Jeb Bush on George Bush's successes: "Well, the successes clearly are protecting the homeland. We were under attack..."

"... he unified the country and he showed dogged determination. And he kept us safe. And you can talk about a lot of stuff, but when you're president of the United States and you're confronted with that kind of event, to respond the way he did is admirable."

That was on "Face the Nation" this morning, after Jeb had said "I have learned from [my brother's] successes and his mistakes," and Bob Schieffer asked: "What do you think you learned from him, successes and mistakes?"

(It was Bob Schieffer's last show today. I'm going to miss that guy! He became my favorite of the Sunday morning hosts (in the years after the death of Tim Russert).)

"I think you see the Scooby-Doo van if you're a Democrat and you say 'ruh roh,'" said Dana Milbank...

... on "Face the Nation" this morning. The subject was that it's a big problem for Democrats that there are no other candidates. And this was right after an interview with Martin O'Malley. Milbank's comment on O'Malley was:

[I]n that interview he was hardly challenging Hillary at all. And I think if he's going to sit there say I did good job as mayor of Baltimore, and I was a good governor, I mean he has as much chance of landing on the White House as if he's going in there in [a] gyrocopter. It's not going to happen unless he takes her on more forcefully.

And that characterization of O'Malley's interview is pretty apt. The moderator, Bob Schieffer, had tried to prompt him to take on Hillary, but look how flat that fell:

Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the Benghazi investigating committee, concedes that there is reason for the continuing inquiry.

On "Face the Nation" this morning, at the very end of the interview, Bob Schieffer asked: "Well, are you satisfied that there's anything else to find out about Benghazi?"

Cummings said: "I don't know. We have been at this now, Bob, since May. And I still don't know the scope of what we're looking for. I think there have been eight investigations. They have been done extremely well. And they — I think they have resolved most of the questions."

He could have said — like many Democratic Party partisans — that the matter has been thoroughly investigated and it's nothing more than partisan politics now. But he said "I don't know." Twice. And then he said "they have resolved most of the questions." Most. Most means not all. So clearly there are questions left.

"So, it's strange credibility to believe that if you're on your way to Libya to discuss Libyan policy that there's not a single document that has been turned over to Congress."

On "Face the Nation" today, Bob Schieffer, interviewed Congressman Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the committee investigating the Hillary e-mail controversy. This is what I found most striking:

Susan Rice on "Meet the Press"... Does that sound right to you?

On "Meet the Press" this morning, Chuck Todd announced that he had an "exclusive interview with Susan Rice," and we were wondering if everyone had been clamoring for an interview with Susan Rice. Then, we kept talking over her and pausing to substitute translations, often, comically, involving a heinous and offensive video.

There has been no recommendation for... military commanders, either on the ground, nor here in Washington, that the United States put any ground combat forces into Iraq. That has not come up the chain to anybody at the White House. And I don't anticipate that it will, Chuck. I mean, let's be clear here....

So it's down somewhere in the chain, but it won't get up the chain?

The president has been very plain that this is not a campaign that requires or even would benefit from American ground troops in combat again. The Iraqi prime minister, the government of Iraq have said very plainly, they don't want American troops in combat. We are there to help build up the Iraqi capacity to sustain their territory and to hold their ground.... It's not going to happen overnight. But if it isn't achieved, nothing is going to be sustainable.... 

Sustainable! 

Strategy's very clear....

So the strategy's not clear, right? Or the strategy is clearly something else?

We'll do what we can from the air. We will support the Iraqi security forces, the Kurds, and ultimately over time, the moderate opposition in Syria to be able to control territory and take the fight to ISIL. We'll do our part from the air and in many other respects in terms of building up the capacity of the Iraqis and the Syrian opposition, the moderates.

But we are not going to be in a ground war again in Iraq. 

Oh! So we are going to be in a ground war in Iraq....

It's not what is required by the circumstances that we face and even if one were to take that step, which the president has made clear we're not going to do, it wouldn't be sustainable. We've got to do this in a sustainable way.

She keeps saying "sustainable," so I guess that means it's not sustainable.

