Christie explained that before going into Libya, it was important to ask what the clear objective was, how to win, and “what is the definition of success.” Former CNN foreign correspondent Michael Ware, who spent roughly seven years in Iraq, exploded at this point and asked why he didn’t ask those same questions when he served in the Bush administration.

At one point, Christie pointed out that the Iraq war resolution was supported by both Democrats and Republicans, and that’s when West grew visibly upset, arguing it was “the wrong decision” no matter who supported it. And… you know what? There are really no words to describe the clear fury in West’s eyes as he goes after Christie with every fiber in his being. Journalist Michelle Goldberg gets in a short criticism of Christie’s points, but really, it’s hard to follow West’s emotional tirade. And even if you don’t agree with what Ware and West are saying, watch this for no other reason than to see their epic brohug towards the end.

Watch the video below, courtesy of HBO:

Wallace highlighted the position taken by some liberals and conservatives that since al-Awlaki was an American citizen, he should have been subjected to the American justice system instead of being taken out on foreign soil. Bill Kristol argued that while it’s hard to issue someone a warrant when they’re hiding out in Yemen, the main reason the killing was justified is that al-Awlaki proudly boasted of his anti-American reactions and his responsibility in the deaths of U.S. citizens.

Juan Williams highlighted the comments made by Ron Paul on the issue and the notion it was a violation of al-Awlaki’s Fifth Amendment rights, but he ultimately sided with Kristol and agreed Obama made the right decision in this circumstance. However, he questioned whether the president or the administration had a standard by which assassinations would have to be carried out. Brit Hume took issue with that comment, arguing that al-Awlaki has “no rights” to speak of and is part of a group that the United States had essentially declared war on.

Mara Liasson did not seem to take any sides, but did point out that aside from Ron Paul, Dennis Kucinich, and the ACLU, no one from either party seems to have an objection to the president’s actions. Kristol dismissed Congressman Paul’s relevance to the national debate, saying he’s been “hanging out with 9/11 truthers.”

Wallace then brought up an article that found that in just three years, President Obama had ordered over five times as many drone strikes as President Bush did in eight. Kristol credited Obama for his progress in the war on terror, but Williams wondered why the president hasn’t made any definitive case for such military actions. Kristol shot back by insisting the president can’t just solve everything by making unilateral statements, he needs to consult with lawyers first.

Watch the video below, courtesy of Fox News:

Bob Schieffer played a soundbite of President Obama’s speech at the Congressional Black Caucus dinner last night, and asked DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman-Schultz if his fiery speech was good politics and if it would attract more independents who want the president to be more aggressive.

Wasserman-Schultz insisted the audience at the event believed President Obama is dealing with problems grandfathered in from the Bush administration, and made an appeal for Republicans to get behind the American Jobs Act. RNC Chairman Reince Priebus responded by highlighting that all-important question voters ask themselves every presidential election: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”

Priebus highlighted rising unemployment and the size of the national debt, and challenged Wasserman-Schultz to name “one economic statistic in this country that Barack Obama has made better.” Wasserman-Schultz shot back by continuing along the “Bush’s fault” refrain, and argued that in the past few years of Obama’s presidency, “we’ve turned a corner” and cycled through a list of economic achievements that have been made despite the grim reality the United States faces.

Priebus saw this as a decidedly different tactic for Democrats in this election cycle.

“It sounds like the new slogan is no longer ‘Hope and Change,’ it’s ‘Hey, It Could Have Been Worse.’ A great bumper sticker, Debbie, I hope it works for you, but the reality is that Americans are hurting in this country… The president is upside down in your home state of Florida, he’s upside down in battleground states, and guess what? He’s upside down in California, and he’s losing Massachusetts because Americans understand that this president hasn’t cut it and he’s promised the world and he’s delivered nothing.”

Schieffer shifted the conversation to the current Republican primary race, specifically Herman Cain‘s victory in the Florida straw poll over frontrunners Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Priebus did not express his support for everyone, but insisted the Republicans would eventually settle on an “articulate, intelligent alternative” to President Obama.

Unlike many Republicans, Priebus is content with the current field of candidates, and there is a lot of excitement on the GOP’s side in this race. Wasserman-Schultz suggested that it doesn’t matter which Republican gets the nomination because “they’re all the same” and “they can’t move too the right far enough.” And as for President Obama’s lagging poll numbers in Florida, she argued that ultimately, the president could win the state because of his positions on Social Security and other issues important to voters there.

Watch the video below, courtesy of CBS News:

President Obama chose to read from Psalm 46, a Bible passage focused on the power of God and the nature of tragedy.

God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Therefore, we will not fear, even though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.

Though its waters roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with its swelling, there’s a river whose streams shall make glad the City of God, the holy place of the Tabernacle of the Most High.

God is in the midst of her.

She shall not be moved.

God shall help her just at the break of dawn.

The nations raged, the kingdoms were moved.

He uttered his voice.

The earth melted.

The Lord of Hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Come behold the works of the Lord who has made desolations in the Earth.

He makes wars cease to the ends of the Earth.

He breaks the bough and cuts the spear in two.

He burns the chariot in fire.

Be still and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the Earths.

