Congratulations to msnbc on its impressive victory against Hillary Clinton last night!

Tim Russert and Brian Williams entered the debate with a firm lead over Clinton, and by starting with a one-two punch of calling her a hypocrite and a slime merchant, this thing was over faster than Tyson vs. Spinks.

Ungracious loser Hillary Clinton has yet to respond to calls for a concession speech.

Well, er:

As Jim Geraghty put it, “Every once in a while a Washington media institution really does matter, and Meet the Press is one of them.” Why? “Because Tim Russert, without commercial interruption, will throw hardballs and curveballs for a solid half hour, and standard delaying tactics won’t work.” So Meet the Press thrives, delighting precisely the sort of person who doesn’t realize that a hardball is a kind of ball whereas a curveball is a kind of pitch.

Actually, the balls Russert favors may be hard, but the pitches he throws aren’t curveballs, which go someplace useful. They’re sillyballs, which go somewhere pointless.

Funny, I would have gone somewhere else with that metaphor, but that’s just me. More tea, vicar?  Read more 

We all know the Village loves simple-minded, personality-driven, high-school level narratives, and that they are very well paid for endlessly repeating these constructs.

Surely the “boys against the girls,” “ganging up on Hillary,” “piling on” narrative bears all the hallmarks of such a Village construct? It has the smell of a Rovian bankshot. In fact, Russert helped Hillary out with her fundraising.  Read more 

Funny when Pumpkinhead becomes a junkyard dog, isn’t it? Insofar as a wordy vacuous cipher can be called a dog, of course. From CNN transcript, Pumpkinhead recites the authorized version. His recital is useful, because it illustrates the sheer wrongness that dominates discourse in the Village.

MR. RUSSERT: After September 11th, the government went to many of the private telecom companies in our country and asked them for information, data.

Tweety’s first lie: The administration was seeking this power before 9/11.

The government said they were legally justified to it. They wanted to see if there was a nexus between international terrorists and some phone calls made back here to the United States.

Tweety’s second lie: The program is and has always been about voice and data — Tweety even says so just above! — not just wiretapping. (This has been a problem with the press coverage from the very beginning.) And further, Tweety recites what the administration says without qualification. Surely, at this point, skepticism is more than warranted?

You have been very outspoken about [against] giving those companies immunity from any kind of prosecution, even though they were doing what the government asked them to do.

Tweety’s third lie: “The government” has three branches, only one of them is the executive branch.

Senator Jay Rockefeller, the ranking Democratic [sic] on Senate intelligence, has a view much different from yours.

Tweety’s bias just showed. The Democrats are in the majority on the Committee, so Rockefeller is the chair, not the “ranking member.” Dodd could have broken in, and corrected this obvious “error.”

This is what Rockefeller says: “We recognize that private companies who received legal assurances from the highest levels of government should not be dragged through the courts for their help with national security. The onus is on the administration, not the companies, to ensure that the request is on strong legal footing, and if it’s not,” it’s “the administration that should be held accountable.”

Tweety’s fourth lie: The telcos have an independent duty to obey the law, regardless of what the administration says or doesn’t say.

Why you going after these companies for doing what they thought was in the public interest?

Tweety’s fifth lie: FISA provides for criminal penalties; felonies. Intent has nothing to with it.

There you have it. A very compact compendium of Village wisdom on warrantless surveillance, all of it wrong. Wrong on the facts; wrong on the law; and wrong on how the very foundation of our government, the Constitution, works. Tweety’s chatter and clutter and chaff is what passes for discourse these days. Reach me that bucket, wouldja hon?

Now Dodd:  Read more 

Russert subdued on stand.  Read more