Join Truthdig’s Robert Scheer, along with Arianna Huffington, Tony Blankley and Matt Miller, for a lively discussion on the week in politics, policy and culture. This week: The war over the war: has Iraq made global terror worse? Bob Woodward’s latest revelations. Clinton versus Fox and what’s it all means for the midterm elections.
This week, our roundup of Truthdig-flavored videos includes Bill Clinton’s thrashing of Fox News’ Chris Wallace; Bill Maher & Co. debating the sanity of religion; retired generals blasting Rumsfeld; and Jon Stewart’s evisceration of Bush’s torture bill.
A group of documentary filmmakers record “what actual people, not pundits, politicians or reporters, have to say about their country and themselves.” Screenings start Sept. 29 in San Francisco.
“The Daily Show” host has the perfect rejoinder to Bush’s assertion, regarding the National Intelligence Estimate, that war critics are “naive.” Watch it.
Former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, who stepped down after he was outed in 2004, speaks to Jon Stewart about his new book and how living in the closet prepared him for the duplicity of politics.
Ned Lamont’s campaign has put together a few clever videos juxtaposing the classic John Cusack movie “Say Anything” with Joe Lieberman’s “Say Anything” approach toward getting reelected.
Want to see unbridled hate masquerading as a defense of “values”? Watch Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo) call the prevention of gay marriage “the most important issue we face today.” (More important than global warming, terrorism, etc.)
Stephen Colbert offers his take on the fallout from Bill Clinton’s Fox News appearance, including the Hillary/Condi fracas, and why the former president is to blame for everything from Republican tax cuts to the war in Iraq.
Al Franken dropped in on Wednesday’s “Daily Show,” where Jon Stewart asked the comedian and radio host whether he would indeed run against Sen. Norm Coleman in the 2008 election. Although Franken said he was still making up his mind, he added: “I’ve moved to Minnesota, I’ve been there since January 1st. You don’t move to Minnesota January 1st unless you’re serious.”
“Air America” host Al Franken nails Washington Times editor Tony Blankley for
misleading readers about an editorial he wrote on Richard Clarke and terrorism. Blankley can only sputter.
Watch as a succession of former military officers, intelligence experts and religious figures speak out at a Capitol Hill forum against the president’s torture bill. (Via Andrew Sullivan)
Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf stopped by “The Daily Show” on Tuesday for some American delicacies and a candid discussion of the war on terror, including the Bush administration’s strong-arm diplomacy and his contemplation of war with America.
When Jon Stewart asked Musharraf who would win a Pakistani election, George Bush or Osama Bin Laden, the general shot back: “They’ll both lose miserably.”
At a Democratic Senate forum Monday, several former U.S. generals and colonels called the secretary of defense incompetent and negligent in his prosecution of the Iraq war. Above, Gen. John Batiste, a “lifelong Republican” who retired from the service “on principle,” accuses Rumsfeld of lying to the American people in order to bolster support for the war. (Let the Swift-Boating begin!)
The president said this about possible civil war in Iraq: “I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma because there is—my point is, there’s a strong will for democracy.” (Watch it)
(more after the jump…)
Stephen Colbert put McCain and friends to shame on Monday by exposing the Republican senator’s torture protest as pseudo-opposition and their compromise with the Bush administration as an abject cave-in.
Pat Buchanan appeared on “The Daily Show” on Monday to explain his theory of Mexico’s secret plot to recapture the Southwest using an army of hardworking immigrants who, he claims, don’t like English or America.
Bill Maher and a panel including Reza Aslan (a Muslim), Sandy Rios (a conservative Christian) and Bradley Whitford (a liberal Episcopalian) discuss the morality of raising “Christian soldiers” to fight in God’s army, as depicted in the movie “Jesus Camp.”
Remember the scene toward the end of “The American President” in which Michael Douglas, playing President Andrew Shepherd, delivers a stand-up-and-cheer tongue-lashing of his critics? Watch as Bill Clinton demolishes Fox News’ Chris Wallace in a similar manner.
In case you missed it, here’s Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s address to the U.N. General Assembly in which he referred to Bush as the devil: “Yesterday, the devil came here. Right here. Right here. And it smells of sulfur still today, this table that I am now standing in front of.”
Join Truthdig’s Robert Scheer, along with Arianna Huffington, Tony Blankley and Matt Miller, for a lively discussion on the week in politics, policy and culture. This week: the Bush-Republican detainee-interrogation deal, U.N. rants, midterm elections, corporate spying, upheaval at the Los Angeles Times and the furor surrounding the pope’s recent comments on Islam.
This week’s edition of Truthdig-flavored videos includes a “Daily Show” spot-on satirical interview with a discharged gay Army linguist; a classic Bill Maher broadside on President Bush; and Jon Stewart asking Bill Clinton how to defeat Hillary.
Colbert offers some suspect political analysis for Republicans. A nice zinger in “The Word” segment: When you can vote for the president [in 2008], the Republicans will need a platform.” [On-screen: “Hopefully with a trap door.”]
The “Daily Show” pokes fun at Bill O’Reilly’s recent bragging that Al Qaeda has him on a hit list. As Jon Stewart points out: “I don’t know if you’ve seen the Al Qaeda tapes, um…we’re kind of all on the hit list.”
Here We Go Again