The Lord of Hosts is with us.

The God of Jacob is our refuge.

Meanwhile, George Bush (to a round of applause from the crowd) read a letter Abraham Lincoln sent to a mother those sons died during the Civil War.

Dear Madam,

I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming.

But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.

Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,

A. Lincoln

Watch the video of their remarks below, courtesy of MSNBC:

Bob Schieffer asked Powell if there was anything in the former VP’s book that would cause people’s heads to explode in Washington. Powell did not think so, and immediately proceeded to criticize Cheney for using the book as a platform to go after him and other members of the Bush administration.

Mr. Cheney has had a long and distinguished career, and I hope that’s what he’ll focus on, not these cheap shots that he’s taking at me and other members of the administration who served to the best of our ability for President Bush.

Powell disputed Cheney’s assertion that he was in some way responsible for Powell’s departure from the administration in 2004, claiming that he and President Bush had always planned for Powell to depart towards the end of the presidential term.

Among other things, Cheney alleged that Powell did not share his opinions on many issues with the president, he did not support the president’s decisions, and that Powell was somehow involved in the Valerie Plame affair. Powell disputed all of these charges and continued to insist there is nothing particularly shocking in what Cheney had to say.

Mr. Cheney is free to say what he wishes, but so far I haven’t seen anything in it that is ‘explosive,’ as he claims it is, and I don’t see any heads lying on the street.

Watch the video below, courtesy of CBS:

Today’s This Week panel started by discussing the media reaction to the storm. George Will thought the coverage was creating “synthetic hysteria” and newspeople should not speak in dire terms when reporting on the hurricane. Cokie Roberts suggested the opposite, that the media should not understate the potential threat of a hurricane, pointing to the vast devastation of Hurricane Katrina and claiming that 5000 families were separated during the storm.

This brought the panel to the main focus of the discussion: the politics of a disaster response. Ron Brownstein, from the National Journal, highlighted a drop in George Bush‘s poll numbers following Katrina, arguing that the threat of a political fallout should be enough “for elected officials to really be on high alert” during a natural disaster. Donna Brazile described the government’s response to Irene as “adequate” and singled out FEMA director Chris Fugate for his work at the agency through several hurricanes over the past few years.

Roberts saw Katrina as a tipping point in the Bush administration because people no longer viewed him as the president who would keep them safe. As for President Obama‘s handling of Irene, Roberts thought that the president could improve his poll numbers if he demonstrated effective leadership during the storm. Brownstein agreed, positing that while strong leadership is not necessarily the only mark of an authoritative president, a lack of such would deal a significant blow to his popularity.

George Will, however, thought one of Obama’s biggest problems was the idea of portraying himself as a sort of larger-than-life problem solver, creating a “cult of the presidency” where the executive branch wields more power than it actually does. He also thought Obama should not be blaming other people and organizations for problems of governance that ultimately boil down to the separation of powers.

Watch the video below, courtesy of ABC:

“He answered all the questions,” Schnall shared. “We sat down for two hours each day. He had no notes, he never got up. It was a very interesting journey.”

Schnall also discussed an interesting reflection made by the former President: How much wasn’t known at the time and immediately following the attacks.

I wanted to really understand what it was like for him as a president, as a commander in chief, and also as a father and a husband. … He seemed to say in the very beginning, they didn’t really know what was going on. In the very first few hours of September 11, there was great confusion–Were there more terrorist attacks? Were there more targets? Who was the enemy? The president said to us several times in the interview that he felt like he was living through the fog of war. I thought that was a very interesting and revealing thing for a former president to say.

Also interesting (and something I’d never heard before)? Bush’s initial reaction to the crash of flight 93 that day:

Turnstyle: And does he talk in those moments about the decisions that he made? Is there a sense of regret about any of those decisions that he made in that “fog of war” atmosphere that he describes?

Schnall: Well again, we’re only talking about the 11th, the 12th, through the 14th, and some of those early decisions, for example when he was on the plane, the FAA grounded all the commercial airlines, they brought everything down. The president then had to make a decision while flying through the skies of America, he gave the Air Force permission to shoot down any commercial plane that was still in the air that was not responding to that FAA grounding rule. And he told us that when they heard that flight 93 had crashed in the fields of Pennsylvania, they didn’t know at first whether or not that plane had gone down because of his direct order. … He did not at any point say that he had regrets. He did say during the interview that he knew that he was making decisions that would be controversial – and they’re still controversial to this day. I mean look, we’re still going through the conflicts with Iraq and Afghanistan, I think he knew and still knows that we’re still living through those events right now.

Read the full interview at Turnstyle. Bush’s interview airs on August 28th.

h/t Turnstyle News

Nat Geo (as all the cool kids are callin’ it) offered a little preview of the special (which airs on August 28th), providing further insight into the moment between Bush first learned that a plane had hit the towers (and surmised, as many of us did, that there must have been some unfortunate but isolated issue with the plane or the pilot) and when he was informed that the United States was, in fact, under attack.