Then, we watched "Face the Nation," and Bob Schieffer — who was one of the Sunday morning talk show moderators Susan Rice lied to about Benghazi — was talking with Leon Panetta and brought up what Susan Rice was saying on the other network's show:

BOB SCHIEFFER: The President's national security advisor Susan Rice was on television this morning and she said if I understand it there has been no recommendation from military commanders that the United States would combat troops in Iraq. Does that sound right to you?

We laughed because the tone of that Does that sound right to you? exactly expressed the dubiousness we'd just been expressing.

"I have a source that told me that if Jeb Bush decides not to run, that Mitt Romney may actually try it again."

Said Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation" yesterday, discussed here, by Wesley Lowery, in The Washington Post. Lowery says:

Romney and Bush are considered similar candidates... Several major Romney donors told The Washington Post earlier this year that Bush would be their preferred Republican candidate in 2016.

After shrinking out of the public light following his crushing loss to President Obama in 2012, Romney has slowly reemerged as a coveted political ally for Republicans seeking office this year.

Romney, 67, has begun to embrace the role of party elder, believing he can shape the national debate and help guide his fractured party to a governing majority.

Can America go for a candidate who has already had the nomination and lost? I remember when Nixon thought he could do it, and I considered it a ridiculous notion — I being a teenager and Nixon being correct. You may say: 1. But Nixon got drummed out of office, or 2. It's a new era and what worked in the 60s hasn't worked since the 60s.

What is NBC going to do about the post-Russert crashing ratings of "Meet the Press"?

It's not just that no one can match the magnificent Tim Russert, because David Gregory has fallen behind the elderly Bob Schieffer (on "Face the Nation") and the once-cute but never particularly popular George Stephanopoulos (on "This Week with George Stephanopoulos"). So what is NBC doing about its David Gregory problem? I'd recommend reading my blog posts on the subject, like this one. ("Gregory plays favorites, shoring up liberal commentators when they seem to be stumbling, supplying arguments and glossing over rough spots for them. Russert would go in for the kill.") I'm a longtime viewer who loved Tim Russert, and I've kept up my habit of watching the show (which I record along with other Sunday shows), and I am very unhappy with it.

But according to this WaPo article, here's something NBC has done in an attempt to fathom its Russertlessness problem:

CBS doesn't know the difference between J. Edgar Hoover and Herbert Hoover.

Today's "Face the Nation" had host Bob Shieffer interviewing Philip Shenon, author of "A Cruel and Shocking Act: The Secret History of the Kennedy Assassination." At one point, Shenon was talking about a memo FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover wrote to the Warren Commission. Check out the ludicrous graphic at 0:21:



That's not J. Edgar Hoover! That's President Herbert Hoover!



Oh, journalism! What has become of you?

"What caused NBC’s Meet the Press to fall behind Face the Nation and This Week?"

Jennifer Rubin tries to answer the question. She's got a list of 8 things, and I especially like:

2. Bob Schieffer has gotten feisty. He zings administration guests, asks probing questions, and gives snappy commentary. Given the choice between a Schieffer and a Gregory interview, I’d watch the former every time.

I agree! I think Schieffer got angry about Susan Rice lying on all the talk shows about Benghazi. He's been on fire since then. He's so old, so I was assuming he was coasting, but he woke up.

Something Rubin doesn't have on her list is: David Gregory is too concerned about being nice. He's always smiling and getting along with the guests. That is not what Tim Russert did. Russert intimidated the guests. He cornered them, often using a brilliant sequence of quotes displayed on screen. Very entertaining! Russert seemed to be directing the show toward us, the audience. Gregory seems more to be letting us watch while he socializes with his Washington friends.

"This White House is so politicized that when it comes to a sort of a controversy like this, what they want to do is to get out a good story instead of getting out the real story."

David Gergen on "Face the Nation" today. (I've added italics that I hear in the audio.) Context (with my boldfacing):

Is "horses and bayonets" Obama's new thing — after Big Bird and Binders Full of Women?

Salon's Mary Elizabeth Williams says these things aren't working:

Where are those glorious debate memes of times gone by?...

There was Battleship. And there was the night’s biggest winner, Obama’s smooth dis to Romney, “You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed.” Faster than you could tweet “Oh, snap!,” the inevitable Tumblr was born.

Yet the whole thing felt less fun this time around, and a lot more forced. 

