At long last I can agree with a comment from Fox News, creators of fiction posing as informational television.

Sean Hannity in an interview of former MSNBC program host and longtime actor Charles Grodin April 22 has said in response to the latter's question that he would agree to be waterboarded with proceeds going to families of those who served in the Iraq War.

Keith Olbermann has agreed to pay $1,000 for every second that Hannity endures of a procedure that has been defined as torture under international law and the United States military for years.

In the case of the U.S. military court martial activity occurred as far back as 1898 and the Spanish-American War according to comments made by Olbermann in his April 23 broadcast.

Joe Klein the October 27 Time Magazine accurately descried where th Republican Party is now:

"It wouldn't be fair to blame McCain for the bilious mess his party has become.  The most vehement of the Republican faithful lives in an alternate universe, fermented by decades of Rush Limbaugh's brilliant meretricious baloney and Sean Hannity's low-rent bullying.

"As Mr. McCain's audiences went out of control Hannity stoked the rage with a documentary about Obama that featured without qualification, a poisonously flaky anti-Semite who claimed to know Obama was a Muslim.

"But McCain had consistently stoked the rage as well, with nonstop negative advertising and questioning Obama's patriotism trying to make an Everest out of Obama's association -- passive at best -- with the former terrorist William Ayers."

The mainstream media is back in its snake oil mode amid the hand-wringing of Republicans about MSNBC and, in reality, Keith Olbermann.

To show the "objectivity" of parent station NBC as the McCain campaign files a formal complaint to the network's news division, a senior staff member of the network, who asked to remain anonymous, was quoted in the September 8 New York Times:

"MSNBC is behaving like a heroin addict.  They're living from fix to fix and swearing they'll go into rehab the next week."

To set the record straight, and bring the discussion back to reality, there is no record of any MSNBC talk show hosts having addiction problems.  Perhaps the confused "anonymous executive" was mistaking MSNBC's personnel with the confirmed drug addiction of the darling of right wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, someone who has never and will not ever be subjected to scrutiny by Republicans.

While watching the latest edition of The McLaughlin Report on PBS program host John McLaughlin, after listing on the screen the cumulative economic and personal toll of the Iraq War, then provided interesting footage of a conversation involving two American troops stationed in Baghdad.

To say that these individuals were not "happy campers" would be a classic understatement.  The first soldier, a corporal, complained about the unrealistic scheduling, and how it was impossible to obtain sufficient rest before going out on the next patrol.

At that point the African American soldier with whom the corporal was communicating made his feelings crystal clear.  He tersely stated his willingness to make a compromise agreement extending his service, which he clearly despised.

The African American soldier declared that he would extend his Iraq service by 15 months at no additional pay if one condition could be met.  The condition involved George W. Bush riding along with him on patrol for that entire period.

Like so many opponents of a war launched on a series of lies, I have become increasingly enraged with the conduct of the so-called Democratic Party opposition to the neocon tyranny known as the Cheney-Bush Administration in order of real importance.

Once that the American people spoke loud and clear in the 2006 elections by ending Republican leadership in both houses of Congress polls clearly revealed that the cutting edge issue was the Iraq War and the desire to extricate America from it.  

Americans voted for Democratic candidates not because of any strong party preference, but based on a desire to end an unpopular foreign conflict with mounting death tolls and no end in sight.

This is Part VI. Read:

Part I, "Tempting Faith: Bush's 'Faith Based' Initiative a Scam"

PART II, "Tempting Faith: Bush Betrays Christian Conservatives"

PART III, "Tempting Faith: Bush Admin: Christian Cons are "Nuts", "Ridiculous""

In Part IV, Kuo reveals the administration's deliberate and conscious discrimination of non-Christian and otherwise non-Bush-supportive groups.

Clearly this is the most egregious trespass (among many) to American values laid out in Kuo's book -- a clear desecration of the first amendment.

Kuo charges that "the White House's own rationale for pushing the faith-based initiative -- an effort to make it easier for churches and other sectarian organizations to receive federal social-service funding -- was bogus."

(More over the flip...)

This is Part III. Read:

Part I, "Tempting Faith: Bush's 'Faith Based' Initiative a Scam"

and PART II, "Tempting Faith: Bush Betrays Christian Conservatives"

In Part III, Kuo reveals the Administration's disdain for and mockery of Bush's conservative Christian base.

...the book includes charges that high-ranking White House officials referred to prominent conservative Christian leaders as "nuts" behind their backs,

[...]

"National Christian leaders received hugs and smiles in person and then were dismissed behind their backs and described as 'ridiculous,' 'out of control,' and just plain 'goofy,'" Kuo wrote. He added that top political officials in White House aide Karl Rove's office referred to the leaders as "the nuts."

Read Also:

Part IV, "Tempting Faith: Bush Admin Admits Discriminating Against Non-Christians"

This is Part II. Read: Part I, "Tempting Faith: Bush's 'Faith Based' Initiative a Scam"

In Part II, Kuo reveals the knife that the administration brazenly inserted into the back of their alleged allies.

Olbermann: "Kuo cites one example after another of a White House that repeatedly uses Evangelical Christians for their votes while consistently giving them nothing in return."

Olbermann: So, how does the Bush White House keep the 'nuts' turning out at the polls? One way, regular conference calls with groups lead by Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Ted Haggard, and radio hosts like Michael Reagan. ... They did get some things from the Bush White House, like the National Day of Prayer. ... Or 'Little trinkets like cufflinks or pens or pads of paper were passed out like business cards. Christian leaders could give them to their congregations or donors or friends to show just how influential they were.'"

Olbermann: "When cufflinks were not enough, the White House played the Jesus card, reminding Christian leaders that 'He knew the president's faith' and begging for patience.

(More over the flip...)

Yet another ex-Bush White House official is coming clean on the flagrant dishonesty, shameless politicization, and arrogant self-absorption of the current administration.

This time it's David Kuo, the former number two person in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Kuo, a self-described conservative evangelical, offers the inside scoop on the administration's pursuit of Christian conservative votes even as they mocked them behind their backs.

The full story, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction (Still unreleased, his book is currently the #13 Best Seller at Amazon), will be released on October 16. But MSNBC's Keith Olberman was able to obtain a copy early and shared some of it's insights on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann" on October 11th.

(More over the flip...)