Here, in a clip courtesy of the National Geographic Channel, Bush looks back on the eerie, history-shifting moment that he was first alerted that the plane crashes were deliberate. It was a day, he recalls, that “changed my presidency.” And a moment, we all know, that was caught on camera:

GMA played an additional preview this morning, wherein President Bush reflects on learning that bin Laden had finally been found. He offered his heartfelt congratulations to President Obama and to the special forces who raided the terrorist’s compound. The news, he remembers, gave him a sense of closure:

Dowd described Perry as “an incredible campaigner,” and described the current Texas governor as a better campaigner than his former boss. However, to many voters, Perry and Bush might be just a little too similar.

Part of his problem is he sounds a lot like George Bush. He looks like a president, though, if you look at the picture, but he sounds and has similar mannerisms to George Bush.

Dowd predicted this would not be a problem for Perry in the primaries, but most likely in the general election. However, he warned that Democrats should not underestimate Perry, because in the governor’s race he was able to beat Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the primary because of his effective campaign strategies, and that he “became Tea Party before Tea Party became cool.”

Watch the video below, courtesy of ABC:

In an interview that took four months to negotiate and which eventually happened to be scheduled two days after the world learned that SEAL Team Six members had found and shot the terrorist mastermind at his Abbottabad compound, Bush shares his first thoughts on the day the World Trade Center fell and the Pentagon collapsed. The Hollywood Reporter was able to obtain exclusive quotes from the film:

One of my concerns, like the concerns of other husbands and wives, was, “Was my spouse okay? Was Laura okay? And my second concern was “Were our girls okay?”… And I finally found her [Laura]. She was in a secure location. And it was awesome to hear her voice. And she had talked to the girls. And they were secure.

Bush also recounts that his reaction to news of Bin Laden’s death, which he discovered after rushing home from a Dallas restaurant to take a call from President Barack Obama, was more somber and meditative than outright joyful:

I didn’t… feel any great sense of happiness. Or jubilation. I felt a sense of closure. And I felt a sense of gratitude that justice had been done.

The documentary, directed by Peter Schnall, a New York-based filmmaker who had previously gotten to know President Bush when the two flew together on Air Force One in preparation for an earlier documentary film, was also able to get the former President to open up and give a rather lyrical account of his visit to Ground Zero in the days following the attacks:

From the air it looked like… a giant scar. But when I actually got to the site, it was like walking into hell.

George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview premieres August 28th on the National Geographic Channel.

h/t The Hollywood Reporter

Touré began his monologue arguing with a bit of confusion that it would be Common, of all people, to rile up the conservatives. Describing him as a “sometime vegan who dates tennis star Serena Williams, supports animal rights, AIDS awareness, and is committed to not putting anti-gay slurs in his lyrics,” he wondered how inviting Common to the White House could possibly prove that President Obama is a “caucasian-hatin Malcolm X in disguise.” In fact, he argued, Common was one of the most “kind, gentle, humble, poetic, and intellectual people in music today,” and actively refuses to participate in the  “violent and materialistic cliches that make some rappers so easy to demonize.”

Then he went straight to the lyrics: “I hold up a peace sign and carry a gun.” “You would think conservatives would applaud that,” Touré argued, the idea of wishing for peace but keeping a weapon, like so many NRA members preach. Not to mention the army of more violent artists that have visited the White House, like Eazy-E of NWA and, er, Johnny Cash, “a great American who sang about shooting a man just to watch him die.”

Bottom line for Touré? The Common controversy has nothing to do with Common. “It keeps some people from having to talk about Obama’s success in killing bin Laden.”

His segment via MSNBC below:

Among the most prominent concerns on both the left and right with the intervention in Libya was the fact that the revolts there did not happen in a vacuum– Syria, Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, and other Middle Eastern nations also face similar conflict, and many wondered whether stepping into one fight would necessitate further action elsewhere. President Obama’s speech tonight eliminated that possibility for both Maddow and O’Donnell. “We looked at this theater of war and decided we could win here,” O’Donnell paraphrased, highlighting how practical the president made the mission sound, and how much he emphasized the humanitarian and not political side of the effort.

Maddow agreed, noting that the speech’s main goal was to distinguish Libya from Syria, Yemen, et al. Noting in particular the possibilities of an influx of refugees as well as credibility with the UN as points the President was correct to emphasize, Maddow noted that all these issues legitimized the effort. What’s more, the speech to her solidified the very America perspective that there is “human value [in democracy] that transcends politics,” and in this she surprisingly compared it to President Bush’s second inaugural address, praising the latter.

Maddow also compared the speech to President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize award speech, much to O’Donnell’s chagrin, and concluded that the former echoed the latter significantly. “He was making the same case,” she asserted, to his benefit.

Maddow and O’Donnell’s post-speech commentary via MSNBC below:

“As he’s about to wipe out the rebels, oh, now the UN comes through with a resolution,” Hannity quipped at his Great American Panel, two of which– commentator Jedediah Bila and radio host Anthony Cumia– agreed. Powers, however, was unconvinced. “[Gaddafi] was the guy who did that with the Lockerbie bombing– it was the same guy George Bush established a relationship with.” To this, Hannity quickly countered that Ronald Reagan had bombed Gaddafi– a bombing which, Powers notes, “we paid reparations for.”

