Lawrence O'Donnell tears into Bush speechwriter over torture

(HuffPost)

Fireworks erupted on the set of "Morning Joe" Friday, after MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell took umbrage with former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen's claim that President Obama is inviting a domestic terrorist attack.

Things started off rocky after Thiessen -- in the process of justifying the coercive counter-terrorism techniques used under the Bush administration and condemning Obama for "eliminating the CIA's interrogation program" -- insisted that his former boss was required to essentially start from scratch.

"You gotta think back to the period after 9/11," he said. "We didn't even know who hit us. We didn't know that Khalid Sheik Mohammad was the mastermind of 9/11 or the operational commander of al Qaeda. And then we started rounding up these terrorists..."

O'Donnell responded quickly, barking out his bewilderment with Thiessen's assertion that there was no pre-9/11 warning that an attack was coming.

"Isn't it true that the president you worked for invited the first attack by having no idea what was going on with al Qaeda? You just admitted that when you were hit on 9/11, you just said, 'We didn't know who hit us'. You were told who was going to hit you before 9/11. And your administration invited the first attack, for which you should live in shame."

Those charges were some of the milder in the heated exchange. Later in the segment, O'Donnell told Thiessen that he was hopelessly ill-equipped to talk about terrorism or torture.

"Marc, I'm wondering about your own personal experience with torture. I know you grew up in the richest zip code in America, in the Upper East Side. You went to the only boarding school in all of Connecticut that I know of that has its own golf course... And then you went to Vasser. And like all the torture-mongers in the Bush White House, the Cheney family included, you never served a day in the military. Never considered that. I'm wondering, with that background, what is it that gives you an expertise on torture? What makes you love it so much?"

Thiessen replied: "First of all, one, it is not torture. Second of all, [the New Yorker's] Jane Mayer said the other day I never had a security clearance... I had a security clearance. I was read into the CIA program. When President Bush did a speech in December 2006 to reveal this program, I was taken into a secure room in the National Security Council. I was given access to all of the intelligence this program produced. And I actually met with the actual interrogators who interviewed Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and got the information to stop attacks."

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Olbermann rips Beck; O'Donnell tears into Steele

Keith Olbermann tore into Glenn Beck during Worst Persons for his quote that derailing health care is tantamount to preparing for 9/11.

Beck said the 9/12ers, as they are also referred to, "are reading 2,000-page healthcare bills on the weekend. [They] are willing to stand in line and take our shoes off before the plane actually hits the tower."

Beck, you and the 9/12ers have the nerve to exploit 9/11 for your lousy TV raitings? You cannot make light of 9/11, nor bandy about as if your petty political grievances are comparable to it and still be an actual, patriotic American. In short, Glenn, 9/12ers, if you're invoking 9/11 just to oppose health care reform, go to hell.

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Lawrence O'Donnell had some tough words for RNC chairman Michael Steele this morning regarding the GOP's loss of the 23rd congressional district in New York for the first time in history. O'Donnell accused Steele, along with Sarah Palin and others, of leading the Republican party to defeat in the 23rd by ousting the Republican candidate Scozzafava from the race in favor of a more orthodox conservative who proved too orthodox for the voters. An incredulous O'Donnell asked Steele how such a stunning defeat could happen.

Steele responded with some humor: "Lawrence, I'll start by apologizing for letting you ask me a question in the first place... I don't apologize for anything. Last night was a great night for the Republican Party." The RNC chair argued that there wasn't much significance in the GOP losing that seat because it will have to be defended again in 2010, and he is confident the GOP can pick it back up.

It was here that O'Donnell got aggressive:

O'Donnell: Michael, you made the 23rd the most important congressional district in the country. The Democrats didn't do it. You did it. You lost it. You led your party to a disastrous loss that it has never experienced in that district before. Congratulations, nice work.

Steele: Hey Lawrence, if it makes you feel good, baby, then have at it. Just lay it on me. I'll shut up and listen to you. Because clearly you've got your talking points from the DNC. You roll them out and have fun with them. You're not going to spoil my juice right now; you're not gonna take this high away from me."

