• Guest: Richard Miniter, "Losing bin Laden" and "Shadow War". Unilateral strike on Pakistan.
• Guest: John H. McWhorter, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America.
• Guest: Christy Harvey, Center for American Progress, News under the radar.

Topics, guests, upcoming events, quotes, links to articles, audio clips, books & bumper music.

Thursday 21 February '08 National show

• Article: For McCain, Self-Confidence on Ethics Poses Its Own Risk. McCain and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. FCC letter. Did anyone ask him, "Did you have sex with that woman?" Was he screwing America?
• Conservative versus liberal morality.
• Michelle Obama made the same speech twice in one day. In the first she omitted the "really", in the second she included it. The video from Breitbart that Thom played a clip from, and the version that Fox News played, was the second speech but had the "really" muted out.
  "What we've learned over this year is that hope is making a comeback. It is making a comeback and let me tell you something, for the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country. And not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change. And I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment. I've seen people who are hungry to be unified around some basic common issues, and it's made me proud. And I feel privileged to be a part of even witnessing this, traveling around states all over this country and being reminded that there is more that unites us than divides us..."
• Clip:
  "But it's not fair at this point for you to say, "My friend said X and Y," because we just don't know. But if you would give us your information, we would like to talk to your friend. And then whatever your friend tells us, we'll track it down. We'll do it in a fair and balanced and methodical way. That's how we're going to cover this campaign -- all of them, all of them. So stay on the line, give us your information. If indeed Michelle Obama is angry about something, if she has a history, we would like to know that, and then we can put it into some kind of context so that we can be fair to everybody.

  You know, I have a lot of sympathy for Michelle Obama, for Bill Clinton, for all of these people. Bill Clinton, I have sympathy for him, because they're thrown into a hopper where everybody is waiting for them to make a mistake, so that they can just go and bludgeon them. And, you know, Bill Clinton and I don't agree on a lot of things, and I think I've made that clear over the years, but he's trying to stick up for his wife, and every time the guy turns around, there's another demagogue or another ideologue in his face trying to humiliate him because they're rooting for Obama.

  That's wrong. And I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels. If that's how she really feels -- that America is a bad country or a flawed nation, whatever -- then that's legit. We'll track it down.

  "
  O'Reilly: "I don't want to go on a lynching party against Michelle Obama unless there's evidence, hard facts, that say this is how the woman really feels". Lynching is an act of terrorism, not necessarily hanging.
• Bumper Music: Blaze Of Glory Bon Jovi (video).
• Clip:
  "And I couldn't get over the fact that there was no difference between Sylvia's restaurant and any other restaurant in New York City. I mean, it was exactly the same, even though it's run by blacks, primarily black patronship."
  O'Reilly surprised "there was no difference" between Harlem restaurant and other New York restaurants, Sep 19, 2007.
• Bumper Music: Stand By Me, John Lennon.
• Larry Craig is trying to appeal his guilty plea. he number of words allowed is limited to 15,500, he used more, so he was told on Valentine's day to file a motion for an enlarged brief.
• Clip:
  "So, all those clowns at the liberal radio network, we could incarcerate them immediately. Will you have that done, please? Send over the FBI and just put them in chains, because they, you know, they're undermining everything and they don't care." Bill O'Reilly, June 20 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, 2005.
• Thom's show beats O'Reilly's in plenty of markets.
• Bumper Music: Bells Of Freedom, Bon Jovi.
• Article: Unilateral Strike Called a Model For U.S. Operations in Pakistan.
• Guest: Richard Miniter, author of two New York Times bestselling books, Losing bin Laden and Shadow War, and an internationally recognized expert on terrorism. Why is a unilateral strike being touted as a "Model for US operations in Pakistan?" Misinformation. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf must have agreed to turn blind eye, but it would have been political suicide to say so. Rule of law. Getting UN Security Council permission first. Would Castro have been justified in aiming a strike at Miami to take out Luis Posada Carriles who blew up a Cuban airliner in 1976 then bombed Havana hotels?
• Bumper Music: Turn Your Radio On, Ray Stevens.
• As Voxclamantis commented to the "Unilateral Strike Called a Model For US Operations in Pakistan" story on CommonDreams,
  "Dear Pakistani Occupation Forces:

  Per your request, I have been keeping alert to possible terrorist cells among our people, and I now can report that one of those rascals ... has been planning for some time to blow up the Karachi Stock Exchange. He is living with my ex wife at ..., Iowa. Please take them out with a Hellfire missile. Thank you for the bag of cash.