Still, Hannity argued that waiting for international law caused the deaths of many. “People got slaughtered while [President Obama] dithered with his brackets,” Hannity argued, a point Powers refused to accept as fair. “He is late to the party,” Cumia added about the President, noting that the revolts began 31 days ago and the President had yet, in his eyes, shown “that his is in charge and a leader.” Bila agreed, arguing that when the President makes statements, “it’s mixed,” leaving people to guess what his real position is.

The discussion via Fox News below:

Fast Company’s Austin Carr notes the highlights of Bush’s humor offensive, which began when 43 immediately chided Zuckerberg by noting that Zuck is “not exactly Jay Leno” after the billionaire introduced Bush:

Likely encouraged by the audience’s laughter, Bush then asked whether Zuck graduated from his alma mater Andover before correcting himself: “Oh, you went to [rival] Exeter!”

Next, Zuckerberg transitioned into his first question, asking Bush why he chose Facebook (and presumably not Google, Apple, or Twitter) to speak. Rather than offer a string of compliments for the service as Zuck might’ve expected, Bush quipped, “Because you got a lot of people paying attention to us, and I’m trying to sell books!”

The conversation turned to education, and the moderator suggested both Bush and Zuck have a “shared interest” in the field, especially given Facebook’s recent investment in the Newark school system. But Bush wasn’t finished:

“You didn’t even graduate from college,” Bush joked, turning to Zuck with a wide grin. “He didn’t write the book! I wrote the book!”

There’s also a moment when the moderator jokes that Zuckerberg enjoys being called “The Decider,” and Bush shoots back that the nickname only “sounded cool when I said it.”

All in all, this is certainly the most fun we’ve seen Bush had on his publicity tour—and it’s also the most entertaining interview by far he’s given this fall. The chat in all its glory is embedded below.

Friday night I found, as we rehearsed its presentation, that a segment implying former President Bush had lifted parts of his autobiography from other works of recent history, was largely based on excerpts that mostly required heavy editing and still produced only weak evidence. We killed the segment. Would Fox have? Would CNN have?

While it’s tempting to criticize Olbermann’s onanisitic back-patting, his point was actually not self-congratulation, but rather, the contrast between his own editorial judgment and those of his “neutral” or “Fair and Balanced®” counterparts at Fox and CNN. As it turns out, he hit the nail right on the head. While most of cable news ignored the blog-fueled Bush “plagiarism” story, CNN’s Parker/Spitzer dove right in:

Spitzer actually says “News just broke today that several sections of George Bush’s memoir are apparently plagiarized,” and aside from the use of the qualifier “apparently,” neither he nor Parker evinces the slightest bit of skepticism.

While Olbermann wondered if Fox News would’ve killed the segment, he surely meant if the shoe was on the other foot, and the accused plagiarist was a Democrat. On that count, there are numerous examples, but in this clip, current MSNBC pinch-hitter Cenk Uygur plays along with Fox & Friends, MST3000-style, as they go over a particularly flimsy allegation involving former NY Governor Mario Cuomo.

Cable news networks aren’t the only entities to hear the irresistible siren call of a plagiarism story. During a 2008 presidential debate on CNN, then-Senator Hillary Clinton took aim at “Change you can Xerox,” with an immediate back-and-forth between accuser and accused.

There is another plagiarism story that closely mirrors the current Bush kerfuffle. Like the Bush story, it, too, originated at The Huffington Post. The subject was an even brighter star in the Republican universe, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. The “case” against Palin was even weaker than the one against Bush:

…an accusation of plagiarism arose (since denied).  Geoffrey Dunne laid out the case that Palin had lifted portions of the speech from a 2005 article by Newt Gingrich and Craig Shirley (BTW, it must really suck to have a girl’s first name as your last name).  You can plainly see that Palin does, indeed, crib from the article.  So, what’s the problem?  Here’s the problem:

After (an excerpt that appears to echo the Gingrich/Shirley article but doesn’t lift from it directly), Palin acknowledged that, “Recently, Newt Gingrich, he had written a good article about Reagan….” (Recently? It was four years ago.) Without mentioning Shirley, she quotes and paraphrases from the article at length…

Cue needle scratching off of record album sound effect.  She announces that her speech is drawn from the article from which she supposedly plagiarized…While Palin doesn’t mention co-author Shirley, or even allude to Laverne, she clearly credits Gingrich.

So, anyone whose editorial judgement failed them sufficiently to cover that weak sauce is probably in for a good talking-to by Keith Olbermann. From the June 8, 2009 edition of…Countdown?:

There is a small, but key, difference in the editorial judgements exercised here. The Bush segment that Olbermann killed was based purely on that thin HuffPo story. The decision to cover the Palin story was based on the fact that Palin issued a denial, a solid reason to cover it, and part of a pattern by Palin’s people of punching down at poorly-sourced stories.

As to the way it was covered, while guest Lawrence O’Donnell (wrongly, in my view) convicted Palin’s speechwriters of plagiarism, there was at least a modicum of skepticism shown, and the overall effect was to downplay the charge. The plagiarism angle wasn’t even the central point of the segment, but rather, the relationship between Palin, Newt Gingrich, and the direction of the Republican Party.