Big Bird and Binders Full of Women were words that came out of Romney's mouth. "Horses and bayonets" was inserted by Obama. It's one thing to have fun with Romneyisms, quite another to accept a faux-Romneyism cooked up by Obama... especially when Obama is making fun of the military and what comes out of his head is an old children's game — suggesting that he thinks this real-life killing and dying is some kind of game — and an image of the historical military — which seems to be about the movies he's watched, not anything that about Romney.

Bob Schieffer was a little doddering, but couldn’t match Jim Lehrer for FAIL worthiness. Josh Romney did not make with the crazy eyes. In short, as we all learned long ago from “Mean Girls,” you can’t make a thing a thing any more than you can plan for spontaneity.

Speaking of movies, I've never seen "Mean Girls." I don't get the reference. I'm not in your "we all." Is it the making a thing a thing thing or the plan for spontaneity thing?

But back to the landscape of Obama's mind — where kids fiddle with plastic Hasbro toys and old war movies play, from which he concocted a Romney gaffe that Romney never gaffed — why is there no picture there of the horse soldiers of the Afghanistan War?

The U.S. special operations teams that led the American invasion in Afghanistan a decade ago did something that no American military had done since the last century: ride horses into combat.

"It was like out of the Old Testament," says Lt. Col. Max Bowers, retired Green Beret, who commanded the three horseback teams.

"You expected Cecil B. DeMille to be filming and Charlton Heston to walk out."

It was like a movie, but it really happened, and those men were heroes. Is it so hard to call them to mind, now — in these days of unmanned drones, who kill when you point at a name on a card, or hover overhead and watch as — it can't be real — our ambassador fights for his life for 7 hours?

Live-blogging the big last debate.

7:06 Central Time: Get ready!

7:32: In the comments, Sorun said, "I predict a big Obama win tonight, since the only people watching will be single women (and Althouse)." Ha ha. Very funny. Right now, we are watching the baseball game. I know there's football too.

8:02: Bob Scheiffer introduces the candidates.

8:04: First question: Libya. Romney talking as Obama keeps an icy stare trained upon him. I don't hear Romney nailing any strong point. He's decided to be conciliatory here for some reason. Obama talking now, stressing liberating the people of Libya after 40 years of despotism.

8:14: Romney: "Attacking me is not an agenda." He corrects Obama about Russia. He certainly wouldn't say to Putin he'll have flexibility after the election. Now, there's a lot of overtalking about Iraq. Obama gains control and talks about being "clear" about foreign policy. The moderator is not intervening, so the topics are allowed to be completely mixed up.

8:17: Obama has picked up Romney's tic of ticking off 5 points.

8:18: Syria. "Syrians are going to have to determine their own future," says Obama. What we see in Syria "is heartbreaking," but it would be "a serious step" to get "more entangled." Romney says "Syria is an opportunity for us." It's "Iran's only ally," but we don't want to get "dragged into a military conflict." Romney's trying to be level-headed and presidential, not to shake anything up here tonight.

 8:21: Romney says we should "be taking the leadership role" in Syria, and Obama picks up that phrase: "We are playing the leadership role."

8:24: Romney doesn't have different ideas about Syria, because we're doing the right thing there, says Obama.

8:25: Egypt: Romney wouldn't have supported Mubarak. Basically, again, Romney agrees with what Obama did. Romney adds some aspirations about the Middle East, but not any real distinction from Obama.

8:29: "What is America's role in the world?" is Bob Schieffer's big, generic question. Romney, "America must be strong. America must lead." Obama says we're "the one indispensable nation... Our alliances have never been stronger."

8:34: They've stopped interrupting each other. No belligerence tonight. There's an evenness and similarity to the 2 candidates (not that there aren't a few disagreements).

8:39: Obama just did some sharp interrupting while Romney was rhapsodizing about education in Massachusetts.

8:43: Romney defends military spending. He emphasizes keeping the numbers of ships and planes up. Obama says Romney doesn't understand how the military works. "We... have fewer horses and bayonets..." he says sarcastically. It's not "a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships."

8:47: Question: Does an attack on Israel count as an attack on the United States? Obama doesn't give a straightforward yes, but says "I will stand with Israel."

8:48: Romney adopts the same "stand with Israel" language. Both stressed military intervention as the last resort.

