Sunday: Drudge instructions Edition

Swampland commenter James, Los Angeles: Drudge has already instructed the mainstream press to be upset at Syke's "inappropriate" joke about Limbaugh and to start criticizing Obama for "thinking it was funny." Those are the instructions for Scarborough and the CNN crowd to whine about tomorrow, all day long. The Republican talking point army is gathering arms and making appointments. You heard it here first, folks.

in which Joe Klein rips Rush: "on a daily basis ... delivering misinformation, lies to a large audience in America"

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Benen: CULT-LIKE QUALITIES....

CNN's Bill Schneider is hardly a liberal voice in media. He's a resident fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute think tank, and has offered some nasty anti-Democratic rhetoric on the air. So, when the CNN analyst spoke at UCLA yesterday, these weren't the kind of remarks most expected.

"The Republicans aren't a party, they're a cult."

"The moderates aren't a wing of the Republicans, they're a feather."

In each case, Schneider said he was quoting what people in Washington are saying to him. But he didn't seem to disagree.

As for the "cult" comment, Kevin Drum twists the knife: "[T]oday's GOP does seem to check most of the boxes in the International Cultic Studies Association's 'Characteristics Associated with Cultic Groups.' Except for this one: 'The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.' That doesn't seem to be much of a priority for them these days."

Ouch.

• Mark Kleiman
  

  Schneider also had a good line about what "pragmatism" means in American politics:

  "Americans are pragmatists. A pragmatist thinks that if something works, it's right. An ideologue believes that if something is wrong, it can't possibly work, even when it's working."

  The possibility that something might "work" in the short term and be morally wrong or disastrous in the long term or both wasn't mentioned. Yes, there are ideologues who insist on fitting the world to their views rather than vice versa. But the belief that whatever works is right, no matter how well that belief "works" politically, is wrong.

• John Aravosis

  80% of voters have a favorable view of Colin Powell.
  
  19% have a favorable view of Rush Limbaugh.
  
  So, of course, Cheney picks Limbaugh, who is about as popular as the Republican party right now. From ThinkProgress:

  CHENEY: Well, if I had to choose — in terms of being a Republican — I’d go with Rush Limbaugh, I think. My take on it was that Colin had already left the party. I didn’t know he was still a Republican.

  And that's why we want Cheney on television as much as possible. Keep digging the GOP's own grave, Dick. Keep telegraphing to the country just how conservative and far to the right today's Republican party really is.

• John Cole
  

  In what appears to be the worst idea since Waldo Jeffers decided to mail himself to his girlfriend, the powers that be in the Republican party have apparently sat down,thought about it, and then decided to drive Colin Powell out of the GOP:

  ...

  It was one thing to hear Rush babble out Powell last week- having Cheney say this is kind of crazy. Powell was the guy who sold Dick Cheney’s excellent Baghdad adventure, and now he isn’t good enough for the GOP.

  Kind of amazing. Four decades of military service, National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Secretary of State, and they don’t want him.

Think Progress: Cheney May Be Willing To Testify Under Oath About Torture Program

Today on CBS’s Face the Nation, Vice President Cheney vigorously defended the Bush administration’s torture policies and his belief that by rejecting them, President Obama is raising “the risk to the American people of another attack.” Cheney said that the Bush administration’s interrogation policies will one day be viewed as “one of the great success stories of American intelligence.”

When host Bob Schieffer asked Cheney whether he would be willing to testify to Congress under oath, Cheney initially hedged, but then indicated that he would be willing to do so:

SCHIEFFER: Would you go back and talk to the Congress?

CHENEY: Certainly. I’ve made it very clear that I feel very strongly that what we did here was exactly the right thing to do. And if I don’t speak out, then where do we find ourselves, Bob? Then the critics have free run, and there isn’t anybody there on the other side to tell the truth. So it’s important — it’s important that we…

SCHIEFFER: Senator Leahy, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was on this broadcast recently. And I said, do you intend to ask the former vice president to come up? And he said if he will testify under oath. Would you be willing to testify under oath?

CHENEY: I’d have to see what the circumstances are and what kind of precedent we were setting. But certainly I wouldn’t be out here today if I didn’t feel comfortable talking about what we’re doing publicly.

Watch it:

This past week, Cheney tried to portray himself as a type of populist with a responsibility to defend powerless intelligence officials. “I went through the Iran-contra hearings and watched the way administration officials ran for cover and left the little guys out to dry. And I was bound and determined that wasn’t going to happen this time,” he said. Of course, the Bush officials actually implicated in approving torture — David Addington, Jay Bybee, and Alberto Gonzales — were hardly “little.”

Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer has also been a vocal defender of the Bush administration’s policies in recent days, saying, “I’ll be proud to testify if I get a subpoena. I’m proud of what we did to protect this country.”

digby: "We Are Not Guantanamo"

I'm sure everyone has herd of the two American journalists who were arrested and have been held by the North Koreans the last couple of months. They are going to be put on trial for "hostile acts" which have been unspecified. Most experts believe they will be traded for something of value eventually.

Reader AZ sent me this, which distills exactly why the Obama administration has to deal with torture and Guantanamo resolutely and transparently:

"The rumor was that they are being housed at one of the guest villas," said Han S. Park, a University of Georgia expert who was visiting North Korea as part of a private U.S. delegation after the women were captured. Park told CNN International that the North Koreans scoffed at any suggestion that the Americans were receiving harsh treatment.

"They laughed. 'We are not Guantanamo.' That's what they said," Park said.

American foreign policy is weakened in dozens of different ways until it is made very clear that America has repudiated what was done. The administration has many different interests to serve with this issue, but none are more important than that.