Still, the newly-reflective, post-suspension Keith Olbermann of 2010 might have covered it differently, or not at all. Only he knows for sure.

No, that really is the entire joke, which you can watch below. After making a quip about former president George W. Bush making an unfortunate reappropriation of his famous Hurricane Katrina “heck of a job, Brownie” comment, Maher laments that Obama doesn’t bring a gun to BP meetings and “shoots somebody in the foot,” because that is what a “real black president” would do. He does not attribute this image of black people to racist Obama opponents, or do anything to clarify that this is not the way he believes black people should behave.

It seems almost unnecessary to make a list of every instance where Maher threw the “racist” tag on someone or a group of people that disgust him, but for the record he has attacked the Tea Partiers– actually, anyone that questions raising taxes– “anti-immigrant hoopies,” “older white people“… and it goes on. This is someone whose political identity is supposedly deeply rooted in a hatred of racism, someone who makes his paycheck self-righteously brandishing his tolerance, who just admitted on television that you can’t be a “real” black person without behaving like Tupac Shakur.

And that really is the sticking point here that makes this go from funny/offensive to just plain offensive. Some people have made a career of being “racist” comedians– and there’s no doubt that many black comedians use stereotypes for humor– but Maher seems to consider himself a serious political commentator, too. He appears on CNN to talk tell Wolf Blitzer how to fix the world. You can’t blur the line between satirist and commentator to that extent and expect people to let you off the hook for using minstrel show humor (which is really the only way to characterize a “haha, black people like to shoot people” joke).

Salon’s J.L. Bell has compiled forwarded emails from the internet rumor debunking site Snopes.com discussing both Barack Obama and George W. Bush. While the Snopes team has, in the past, compiled the hottest internet rumors and found that a large chunk of post-2008 rumormongering centered around the current president, the comparison between Obama and Bush rumors adds a new layer of complexity to the discussion. Bell found that, not only were there more email rumors floating in cyberspace about Obama than Bush, those about the latter tended to be more accurate than those of the former:

After eight years in the White House (with Snopes.com around all that time), George W. Bush has been the subject of 47 internet rumors. After less than two years in office, Barack Obama has been the subject of 87, or nearly twice as many.

Even more telling is the relative accuracy of those stories. For Bush, 20 rumors, or 43%, are true. Only 17, or 36%, are false. The remainder are of mixed veracity (4), undetermined (4), or unclassifiable (2).

In contrast, for Obama only 8 of the 87 rumors, or 9%, are true, and a whopping 59, or 68%, are whoppers. There are 17 of mixed veracity and 3 undetermined.

There are many possible reasons for Obama being at the center of a significantly larger amount of false rumors than Bush, not the least of which is a palpable cultural difference between the way the left and the right employ the internet to propagate their ideas. Compare, for example, the first two major political campaigns waged online by either side: those of Howard Dean and Ron Paul. While the former focused mostly on fundraising and rallying the grassroots with bullet-pointed policy initiatives, the Paul campaign’s centerpiece was a blimp and a series of wacky YouTube videos. Granted, this is in part due to the fact that YouTube was not around during the 2004 campaign, which leads to another imporant point: YouTube was launched in 2005, five years into the Bush administration.

Unfortunately, while Bell does bring into the national conversation an important issue and makes a number of great observations, he lets his bias get the better of him and jumps the gun at his conclusion:

This evidence accumulated over ten years shows a shameful but undeniable fact of American politics: Our right wing now contains a lot more liars, and a lot more folks who spread lies out of gullibility or wishfulness, than our left wing.

Suggesting that a comparison of the number of chain emails from both sides that ignores the fact that people who are more likely to forward political emails happen to be on the right could lead to the “undeniable fact” that everyone right of center is a liar is, at the very least, unfair and premature, and could discredit his entire analysis to many readers, even some on the left. That doesn’t mean the anthropological angle of this story– why do conservatives send more political email forwards than their liberal counterparts?– isn’t worth revisiting by both the media and political analysts looking to maximize the usefulness of the internet in gaining votes for the midterm elections.

Sanchez then followed up asking the obviously question of whether Issa’s opinion extended to all members of the Bush administration. Issa defended “some Cabinet officers,” Bush, and Dick Cheney, and, on whether his public attacks were appropriate, responded: “as a Republican, you don’t throw them under the bus, but you also don’t sugarcoat the fact that they weren’t perfect.”

Watch Issa’s appearance on Rick’s List below:

Ed Morrissey at Hot Air was the first to break the story, confirming the billboard was, in fact, not a photoshop job, and is currently placed alongside Interstate 94 in Minnesota. This poster does not seem to have any comical internet precedent, just a partisan message. It does seem to take on the aesthetic qualities of the ‘Miss Me Yet?’ billboard, seeming to point to the same team of businessmen as the ones behind the Bush poster.

The problem is, their designated representative claimed that their only intention in putting up the Bush billboard was to bring some levity to the political debate, although they did agree with some of Bush’s ideas. The reasoning behind this billboard seems much more ideological than the last. Minnesota is a strange choice for such a message. Sure, it is home to rabidly conservative Representative Michele Bachmann, but it also boasts Sen. Al Franken and Gov. Jesse Ventura among its political alums, and was the only state Reagan was unable to win during both of his successful presidential runs.