  "
• Somebody has been using the name "Thom Hartman" over at Daily Kos. It is not Thom.
• Bumper Music: The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Ennio Morricone.
• Breaking news - protesters attacking the US embassy in Belgrade.
• Article: Global warming denial has its benefits.
  "As ThinkProgress previously noted, the Heartland Institute will host what it calls a “Climate Skeptics’ Conference” next month. Elected officials have been offered lodging and pay for up to 2 nights of accommodation in New York to attend the gathering. DeSmog blog writes, “Membership has its privileges - free trip to New York, free hotel room, I guess political life isn’t as bad as everyone says it is”."
• Legality versus morality.
• Bumper Music: Watch Your Step, Elvis Costello.
• 60 Minutes is going to show the Don Siegelman story on Sunday after all.
• Guest: John H. McWhorter, linguist, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. Author, Winning the Race: Beyond the Crisis in Black America. Race & Politics. Bill O'Reilly. Bill Clinton. He's an Obama fan. Lynching is not good, but it is used against whites too; don't get too upset. he thinks we should not appear sensitive, don;t make big media circus, don't perform in way what makes it go on. Show people how not to be poor. Why he likes Obama. He's against racial preferences. Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell are not considered part of the African community, culturally.
• Bumper Music: Crazy, Alanis Morissette.
• They never mention that Obama's mother was white, and he was raised by white grandparents. Thom thinks he transcends race.
• Bumper Music: Waterboardin', USA , Harry Shearer.
• Article: Border Fence To Bypass Property Of Wealthy Oilman Who Donated $35 Million To Bush Library.
• "An Urban Institute study found “the average number of Americans who lost their insurance each year increased faster during the economic recovery of 2004-2006 than the recession years of 2000-2004.” The study concludes this resulted because the number of Americans receiving coverage from their jobs declined, while wage increases failed to match growing insurance premiums."
  ThinkFast February 21, 2008.
• "It’s no secret that House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) enjoys golfing. Harper’s, however, reports that in 2007, Boehner “used money from his political funds to pay for food or lodging at least 16 resorts or country clubs. His combined spending between 2005 and 2007 at the Wetherington Golf & Country Club alone came to nearly $60,000,” roughly “equivalent to the median family income (for a three-person family) in Boehner’s home state of Ohio.”"
  ThinkFast February 21, 2008.
• Article: Brand-Name Drug Prices Rise Despite Political Pressure.
• Article: Rigged Trials at Gitmo.
  "When asked if he thought the men at Guantánamo could receive a fair trial, Davis provided the following account of an August 2005 meeting he had with Pentagon general counsel William Haynes--the man who now oversees the tribunal process for the Defense Department.

  "[Haynes] said these trials will be the Nuremberg of our time," recalled Davis, referring to the Nazi tribunals in 1945, considered the model of procedural rights in the prosecution of war crimes. In response, Davis said he noted that at Nuremberg there had been some acquittals, which had lent great credibility to the proceedings.

  "I said to him that if we come up short and there are some acquittals in our cases, it will at least validate the process," Davis continued. "At which point, [Haynes's] eyes got wide and he said, 'Wait a minute, we can't have acquittals. If we've been holding these guys for so long, how can we explain letting them get off? We can't have acquittals. We've got to have convictions'".

  "
• Article: U.S. apologizes for misinformation on rendition flights..
• Guest: Christy Harvey, Director of Strategic Communications at the Center for American Progress, MicCheckradio.org. Border fence avoiding the lands of the rich, while the poor are pressured to give up their land. Big drug price rises. Boehner's expensive golfing. Rigged Trials at Gitmo. US misinformation on rendition flights.
• Bumper Music: It Don't Get Any Better Than This, George Jones.
• Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News. The situation in Belgrade is a concern. Bill O'Reilly "lynching". Shooting the satellite has the Russians and Chinese upset, it's a test that violates treaties. Theories as to why include there being nuclear power on board, or spy information. The Bush administration has finally agreed to show legal documents about post 9/11 surveillance, but it started pre 9/11. Harry Reid last week trying to move the house stimulus package, but mortgage companies flipped out - judge can decide.