In September of 2009 as the contentious “town hall meetings” over health care reform had dominated the news for a month, when violent rhetoric was spewing from right wingers, Nancy Pelosi recounted what happened in her hometown of San Francisco as a result of incendiary talk… and she choked up:
The criticism from the right came fast. “It appears the job of governing is too much for Nancy Pelosi, who may be finally coming apart at the seams,” is just one of many similar statements that shows up in a quick Google search.
And remember what crying did to Ed Muskie’s career? Apparently the Republicans don’t… nor do the Democrats. If an incoming Democratic Speaker had this emotional lack of control, do you think the Republicans would just shrug it off? Not a chance!
Somehow, I don’t think we’ll hear the same criticism of incoming Speaker John Boehner, who apparently has no control over his frequent crying jags, as shown last night on 60 Minutes.
Yes, we have a big Morning Boehner coming up today on the show!
Of course, we can’t do like the Sunday talking head shows did yesterday and ignore Bernie Sanders brilliant and wonderful #Filibernie that took place on the floor of the Senate on Friday, nor would we want to. But I’m not surprised. I am saddened that the mainstream media is so controlled by big money corporate interests that it won’t recognize the one elected official who’s standing strong for the working class and less fortunate among us.
Here’s how Bernie started his 8.5 hours of magnificence:
And click here for a round-up of some of the best moments from our fantastic Friday with Bernie.
We’ll talk about that too today, on a jam-packed show!
Today’s guests were Greg Mitchell of The Nation who’s been liveblogging wikileaks.
My friend Amy Simon gave us a bit of history about women’s role in our nation’s history. She calls herself a Cultural HerStorian. She wrote and performs a one-woman show called “She’s History” … and is visiting from LA, so she joined me in the studio this morning.
And, as she does every Monday morning, Nicole Belle of Crooks and Liars joined me to dissect the Sunday talking head shows in a segment we call “Fools on the Hill.” Here’s what she sent over this morning:
The Obama/GOP tax cut extension deal was THE topic of discussion on the Sunday shows. But did a single show mention Bernie Sanders’ incredible 8 hour “filibuster”? No way, because to acknowledge that would be to legitimize the progressive problems with this deal and almost to a one, the shows took pains to paint liberals as unyielding, unreasonable fringe players.
David Axelrod appeared on This Week to sell the tax plan. (it’s a long clip, but I’m not sure what the best part would be) Axelrod fearmongers that if nothing is done, we’re looking at a double dip recession. I have to admit to being completely flummoxed by the optics of the White House’s strategy entirely. Axelrod is basically saying that they know this won’t work long term, but that it needs to work in the short term to get people back to work. I simply do not understand why the President would agree to extend this for two years to basically kick this can down to the next election. Is that the right time to have a double dip recession?
Fareed Zakaria said what we’ve all known: President Obama should have gotten a better deal. I don’t think there’s really anyone with a shred of honesty—including the President himself—who can’t admit that. However, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that I think part of the reason the left has been so outraged has not been the particulars of the plan, but in the strategy the WH employed. If Obama had not entered into the negotiation already showing his cards and already open to giving in, if he had included Democratic leadership, if he had not immediately followed the meeting with a defensive press conference smacking down anyone who had a problem with the deal and instead came out and said, “We fought hard. The Republican leadership unfortunately seem to think that the very wealthy of this country are more important than the 98% of Americans I’m trying to help through this most difficult economic time and are willing to hold your prosperity hostage to the interests of their big money donors but I’ve gotten them to concede extending the tax rates for the middle class, and ….” and sought the support of his party, then we would be much more inclined to cut him some slack. Again, the optics of how the WH has handled this (including calling in Bill Clinton to sell the program and Obama bugging out of the press conference to attend some function with the First Lady) are just inexplicable to me.
But that was the strategy the WH chose, and so naturally, there’s a lot of anger out there on the left. People are now openly starting to talk about primarying Obama in 2012. But for as much as there is legitimate frustration and anger, history shows that primarying a sitting President is never a good idea for the party. The President is weakened, the party is weakened and it leads to Republican gains. Case in point, look at what happened to Jimmy Carter got primaried by Teddy Kennedy: Ronald Reagan won. As disappointing as Obama has been, no one wants a repeat of that. So Howard Dean went on Face the Nation and reminded viewers that we have to have the right priorities. I think primarying Blue Dogs so that Obama has a party more willing to back progressive ideals is a great idea (and that’s what we try to do with our PAC, Blue America), but we need to remember that this milquetoast programs that we hate are a result of having to get things moved or passed through Congress with the rules being manipulated by the Republicans to keep Obama from being successful.
And then in non-tax cut extension news, I caught this interesting little green room exchange between US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad and George Will on Julian Assange and WikiLeaks. Will adopts this typical Villager mentality about Assange, calling him “reptilian” and grumbling about how dangerous it is. But Khalilzad says something that you haven’t heard anyone in the American media say: Bob Woodward published far more damaging information given to him by people with much higher clearances in his latest book Obama’s Wars including diplomatic cables written by Ambassador Karl Eikenberry opposing more troops to Afghanistan. Yet no one thought that Woodward (or the NY Times, who has published both Eikenberry’s cables and WikiLeaks’ cables) should be hunted down, prosecuted or most hysterically, executed. So it is that the information is coming out of an uncontrollable source?
Bernie Sanders is far more of a (hu)man than John-Boy Boehner ever thought about being. I’m not a psychiatrist (although I like to play one on the Internet), but Boehner’s crying seems very bizarre (or at least, very atypical) in that it does not seem connected to the topic of the contemporaneous conversation (“the American dream” or “little kids”), setting, circumstances, etc. I almost get the feeling he is in some kind of ‘dissociative state’ when he cries so inappropriately. Unless there is something currently going on that we don’t know about (like he’s involved in a scandal that is about to come to light, or maybe a doctor has told him he has terminal cancer) the crying must be associated with something very significant (most likely trauma) from his past. TAKE IT AWAY, PETER (but please don’t “shock the monkey”):