Discounting the original group of businesspeople behind ‘Miss Me Yet?’, there are no leads as to who is behind the billboard or why. Let’s predict it will take about four days for the patrons to take a victory lap with the Fox and Friends.

When asked why he and his colleagues put the sign up, Rivard gave a worthy albeit apolitical answer: “We were looking to pass on something that we thought was extremely funny, something that came across the Internet.”

Yes, the billboard that launched a thousand inquisitive blog posts was only intended to propagate an internet meme (one that some quick research shows was mostly likely born last September on the humor site MotiFake.com). “We thought it would be a good way to share it with the community,” Rivard said.

Interestingly, Rivard went out of his way to separate his political beliefs from the fact that he contributed to putting up this poster. Challenging his light-hearted tone, Carlson reminded him that he “[wasn't] laughing recently about being a small business owner,” to which he responded:

I don’t think it’s fair or right that a lot of people wanted to pass on the blame to President Bush, nor is it fair that we need to expect President Obama to have a magic bullet or a solution to this. I think it’s going to take time and a lot of hard work and we really need to look to small businesses to try to help us solve these problems.

Having his ambivalence attacked directly by Carlson’s assertion that the poster was a “direct shot” at President Obama, he only admitted that “the humor side of it maybe is, but I think there’s a lot more to be said there. I think we need to lighten up a bit.”

Watch Rivard’s interview on Fox and Friends below:

Sources are telling Politico that the decision is a done deal, and the school’s website just officially announced his appointment. The new job will take Starr from the Malibu campus to Starr’s native state of Texas. Starr won Time’s Man of the Year title in 1998 for his work on the Clinton impeachment, though his career already had significant highlights, such as an appointment on the DC circuit of the US Court of Appeals and, later, a position as US Solicitor General under President George H. W. Bush.

Starr replaces John M. Lilley, who, according to the school’s website, “was fired as Baylor’s president in 2008.”

The television appearance for President Bush only happened under strict conditions that topics never veered off of humanitarian aid in Haiti. Writing for the NY Times, Peter Baker reports:

But Mr. Bush resolutely stuck to his vow to stay out of the political debates consuming Washington. He held his tongue, as he has for a year, even as President Obama has deflected criticism by pointing to the troubles he inherited and while many from Mr. Bush’s old team, led by former Vice President Dick Cheney, waged a vigorous campaign against the current president.

The Sunday interviews were organized on the condition that they stuck to Haiti, an adviser said. “Now’s not the time to focus on politics,” Mr. Bush said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “It’s time to focus on helping people.”

If anything, he seemed reluctant to be back. “I frankly don’t miss the limelight,” he said on “State of the Union” on CNN. “I’m glad to help out, but there’s life after the presidency, is what I’ve learned, and I’m going to live it to the fullest. And this is part of living it to the fullest, to help other people.”

View video of the comment below:

As the face of media evolves, it’s important to honor the figures who helped define, shape and set the standards in their industries. These are some of the most prominent members of the media who passed away over the past 10 years.  Take a look back with some snippets from their respective New York Times obituaries.

2000

Who: Charles Schultz
Major Accomplishment: His ‘Peanuts” strip reached readers in 75 countries, 2,600 papers and 21 languages every day. Schulz drew more than 18,250 strips in nearly 50 years.
Legacy: His saga of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Lucy and Linus ”is arguably the longest story ever told by one human being,” Robert Thompson, a professor of popular culture at Syracuse University, observed.

Who: Steve Allen
Major Accomplishment: In more than 50 years in show business, Allen demonstrated his talents in many areas. An accomplished pianist who never learned to read music, he composed more than 5,000 songs, some of them hits.
Legacy: Allen was keenly interested in social justice and wrote pamphlets on a variety of issues, including the problems facing migrant workers, as well as capital punishment and nuclear proliferation.

Editor’s Note: Mediaite has been rightly called out for a big, glaring error: On our list of 28 media leaders we’ve lost this decade there was not a single person of color. Not a one. Read Mediaite editor-at-large Rachel Sklar‘s entire mea culpa here and on page 11, we’ve added 5 of the deceased black media leaders that should have been mentioned initially.

>>>NEXT: In 2001 we lost William Hanna and Katharine Graham…

]]> http://www.mediaite.com/print/a-retrospective-28-media-leaders-who-died-this-decade/feed/ 7 http://www.mediaite.com/columnists/presidential-panel-pardon-why-the-bushclinton-event-would-have-been-a-disappointment/ http://www.mediaite.com/columnists/presidential-panel-pardon-why-the-bushclinton-event-would-have-been-a-disappointment/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 15:16:40 +0000 Danny Groner http://www.mediaite.com/?p=42805 I was ecstatic last night when I read that Presidents Bush and Clinton would be participating in a panel this spring. As I read more about it, I grew surprised and a bit skeptical. As a regular columnist covering New York City panels, I’ve grown to expect that the speakers will reveal extremely little. So when I read that the presidents would “square off,” I wondered what that actually meant.