8:52: Obama says the reports of an agreement with Iran are not true. "We would welcome Iran" into "the community of nations." He chides Romney for acting as though it would work to say the same things but say them "louder."

8:54: Iran "saw weakness," Romney said, harkening back to Obama's campaign 2008 statements about willingness to sit down with the leaders of Iran (and other places). Obama was silent on Iran's Green Revolution. Obama said he'd put "daylight" between the U.S. and Israel, and that encouraged Iran's defiance. We need to "show strength." We need the tightest possible sanctions. We need to indict Ahmadinejad.

8:57: Everything Romney just said is untrue, according to Obama, who claims he was "very clear" about the Green Revolution.

8:58: Romney: "The reason I called it an apology tour... You said America had been dismissive and derisive... America has not 'dictated to other nations.' America has freed other nations."

9:01: Schieffer wants to know what we'd do if Israel called up and said our bombers are on the way to Israel, and Romney rejects the hypothetical. That's not the relationship we have. It wouldn't play out like that.

9:06: Romney assures us we'll bring our troops out of Afghanistan by 2014. But what if the Afghans aren't ready? That was the question. Obama ignores the question the same way.

9:11: "Is it time for us to divorce Pakistan?" asks Bob Schieffer. Romney: No, it's too important — nuclear weapons, terrorists.

9:13: Romney is asked about drone strikes, and he completely supports Obama's policy.

9:18: Obama defends fighting China when it dumped cheap tires here. Romney doesn't want "protectionism" against China, but finding mutual interests with China: We want a stable world, "but you've got to play by the rules." And Romney wants to declare China a "currency manipulator." Romney explains why that makes sense. "I want a great relationship with China" but "they can't roll all over us."

9:26: Lots of fighting over the auto industry. Obama says check the record and a bit later Romney says check the record. Romney's point is that government should not invest in business, while Obama is accusing him of willingness to let the auto companies go into liquidation.

9:30: Romney wants to get the private sector growing, which isn't done by hiring a lot of teachers, though he certainly does love teachers. Schieffer, rushing toward the finish line, says "I think we all love teachers," and announces it's time for closing statements.

9:36: Closing statements. Bob Schieffer ends with his mom's advice: Go vote.

9:40: Michelle Obama comes onto stage to greet Obama and about 10 Romney people — including a lot of kids — come up to hang out with Romney.

9:44: I watched on CNN (with that damn graph on the bottom showing how undecided males and females reacted to each moment), and afterwards James Carville yammered so much about how Obama won that I turned it off. I didn't think either candidate won. They seemed surprisingly similar. Obama certainly maintained eye contact. If it was an eye contact contest, Obama won.

9:52: Here's my bottom line: By adopting a strategy of only modestly challenging Obama and mostly seeming the same as Obama on foreign policy, Romney neutralized foreign policy as an issue and kept the election focus on the economy. He even refocused the discussion on the economy whenever he could over the course of the evening. The election is about the economy, and nothing either candidate said tonight will change that. The only way Obama really could have won is if Romney had tumbled into some kind of exploitable gaffe. That didn't happen.

After the Benghazi attack: "We're going through a mission accomplished moment."

Here's Bob Woodward, today on "Fox News Sunday," talking about the what the Obama administration has said about the Benghazi attacks:

WOODWARD: There are lots of unanswered questions. And I love documents, and they released some documents in this, and if you go and look at the original request for more security, they say our policy, our goal here is to shift from an emergency footing to normalize the security relationship.

Now, this is in March, six, seven months ago. Anyone looking at that what say, wait a minute, read the document in which they say, oh, the situation is incredibly unstable. Well, why are you trying to normalize your security in a situation that's visibly unstable? You even acknowledge that.

So you've got a bad policy. And anyone looking at that would say, wait a minute; we are screwed up; we can't normalize here.

Axelrod says Obama "was confronted with this kind of Gantry-esque performance" from Romney.

On "Face the Nation," talking about last week's debate. Bob Schieffer was all: "What did you just say?" And Axelrod repeats: "Gantry-esque." Shieffer seeks to clarify: "Elmer as in Elmer Gantry the fictional evangelist?" And Axelrod goes: "Elmer Gantry. Yes. Yes. Yes. Thanks for clarifying."

