Fresh
off the MSNBC video press is an amazing exchange I witnessed live this
morning when Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, author of a
newly-published book charmingly entitled Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack
(the Amazon page of which I would not link to if you paid me all the
chocolate in Switzerland) appeared on Morning Joe to promote his
bullshit premise.
Rather than do the usual media-tiptoe around All Things Bushian and allow Thiessen to spew his lies unchallenged, MSNBC senior political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell pinned him down. Throughout the exchange, Thiessen smiled the smug smile of a practiced liar; meanwhile, Scarborough, as usual, attempted to talk over O'Donnell, saying Lawrence, Lawrence, Lawrence! over and over, and eventually cut his mic. At which point, to my surprise and delight, O'Donnell shouted his questions sans mic, and the show then cut to a commercial.
When they returned, O'Donnell was still on air (hey, Son One worried they might have whisked him off to some CIA black site!), his mic restored. Scarborough admonished O'Donnell to "stay in the corner" and sort-of completed the interview, and amazingly, O'Donnell piped up again and asked--after pointing out that Thiessen hails from the wealthiest ZIP codes in America, that he attended a private boarding school with its own golf course and then Vassar, and that he never served a day in the military--what, exactly, did he (Thiessen) know about torture?
Whoa.
It was must-see teevee and then some. More like this, please, MSNBC.
(If you would like to send a note to the network in praise of O'Donnell's all-too-rare line of questioning, please go here.)