Not because I don’t think the two men have much to say; rather, I questioned what they actually would say. Would they be critical of each other? Would Bush blame Clinton for leaving him with unresolved issues, and would Clinton, in turn, point whatever blame back on his successor? Billed as a match of a lifetime, this event promised more than I expected it would deliver.

Although I didn’t expect the panel to be canceled – and so quickly – I did recognize what spokesman Matt McKenna did: This wasn’t going to be the event that had been advertised. It was slotted as a “moderated panel discussion” but promoted as the biggest draw in political history. Imagine white limos pulling up outside Madison Square Garden and seeing Christiane Amanpour walking a red carpet to get inside.

Panels don’t work that way, especially with big names listed on the program. After the hype had spiraled out of control, organizers did what they needed to do. Letting it sit until February and then pulling the rug out from under the audience would result in disappointment and negative reviews. Chalking it up as a miscommunication might appease people in the short run, but wouldn’t resolve the fact that the event would never match expectations dating back several months. And for that reason, despite whatever controversy the cancellation itself may spark, this was the right decision.

I’ve been to dozens of panels over the past year, many of which I enjoyed and wrote favorably about. Yet, in some cases, events have been organized, run and led so poorly that I couldn’t find much to compliment. In two of those cases, it was obvious to me that there was a blatant disconnect between the organizers and the participants.

When I heard Sidney Lumet speak in July, it was pegged as a movie night with him and his daughter. I looked forward to learning about what a great director like Lumet saw when he watched his favorite films. However, the night didn’t go as structured. Instead, I sat restlessly in my seat, listening to the Lumets share loose, random thoughts instead of cinematic insights.

The other example took place in August when Regina Spektor and Kurt Andersen shared the stage. It was immediately evident from the layout of the furniture that Spektor wouldn’t be an active member of the discussion between the moderator and Andersen. I hoped for an eclectic and unusual mix of commentary tying literature and music together. Instead, a discussion and as concert alternated every few minutes resulting in the worst of both.

If Presidents Bush and Clinton wouldn’t offer what was pledged, there was no good option to proceed. A disconnect between the promotional materials and announcements and the execution lead to panel’s doom. Had organizers carried on, forcing the presidents to conduct the panel as planned, audience members would have gone home more than merely unsatisfied. They would have been disillusioned by the panel process.

When Slate asked professional motivational speakers to offer words of advice to the former president, a few themes emerged: Bush should be human and approachable, reflect on his past mistakes, and work around his famous inarticulateness.

According to the Washington Post, he succeeded on all three fronts:

Many people interviewed afterward said they liked Bush, perhaps even because he wasn’t the best speaker of the day. He could have said a thesaurus was a big scaly creature that roamed the planet millions of years ago and they would have applauded.

His most memorable story, one after another said, was about Barney, his Scottie:

Mindful of his new neighbors, who have had to endure as many as 650 people a day gawking at his new house in a cul-de-sac, Bush said he took Barney for a neighborhood stroll with “plastic bag on his hand” to scoop poop. That was a moment, he said, when he realized “Man, my life has changed!”

“He is just a normal guy! He wasn’t the best speaker. But I was happy to see him!” said Lubbock salesman Patrick Kruger, 50.

No, this isn’t an Onion headline: Former President George W. Bush will be the “special guest speaker” at two motivational speaking events in Texas. The ticket price? $19 — not per person, but per office. And it appears that tickets are still available!

Bush will be speaking with Get Motivated!, a motivational event series that has also bagged speakers like Rudy Giuliani and Terry Bradshaw. His first speech will be in Fort Worth on October 26th, and his second is scheduled for December 2nd in San Antonio.

Over at Dallas News’ Trail Blazers blog, Wayne Slater writes, “The Get Motivated! business seminars are glossy affairs — sort of Babbitt meets the Super Bowl, part pep rally, part Christian revival meeting for salespeople who want to up their game.”

Here’s Rachel Maddow‘s take on her show last night:

Mediaite has contacted Get Motivated! inquiring how they got the former president to agree to speak and is awaiting their reply.

(TPM LiveWire via BuzzFeed)

Bush also blamed the nasty timbre of recent political discourse on the cable networks at large, saying “I don’t like it. The cables have a lot to do with it.”

Pulitzer Prize– winning jorunalist Ron Suskind appeared on The Rachel Maddow Show last night, saying that Bush 41 was really criticizing the behavior of Fox News, but instead chose to single-out Maddow and Olbermann. “George H. W. Bush understands that he has some responsibility for this … you know, Lee Atwater, George H. W. Bush, Roger Ailes — they were behind and away the start of modern day attack politics which has now spread 24/7.”

Olbermann, who was also a guest on Maddow, agreed that Bush 41 was criticizing the very nastiness that he brought to politics and the Republican party, also calling out Roger Ailes by name. “It’s easy to miss the irony here,” Olbermann said. “He is the man who employed Roger Ailes.” And we all know what he’s been dealing with lately.

Maddow framed her interview with Olbermann, asking if he thought Bush’s comments were “return fire” from the White House’s recent push against Fox News.

