Guest blogged by Frank Schaeffer (with a little help from Rachel Maddow)
I am the father of a Marine who served his country with honor in Afghanistan and Iraq. In that role — as part of the military family — I call on anyone who cares about this country to speak out against the Republican Party, its leaders and followers and tell the truth: they are trying to cash in on the Detroit/terror attempt in a way that has clearly crossed a line. They are over the line of not just good taste, but into an area that has to be called what it is: unpatriotic, un-American cynicism on a new level.
I was going to write a post on this but Rachel Maddow said it better on MSNBC last night…
Please watch and pass on. One last thing: why is Rachel Maddow the only journalist who seems to be doing her job on this (and so many other matters!) of actually fact-checking?
UPDATE/ADDENDUM FROM BRAD: With all due respect to the indispensable Rachel, and our friend Frank Schaeffer, Glenn Greenwald and a few others in the blogosphere, were also early on this particular beat, as the non-Rachel corporate media were predictably performing their usual failure. And, if we may say so ourselves, we had a word (okay, a coarse and infuriated rant) or two on these very same matters, while guest hosting last night’s Mike Malloy Show ourselves. That rant, at least a good chunk of it, can be downloaded here [MP3] or heard by hitting the play button below…
[audio:http://bradblog.com/audio/MikeMalloy_BradFriedman_GuestHost_123009_Hour1.mp3]
ANOTHER UPDATE FROM BRAD: Finally, a Democrat manages to grow a pair, and pushes back — loudly and directly — at the outrageous, appalling, hypocritical, anti-American attacks from Cheney and the rest of the America-hating Right…
Via RAW STORY (who has the full video segment):
…
“We need to grow a spine and stand up and show America exactly who did what,” Massa said, pointing to Cheney’s role in the events leading to the Christmas day attempt and the fact that the Bush administration took several days longer than Obama to address the 2001 shoe-bomber incident.
Host Ed Schultz called Cheney a “coward” and heatedly rebuffed the GOP meme that their party is more effective on national security, and said the Democratic Party cedes ground by failing to counter these claims.
“What do we have to do to get the Democrats to be aggressive on security?” Schultz said. “We got hit on [the GOP’s] watch. They were told that bin Laden was going to do this and they sat on their fat ass on vacation and did nothing about it.”
…
“It makes no difference what we do, this man suffers from political diarrhea of the mouth, and unless we stand up and call it as it is he’s going to keep on getting away with it,” Massa said.
…
The New York Democrat also lashed out at Sen. Jim DeMint as “personally responsible for placing you, the traveling American public at risk” by “placing a hold on the nominee of the director of the Transportation Security Agency.”
“People like Jim DeMint and people like Dick Cheney need to go away so we can solve the problems they’ve created,” Massa said.
What you left out, Frank, is that if the Obama administration had upheld its oath to support and defend the constitution and laws of these United States by initiating a war crimes criminal investigation/prosecution of those who ordered torture, Dick Cheney would himself have already “lawyered-up,” so that none of us would still have to listen to that clown’s Orwellian attempt to convert a crime (attempting to blow up a plane; flying planes into buildings) into an act of war.
Hi Ernest: Good point. I wish that would happen, the whole Bush war criminal crew belong behind bars.
Me, I’m going for Dean/Maddow in 2012!!! Or Maddow/Dean, for that matter…
Yes to Dean/Maddow in 2012 and for the time being I’d like to see Maddow as White House press secretary and/or chairperson of the Democratic Party!
That was a great report by Rachel Maddow – thanks for pointing it out, Frank, and thanks for intro comments.
“Un-American cynicism” is a great phrase … indeed, an attitude of total contempt for social values such as honesty, personal integrity, true leadership, is a conspicuous feature of the ever-snowballing hysteria of the Republican “leadership” (and of Democratic neo-cons, and all others who depend on the War on Terror for political survival) … seems like Dick Cheney et al are actually truly scared, and feel they are losing whatever grip on reality they may have had …
Great piece Frank….
and Ernest @1
Damn good point there….
Symbiont said:
And yet, the (non-Rachel) corporate mainstream media treats things as nothing more than business/politics as usual. Just as they have been doing for years as the country has burned.
I should also add, as I did last night during the Malloy Show (as heard in one of the “hours” now added as an update above), that this is allowed to happen because Democrats are too cowardly to come out and call it for what it is, as Frank did above! It’s unpatriotic, it’s anti-American, and it’s outrageous.
But it will continue, until Democrats learn how to push back, defend themselves, and stop bringing a paper knife to a gun fight.
