branch of government he is in.

I'll have lots more to say about this later today - that's a promise. Right now, I have to get on the road, because the state school I teach at is about to go on strike, and I have to go retrieve some things from my office.

More later today.

Dana Perino flatters "The Daily Show"

Acting White House Press Secretary Dana Perino used a line from The Daily Show With Jon Stewart yesterday.

I got a kick out of the footage above. I'm glad that this administration sees fit to use comedy when responding to reporters' inquiries about Iraq.

Stewart should be flattered. I wonder how long she's going to remain acting press secretary, but the million dolalr questions is, will she appear on TDS while in that position? I wouldn't believe that in a million years.

I wonder if Perino, or anyone else in the western world, will find anything funny about The 1/2 Hour News Hour? We'll know for sure about a month later, if the show survives that long.

From the reviews I've read so far, the show is about as funny as murder. But, then again, it probably wasn't a good idea to use Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter to introduce the first show, either.

SC rules Bush has power to control gas

I promised a few days ago I would comment further on Monday's Supreme Court's 5-4 decision that the Bush administration (and any administration) has the power to regulate greenhouse gases.

As an avid environmentalist, I should be happier than I am. Why? Because this administration has nearly two years to go before we get a change in leadership, and by extension, a change in environmental policy.

This does signify a victory, but not a significant one, yet. If this administration had any sort of moral compass, this would qualify as an embarrassment. But, how can the shameless be embarrassed? I can just imagine the conversation in the White House: "Uh oh, the greenies are knocking at our door again. Someone get me Phil Cooney on the phone!"

The Bush administration argued that Congress never gave it the power to determine whether carbon dioxide was a pollutant as defined in the Clean Air Act. In the majority opinion, written by Justice John Paul Stevens, the court said administrations do have such authority.

Best of all, in unusually strong language, Stevens sided with scientists who say that U.S. car emissions do contribute to greenhouse gases, leading to global warming. In doing so, he refuted the argument of energy industry officials and Republicans who reason there is no proof of global warming.

Stevens wrote that the contribution of American cars to global warming is so significant that strong regulations "would slow the pace of global emissions, no matter what happens elsewhere in the world."

Since the US is by far the largest greenhouse gas emitter in the world, I'm inclined to agree with Stevens somewhat, but really, we could cut our emissions to zero, but if China and India aren't on board with controlling greenhouse gases, we're all going to cook anyway. This is precisely why the United States needs to show leadership on this issue, which, to date, the US has done a very poor job of doing. (Remember when the US showed leadership on anything other than starting wars? Yea, me neither.)

Following of the court's decision, the White House was predictably ambiguous.

"We questioned whether we did have the legal authority," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino. [More like this administration didn't want the legal authority.] "Now the Supreme Court has settled that matter for us, and we're going to have to take a look at it and see where we go from there."

"...look at it and see where we go from there" is Bush-speak for "on the back burner until 2009," when we get a new president.

Incidentally, does anyone find it ironic that Bush campaigned in 2000 on the promise of mandatory caps on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (a campaign promise he almost immediately broke once appointed president), yet his administration ended up going before the SC to argue that it didn't have the power to regulate such emissions? The irony is thicker than LA smog on a hot August day.

One other thought on this ruling: The importance of the 2009 Presidential Election, strictly from the standpoint of the Supreme Court, cannot be overstated. If Stevens retires, the court will be hopelessly conservative for generations to come. Bush has already appointed two SC justices - if he has the opportunity to appoint a third, it would be a disaster for the environment, abortion rights, civil liberties and a host of other issues.

Here's a cheerful thought - heaven forbid we have another disputed election circa 2000. If Bush gets a third appointee, we'll simply have a Republican coronation for president every four years.

It's funny - I remember preaching this to many people in political discussions before the 2000 election, and it just didn't seem to resonate, even among Democrats. It matters now more than ever. The Supreme Court should be near the top of the list on DemocratIC voters minds for this election.

I can never hear or read a story about the Supreme Court without thinking about Stevens, the SC's senior justice. He turns 87 in a few weeks, and I sure hope he remains healthy until he's 89, when a DemocratIC president can name a liberal successor.

The Legislative Branch now has the authority to do something about global warming, while working with Congress. Now we need an administration with the political will to do it. Tick-tock, tick-tock - 653 days to go.

It's no secret I hope Gore enters the presidential race, but if he doesn't (and it's looking more and more likely he won't with each passing day), I wonder how receptive he would be to becoming Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency? Now that would be an amazing cabinet appointment.

Of course, there are other ways for Gore to serve a Democratic administration, and I hope he is given the opportunity.

In case you missed the footage from Olbermann early this past week about the SC's decision, here it is again...

Update: Swiftboat benefactor's ambassadorial nomination 86'd

I guarantee this bit of news gets lost in the news shuffle, considering all that is taking place on Capitol Hill these days.

I previously blogged about Sam Faux (I mean, "Fox" - sorry - it's a habit), a Swiftboat Veterans for Truth benefactor, who had to go before Congress and explain himself when he was nominated by the Bush Administration to be U.S. ambassador to Belgium.

Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic nominee for president and target of Fox and the Swifties, didn't miss his opportunity last month to call out Fox for his involvement with the SBVT. Kerry made the most of it.

Yesterday, the Bush Administration withdrew Fox's name from consideration for the ambassadorship. Good. Finally, the Bush teams gets one right. He never should have been nominated in the first place.

"His nomination would not have passed today if the vote had been called up," said White House spokeswoman Dana Perino, as reported by AP.

During Fox's hearing last month, Kerry raked Fox over the coals about his $50,000 donation to the SBVT, saying the group was "smearing and spreading lies" about him. Kerry was after an apology, but didn't get one. No matter.

"Sam Fox had every opportunity to disavow the politics of personal destruction and to embrace the truth," Kerry said Wednesday, according to an AP story. "He chose not to. The White House made the right decision to withdraw the nomination. I hope this signals a new day in political discourse."

Keep dreamin', Senator. It's a victory for Kerry, albeit a very, very small one when compared to the damage Fox and his minions did in 2004.

Justice delayed is justice denied, but at least Kerry got his day with Fox by outing him as the partisan hate monger he really is.

Since I always hear Bill O'Lielly whining and complaining about the likes of George Soros and the money he donates to Democrats, I wonder if BOR has anything to say about Sam Fox? I already know the answer.