Rachel Maddow asks why during the week that Osama bin Laden was killed, the Sunday morning show producers decided to bring on one Bushie after another to sit at the grown-up table and give their opinion on the matter.
If that question sounds familiar for our readers here it's because just like this past Sunday, our own Nicole Belle asks that same question pretty much every week when we cover the Sunday morning bobblehead shows here at C&L. I wonder if David Gregory's producer was watching? It would be nice to get him or her to answer Rachel's question.
I'd love to see Rachel get Meet the Press, but she probably couldn't get any Republicans to come on with her, or not very many of them anyway. Unlike David Gregory, she actually asks follow up questions to people who come on the air and try to lie to her.
Transcript below the fold:
MADDOW: Clay Jones is an editorial cartoonist for "The Freelance Star" newspaper in Fredericksburg, Virginia. This is his latest political cartoon I saw posted at Slate.com today. In the class "foreign policy," school kid George W. Bush with giant ears gets a D-minus. And school kid Barack Obama, with different giant ears gets an A, with lots of plus signs after it.
This cartoon is post-death of bin Laden, right?
The teacher looks at the papers and says to school kid Obama, "A plus, plus, plus? You must have cheated off George."
Whether or not you feel like George W. Bush deserved a D-minus in foreign policy or that Barack Obama deserves an A-plus, whatever, I think Mr. Clay Jones in this political cartoon nailed the Beltway media reaction to the killing of Osama bin Laden. This is exactly how the Beltway media is approaching the politics of bin Laden`s death. And I can prove it. That`s next.
MADDOW: I will admit right off the bat this is petty. I`ll admit it. But it is also true and it has got to drive Democrats in the White House absolutely nuts.
Here it is: Republican Senator Dick Lugar, Republican former presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, Republican former Congressman Tom Davis, the Bush administration`s CIA director, General Michael Hayden, the Bush administration`s secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, the Bush administration`s homeland security secretary, Michael Chertoff, the Bush administration`s defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the Bush administration`s vice president, Dick Cheney, the Bush administration`s vice president`s daughter, Liz Cheney -- the week the Obama administration announces it has killed Osama bin Laden, that`s the guest list on the Sunday morning political talk shows to talk about it.
The Sunday shows are supposedly the apex of political debate -- the pulsing, throbbing heart of what`s going on in American politics. Is the biggest story in American politics right now retirees from the Bush administration and how they feel about stuff? Plus, Dick Lugar?
Honestly, this is the roster? This is Sunday morning in all of its thundering seriousness?
Now, among those nine Bush administration officials and other Republican politicians, there were three outliers: Senator John Kerry, also a former White House communications director named Anita Dunn, and one current White House official Tom Donilon, the national security adviser. So, there were those three.
But the week the Obama administration announces that bin Laden is dead, the invitees to the adult`s table, the measure of serious and importance in Washington is three-to-one, Bush administration and Republican officials. Why is that?
That's just how they roll every week Rachel.