What madness! What dream world is Axelrod living in? "Elmer Gantry" is a novel from 1927. It was made into a film in 1960 — half a century ago. I'm 61 years old and the movie pre-dates my movie-going days. Normal Americans are supposed to be conversant with this character? I mean, I know it's a fictional character who was played by Burt Lancaster in the movie that had something to do with religion, but I have to look it up in Wikipedia to try to see what Axelrod was driving at:

The novel tells the story of a young, narcissistic, womanizing college athlete who abandons his early ambition to become a lawyer. The legal profession does not suit the unethical Gantry, who then becomes a notorious and cynical alcoholic. Gantry is mistakenly ordained as a Baptist minister, briefly acts as a "New Thought" evangelist, and eventually becomes a Methodist minister. He acts as manager for Sharon Falconer, an itinerant evangelist. Gantry becomes her lover....

Sounds more like Obama than Mitt Romney.  New Thought, eh? That made me buy the book, downloaded in Kindle:

... a vicious satire of preachers and those they fool. Gantry has no redeeming features but is seen by the gullible public as a man who speaks the truth about God. Of course he could just as easily have been a lawyer or a politician and the heart of Lewis’s satire is how easily people believe what they want to believe.

That really does sound like Obama. Interesting that the character is fixed in the Mind of Axelrod! Wish I could trace that thought-path back to its origin.

Woodward and Bernstein on "Face the Nation" — falling short on consistency about journalistic ethics?

First, they praise their own work from the Watergate era:

WOODWARD: Well, that we were just trying to find out what happened and... we were as empirical as we could be. And, you know, it needs to be said that we work for an editor, Ben Bradley, and other editors at the Post who were not - who didn't have an agenda themselves. But their agenda was "get the f-ing story; get into it; keep digging; don't let up." And we were 28 and 29 at the time. And it is very liberating to work in an institution where they really understand what we're trying to do. And they say to you, you know, use all your resources, use all the resources of this newspaper. In fact, if there is peril, if we are not believed but we think we have good sources, continue.

Then, the interviewer, Bob Schieffer, brings up the present-day problem with national security leaks that seem to be coming from the White House and for the purpose of making Obama "look like a stronger leader."

BERNSTEIN: I think first you've got to be very careful about creating a witch hunt for sources, and a witch hunt in which you go after reporters, because now more than ever we need real reporting on this presidency, on national security, on all these areas. And the press is not the problem here. We've got plenty of laws and if somebody inside is doing things with real national security secrets that he oughtn't or she oughtn't to be doing in terms of giving them to the press, that's one thing. But let's be really careful before we start a witch hunt here.

WOODWARD: Yes, and I completely agree with that. And by having an investigation, I mean, was there real harm to the national security? I think that question needs to be addressed at a policy level. And it's very difficult, I know from doing stories like this, where you are dealing with sensitive government secrets, to modulate and be careful, at the same time hold the government accountable for what they're doing. So this is an area that needs to be handled with great delicacy and I'm not sure we have a political system that knows how to do anything with great delicacy.

BERNSTEIN: The record of the press, you know, is really quite good in protecting real genuine national security secrets which we often know about. Don't put -- you know, think of what you are carrying around in your head that you don't put on the air.

What happened to get the f-ing story; get into it; keep digging; don't let up?

Scott Walker uses his newly won influence to press Mitt Romney to go "big" and go "bold."

A fascinating interview on "Face the Nation" today. I think Bob Schieffer was trying to use Walker to portray Mitt Romney as too right wing. We heard a recording of Romney's answer to Obama's "private sector is doing fine" remark. Romney said Obama wants another stimulus "to hire more government workers," and Romney (rather stupidly) cited "more firemen, more policemen, more teachers" (instead of naming some less popular government job titles). Romney characterized "the message of Wisconsin" as a desire to "to cut back on government." Schieffer craftily framed the question, asking whether the message was that people "want fewer cops and fewer firemen and fewer teachers or was there a different message?"

Walker had the wits not to agree with the question as framed. It would have been unwise to recommend firing cops, firemen, and teachers. The message of the Wisconsin recall was, he said, "slightly different." Flipping to the positive, Walker said that the message was that people want leaders who "take on the tough issues." The point is to make people less "dependent on government programs because they have a job in the private sector where they can control their own freedom, their own destiny and ultimately lead to greater prosperity."