Even though Bush’s comments in the interview were ostensibly a call for civility, the former president put partisan spin on his criticism of Obama coverage even beyond the “sick puppy” comment, mentioning that his son, President George W. Bush, faced the same mean-spirited brand of criticism, and nobody came to his defense. If only Republicans had invented Anita Dunn, too.

At the end of the day, Bush’s mention of Maddow and Olbermann should be great for ratings.

Rachel Maddow discusses President Bush 41′s “Sick Puppy” comment, with audio from the Bush interview:

(h/t TV Newser)

They began with Afghanistan. Diehl addressed the difficulty that Obama now faces with the war, as he’s vocally and ideologically committed to his counter-insurgency policy. With every American general pushing him in one direction, and his cabinet tugging him in another, Obama is virtually stuck. Diehl feared that the pressures might create a middle-of-the-road endgame that he says could be the worst choice of all, as it may put additional soldiers at risk.

Diehl cast aside parallels to the Vietnam War, arguing instead that there’s much more to learn from 1990s Iraq. The proposed solution in Afghanistan is to train the Afghani army to fight in America’s place. But Diehl contends that it’s not possible to train a new army that quickly, after all it took the 1990s Iraqi army four years to get into shape. If there was a delay like that today, it might allow the Taliban to run free.

Haberman wondered if public opinion will hold on long enough to see a resolution. Once he broached the topic of media attention and approval ratings, Haberman turned to the question to whether Obama’s staff is patient enough with reporters. Diehl says that while Obama’s team has obsessively phoned the Washington Post, he recalls President Bush’s staff doing the same thing when they first took over. Eventually, the Bush administration relented and recognized that they had to work with newspapers or jeopardize their public image.

Asked whether we’re seeing an Obama doctrine at work, Diehl said that it’s been Secretary of State Hillary Clinton pushing multilateral action as an overall strategy. As the conversation moved to the subject of Iranian containment, it was clear that each of these issues deserved an hour — if not more — of their own.

What They Said
“The Taliban have become at least as big a threat in the last few years as al-Qaeda, if not a bigger one.”
- Jackson Diehl doesn’t subscribe to Joe Biden’s foreign policy perspective

“I want to see these guys crushed, quite frankly.”
– Clyde Haberman likes his Afghani terrorists like we like our red pepper

“I’ve been covering foreign countries for many years now and we have yet to have any invasion that hasn’t been compared to Vietnam”
– Jackson Diehl finds comparisons to the Vietnam War unhelpful and inaccurate

“I’m sorry, you’re ahead of me. I was focused on Metrocards today.”
– Clyde Haberman response to an audience member who informed him about the most recent developments with the United Nations

“There are very aggressive people around the President. I don’t know if it’s Chicago politics or what.”
– Jackson Diehl says that the Obama administration spends lots of time trying to sway columnists’ opinions

What We Thought

• We liked how Haberman expanded on points that the audience asked about. Some foreign policy depends on events from decades ago, and Haberman at times added the context that some questions needed.
• Events at the School of Global Affairs feature refreshments afterward where panelists stick around to meet interested audience members. It’s also a great time for students at the school to network with other attendees. We wish more panels closed with invitations to stay and snack.

PANEL RULES!
Some audience behavior seems to repeat itself panel after panel. We’ll be updating a running list of “PANEL RULES!” that will help ensure that you are not the dweeb of the Panel Nerds.

Panel Nerds don’t like…Competing Moderate Voice
We’ve seen it happen fairly regularly. Someone has a long statement to make before he ends on his question. Patience is hard to come by since we, and the moderator, have no sense of how long it’ll last. So the moderator cuts in, asking the audience member to phrase a question. When this happens, just ask your question; don’t compete with the moderator for the verbal space. It’s a Q and A, not a Crazy Rant and A. The moderator is only trying to keep it that way. Don’t fight him.

The Washington Post‘s Barton Gellman reports that Dick Cheney won’t hold back in his forthcoming $2 million memoir of his years in the Bush administration. DC powerhouse lawyer Robert Barnett, who negotiated Cheney’s book contract, told the Post that “‘the statute of limitations has expired’ on many of [Cheney's] secrets.”

Among other things, Cheney was reportedly bitter that Bush didn’t pardon his Chief of Staff Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in Plamegate, despite the fact that another man, Richard Armitage, was the primary source of the leak.

What other revelations should we expect from the book? Mediaite has a few guesses:

• He’s relieved to let people know about his love of ponies.

• Lynn Cheney still insists on waking up to Tone Loc’s “Wild Thing” on her Bose.

• He LOVES the television show Lost, mostly because he really identifies with Sawyer – another good-looking rebel who plays by his own rules.

• Has not forgiven Bush for refusing lucrative naming rights deal because he thought “Haliburton’s White House” sounded awkward

• Even he finds Glenn Beck to have become a tad unhinged.

• He really misses the government health care now that he’s been diagnosed with a rare medical condition in which his arteries run with bile.

• He does know the real definition of torture — he did serve eight years under President Bush after all

• Grew tired of having to let the President win in their weekly game of Chinese Checkers.

• Bush showed hesitation when he was ordered to destroy the Jedi Temple.