We would be remiss in not mentioning Steele's brilliant introduction in which he expressed his joy with yesterday's results by simulating the Heisman move and saying "assume the Heisman position." Co-host Mika Brzezinski was mortified enough to bury her hands in her face. A screenshot of Steele's move and Mika's embarrassment is below.

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O'Donnell and Scarborough battle over Cheney

Lawrence O'Donnell joined the panel on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday and got into a heated debate with host Joe Scarborough over Dick Cheney's recent remarks accusing the Obama administration of "dithering while America's armed forces are in danger" and "putting politics over security and turning the guns on our own guys."

Scarborough tried to defend Cheney, stating that while he personally disagrees with the former vice president's comments, Cheney "speaks for a large chunk of America who is far more aggressive in foreign policy than those of us that live inside this bubble."

O'Donnell jumped into the conversation, leveling heavy criticism at Cheney:

The dithering thing is great because Cheney, of course, did not dither, did not dither for a minute, when the time came to make a wild guess, an outright crazy wild guess, about are there weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. And Cheney sat there in the White House and said, you know what, I've got everything I need to make my wild guess. On the basis of my wild guess I'm going to tell the country it's an actual fact, and then I'm gonna help send American soldiers there to die over a lie. No dithering when it came time to do that.

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Retired General Paul Eaton, senior adviser to the National Security Network, has hit back at Cheney, calling him an incompetent war fighter:

The record is clear: Dick Cheney and the Bush administration were incompetent war fighters. They ignored Afghanistan for 7 years with a crude approach to counter-insurgency warfare best illustrated by: 1. Deny it. 2. Ignore it. 3. Bomb it. While our intelligence agencies called the region the greatest threat to America, the Bush White House under-resourced our military efforts, shifted attention to Iraq, and failed to bring to justice the masterminds of September 11.

The only time Cheney and his cabal of foreign policy 'experts' have anything to say is when they feel compelled to protect this failed legacy. While President Obama is tasked with cleaning up the considerable mess they left behind, they continue to defend torture or rewrite a legacy of indifference on Afghanistan. Simply put, Mr. Cheney sees history throughout extremely myopic and partisan eyes.

Sean Hannity's "provable stupidity"

Lawrence O'Donnell demonstrates Sean Hannity's "provable stupidity" over the Chavez handshake

Lawrence O'Donnell Reduces Eric Cantor To Babbling

(Huff Post)
Media Monitor Brian Cohoon drew our attention to this clip from MSNBC's Morning Joe, where Lawrence O'Donnell subjects Eric Cantor to some sort of reporting-like substance, effortlessly reducing Cantor to nonsense.

Basically, O'Donnell asks Cantor a straight question: "Are you going to vote for the 'tax seizure bill'?" That's the bill introduced by Charles Rangel that would recover these AIG bonuses that threaten to bring civilization to its knees. Cantor's basic answer is no, but the roundabout evasions are a heaven-sent melange of tongue-tripping malarkey: "LISTEN," Cantor purrs, "I am for whatever we can do right now to get that money back into the Treasury." Except that "whatever we can do right now" isn't, as it turns out, a PLAN. What follows, roughly paraphrased from the original Cantorese, is this: "But uhm, WHY ARE WE HERE TO BEGIN WITH ... and the Rangel bill is terrible tax policy ... but I will get those bonus payments back, with NECROMANCY, or I'll pass a bill that requires Tim Geithner to figure all of this out, on pain of death or something."

O'Donnell summarizes: "What you're telling us today is that you have no idea how to get the money back, we'd like to ask the Treasury Secretary to do it. We will not vote for Charlie Rangel's tax proposal." Then they argue some more. Finally, out of nowhere, you hear Joe Scarborough say, "He's going to vote FOR it!" But Scarborough has nothing in all the world upon which to base this conclusion.

Anyway, Eric Cantor, the guy just oozes leadership. Probably from a weepy pustule.

Start at 2:45 right after Doucheborough finishes fellating Cantor.

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