Shieffer tried again to get an attack on Romney going, asking — again naming the popular government workers — "Well, do you think Governor Romney is talking about getting rid of more teachers and firemen?"

The legal left sounds like Newt Gingrich?

A Wall Street Journal editorial says:

[T]he left has taken to mau-mauing the Justices by saying that if they overturn the [Obamacare] mandate they'll be acting like political partisans. The High Court's very "legitimacy" will be in question, as one editorial put it—a view repeated across the liberal commentariat....

Overturn any part of the law, the Justices are being told, and your reputations will be trashed. The invitations from Harvard and other precincts of the liberal establishment will dry up. And, by the way, you'll show you hate sick people—as if the Court's job is to determine health-care policy.

This is the left's echo of Newt Gingrich's threat earlier in the primary season to haul judges before Congress when it dislikes their rulings. Remember the political outrage over that one?

Well, there's a big difference between vigorous criticism of judges in the press and at the law schools — which is debate in the marketplace of ideas — and dragging them in person into the halls of Congress to berate them. But what exactly did Gingrich say? The WSJ provides no link or exact quote, but I Googled it for you.

On "Face the Nation," Bob Schieffer chastised Herman Cain about the "smoking man" ad.

Bob Schieffer could not restrain himself within the role of journalist today. It was pretty ridiculous:

Presidential biographer Edmund Morris to Bob Schieffer on "Face the Nation": "That's a fucked up question." [UPDATED: "That’s a bullshit question!"]

Schieffer's question was: "What would Teddy Roosevelt think of today’s politics?"

“You keep asking these presentist questions,” said the Kenyan-born, British-accented historian. 

Kenyan-born...

“As the immortal Marisa Tomei said in 'My Cousin Vinny,' ‘That’s a f----- up question!'” Morris said, relishing over the word as network censors bleeped him out.

“You cannot pluck people out of the past and expect them to comment on what’s happening today,” he continued. 

Yeah, it's a fucked up question, but I bet Doris Kearns Goodwin would answer it. I mean, she'd whip out a juicy anecdote that would seem to answer it. Come on, Edmund, cast off your Kenyan-born, British-accented attitude and play the media game.

“I can only say that what he represented in his time is what we hope for in our presidents now, what we look for in our presidents now and what we’re increasingly disappointed by. He understood foreign culture, recognized the dignity of the United States. He was forceful yet dignified. And what I really feel these days is, we’ve become such an insular people.”

Bullshit... as the immortal Peter Finch said in "Network."

Good evening... this is my last broadcast. Yesterday, I announced on this program that I was going to commit public suicide, admittedly an act of madness. Well, I'll tell you what happened: I just ran out of bullshit. Am I still on the air? I really don't know any other way to say it other than I just ran out of bullshit. Bullshit is all the reasons we give for living. And if we can't think up any reasons of our own, we always have the God Bullshit. We don't know why we're going through all this pointless pain, humiliation, decay, so there better be someone somewhere who does know. That's the God Bullshit. And then, there's the noble man bullshit — that man is a noble creature that can order his own world. Who needs God? Well, if there's anybody out there that can look around this demented slaughterhouse of a world we live in and tell me that man is a noble creature, believe me, that man is full of bullshit. I don't have anything going for me. I haven't got any kids. And I was married for 33 years of shrill, shrieking fraud. So I don't have any bullshit left. I just ran out of it, you see.

More from Morris the Cat Kenyan:

Morris went on to criticize the American people, who he said “are insensitive to foreign sensibilities, who are lazy, obese, complacent and increasingly perplexed as to why we are losing our place in the world to people who are more dynamic than us and more disciplined.”

So... like... the terrorists?  They do maintain more slim and toned bodies. Man, he just came out and called us fat! He ran out of bullshit!

UPDATE: My original link goes to Politico, which records Morris as saying "That’s a f----- up question!" But here's the video and, although the bleep is there, it seems that Morris said "That’s a bullshit question!"

That would correspond to what Marisa Tomei said:



Strangely, I was motivated to call bullshit on Morris and go on to discuss "bullshit" in that other movie ("Network").