Check this out, Rachel Maddow’s investigations of 2009 review, this shows she’s the best investigative journalism show on TV by far:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/34637564#34637564
So what daily TV shows do fact checking, which ones think and analyze and compares things, which ones finds flip-flops and hypocrisy, which ones find past mistakes and mis-prediction of current “experts” and “pundits” trotted out as smart people, the list is short, it is:
Rachel Maddow Show
Daily Show
Colbert Report
So we have bloggers in the written media and we have three cable on TV shows telling the truth, thank goodness we are not totally reliant on network braodcasting and metro daily print newspapers…
More from MSNBC’s liberal three headed monster of Maddow/Olbermann/Schultz – you MUST check out Big Ed’s impersonation of Dick Cheney at the beginning here, it’s uproarious:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAlJYVcNtt4&feature=player_embedded
Karen:
– Keith Olbermann (MSNBC)
– Rachel Maddow (MSNBC)
– Ed Schultz (MSNBC)
– Jon Stewart (Comedy Central)
– Steven Colbert (Comedy Central)
Only shows worth watching in the corporate TV.
George Carlin, before he died, said Countdown with Olbermann was the best show on TV, bar none.
Let’s not forget that in 1968 while I was enjoying an all expense paid vacation in Southeast Asia, courtesy of Uncle Sam, with an M-16 for a companion, five-deferment Dick had “better things to do.”
Politico’s Mike Allen slammed as Cheney ’stenographer’
WASHINGTON — allen Politicos Mike Allen slammed as Cheney stenographerJournalists are attacking Politico and reporter Mike Allen after an article Wednesday featuring former Vice President Dick Cheney accusing President Obama of insufficiently responding to the failed Christmas terror attempt.
A number of writers and bloggers say Politico failed to perform the fact-checking role expected of reporters, pointing to questionable assertions from Cheney that went unchecked in Allen’s story.
http://rawstory.com/2009/12/politico-mike-allen-slammed-cheney-lapdogs/
Is everybody missing how hawkish the suddenly spineful liberals are sounding? You like their fire so much that you’re missing that? Want to be pro-GWOT just to fight “the other side”?
Pardon me, Niners. But who are those “suddenly spineful liberals” you’re referring to? And nobody’s hawkishness is the issue here. This is one of hypocrisy, not of a policy.
The ones in the videos.
And if it isn’t the issue, it shouldn’t be ignored while engaging in the issue. That’s just dumb.
I’m 31, I remember the start of the first Gulf War, I was in the 8th grade. My brother is leaving the Army after 4 years…”unpatriotic, un-American cynicism on a new level”….a new level, are you serious, like new since when? 1999? 1989?
Democrats have escalated the GWOT under the watch of the “Only shows worth watching…”
political diarrhea of the mouth….indeed
Democrats need to take the GWOT and own that shit, it theirs as much as the Republicans. Ask my brother what’s changed. Ask the good people of Afghanistan.
Democrats aren’t going to have a planet to live on, but they’ll have there precious TV, spin, and bullshit to the very end.
Oh, wow, that clip from the Ed Show referenced above is RICH. Schultz and Massa completely rip Cheney to shreds … holy mackerel…
Sayeth Brad:
How sadly true. “The more things change, the more they
staysay it’s the same” — and become more and more overtly ridiculous in the attempt.People of all sorts want to maintain their world view … it’s psychological damage control, that’s all …
2010’s going to be a helluva year, kiddies.
I’d like to separate Democrats from liberals if you please. They are not one and the same. The true liberals have been consistently against the “War on Terror” (and the “War on Terra” – if they can be distinguished). Liberals: Kucinich, McDermott, Sanders, et al. Democrats: Not so much.
Without liberals, there would have been zero opposition to the entirety of the Bush (and now Obama) decade – barring the Ron Paul movement, and it is only the liberals in the Democratic Party that keep it from morphing into a virtual carbon copy of the Republicans.
Dear Mr. Schaeffer,
You have an intriguing political voice, but is it a prophetic voice like Jesus the Christ had?
Jesus asks both liberals and conservatives to love our neighbors on this planet by sacrificing our desires, obeying their needs, and submitting to the good of the whole. This war on terror is about preserving my desires, ignoring my neighbors’ needs, and demanding what is good for me.
Until we understand our own depravity, what good is it to get all self-righteous about Republicans?
IT WAS ANOTHER FALSE FLAG….
Thank you 99, it was an obvious false flag. The whole GWOT is a gigantic fraud built on false flag attacks to panic the lemmings.
“The Republican Party [is] . . . trying to cash in on the Detroit/terror attempt in a way that has clearly crossed a line . . .into an area that has to be called what it is: unpatriotic, un-American cynicism on a new level” This ain’t the half of it. Of course they are trying raise hay over the issue, that’s why they committed the act in the first place. Replicants = MIC = Intel = the High Perps of 9/11.
Just for starters, if you were concealing an explosive device near your privates would you attempt to activate it in your seat under a blanket, next to your neighbors or would you use a restroom and place the device directly against a wall? Furthermore wouldn’t you be concerned that this cock bomb might malfunction and only blow off your cock? Islamic terrorists are so eager to get to their 72 virgins, that they are willing to get their cockless? The whole story is such drivel it’s embarrassing.
I mean, can we say mentally ill, manipulated patsy?
Whoa, Max, the Democratic Party is at least as avidly into this shit. And I don’t think we need to be elaborate about this. I don’t see, really, where he’s even necessarily mentally ill or manipulated into being a patsy. He was an identified religious fanatic and they could have just snatched him from his father’s information, drugged him, dressed him in rags with the not really very explosive crotch and set him on that plane. That’s the strippiest version and I think it should stay as simple as possible, given the facts so far, and not get any more complicated until reliable sources actually do put him engaging willingly and knowingly with nefarious persons.
Or maybe I’ve missed real information. I no longer count on MSM accounts even to lie in the direction of truth.
In ANY event, there is plenty of indication right out in the open right this very now that this was a faked terror event, with help from our authorities, and if people don’t stop being credulous little babies this time, I may stroke out.
OK, we don’t really know what went on in the plane, whether the underwear bomber (I’ll use a more polite term this time) was drugged, witting, assisted, etc. The criminals are in such control of the media that we can be sure of very, very little.
I don’t agree with you though that the Dems equal the Repubs in this area. Yes, the Democrats might be the almost-worthless-party or even the Republican-junior-party but I don’t think the high perps could have pulled off 9/11 with a divided government. The Replicants needed to hold all the levers of power, imo. They had to be able to place their people in all critical positions.
If Gore had defended his win (maybe he wasn’t allowed to) then I don’t think 9/11 would have happened and millions of Iraqis and thousands of U.S. servicepeople would still be alive.
Watch the fear of Cheney, Pataki, Giuliani in discussing the upcoming NY trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (or the actor playing him). The Dems don’t totally equal the Replicants.
But yes, if the American “people don’t stop being credulous little babies this time” we are in deep doo doo.
The same people own both parties. There’s a historian out there who prefers to call the people doing this stuff “The Rogue Network”. Maybe Republicans jumped on this wagon first, but the Democrats have avidly followed. Gotta get our heads out of this little universe of faked up partisan polemics. All of us are in trouble.
Oh, and we know he was assisted, whether witting or drugged. There was the well-dressed older man trying to get the mute kid on the plane without a passport in Amsterdam; the guy in the plane videoing him calmly from before even his pants caught fire; the pictures of the underwear in question, showing briefs not very burned at all; and the guy from on the same flight who was arrested in Detroit with a bag identified by a bomb-sniffing dog. So he wasn’t alone.
In fact, other passengers have said he didn’t resist anyone who jumped on him and dragged him to the first class section. They said he looked like he was in a trance and that he seemed very frightened.
Those are all things we’ve heard from witnesses and confirmed with other witnesses or with our eyes. Some of it the FBI has already tried to suppress. As far as I can tell, there isn’t anything else out there that supports any of the rest of it… except the part about the father becoming concerned about his son’s religious fervor and notifying our embassy, trying to head off any ideas about doing something rash. He, the father, confirmed that, and then so did our government.
So the kid could have been drawn in by the patsy factory mosques and set up, or they were simply put onto this good candidate to snatch and drug and put on a plane by the report the father made to the embassy. For now, I’m sticking to the simplest scenario, because it is simplest, and because it comports with what the witnesses said about his demeanor.
It could be both. Whatever. This is absolutely glaringly a false flag set up. Not an ion of doubt about that.
Brad said, “But it will continue, until Democrats learn how to push back, defend themselves, and stop bringing a paper knife to a gun fight.
I think you are being much too kind with this analogy Brad. Any semblance of a weapon gives Dems too much credit. Since they cannot communicate any resistance whatsoever to these inane talking points, it might be more appropriate to say they bring ‘a self-defense manual to a gun fight’.
My first thought when i heard the attacks on Obama begin was, nothing shows more than this the ‘liberal media’ myth. Imagine a Dem Senator after 9/11 putting a hold on the head of the TSA and then a terror attack ensues. Firstly, he would be bombarded by the media, then he would be mercilessly attacked by his political foes. Call me crazy but i think he would be unelectable. As for Demint, he’s been barely a blip on the radar. If a sitting Dem yelled ‘you lie’ during a Bush speech to congress, would they still have a political career? Dems will never win this war of words because they are fighting with a group that has no shame and cares very little for the truth.
Sadly, when the MSM doesn’t call them out on this, their sheeple can’t distinguish fact from fiction. Dems, ya better grow a pair.
I just can’t believe what I’m viewing here…. the bashing of the Christian Religion, Republicans, Democrates, Right Wingers, Left Wingers! Why don’t all you whom are involved in this nonsense, simply…. STOP!
The fact remains that our Country, the U.S.A., is
“headed” down the throat of the Black Hole that has been created by ALL just such back-and-forth squabbling throughout the Land.
What we need is cooperation. Our Fore-Fathers would turn over in their graves if they could see how their passionately loved “REPUBLIC” has developed into an…. “anything goes” (for the most part) system of Democratic Anarchy.