'Today' Replaces Banned/Bumped Ann Coulter with Rachel Maddow

Photo of Geoffrey Dickens.
By Geoffrey Dickens (Bio | Archive)
January 6, 2009 - 11:44 ET

Presumably a last minute replacement for the possibly NBC banned Ann Coulter, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow appeared on Tuesday's "Today" show to drop invective about the Bush administration's "torture" policies. Instead of the rousing bit of Barack Obama bashing and criticism of the fawning coverage of him by the liberal media that would've surely been delivered by Coulter, "Today" viewers were treated to the following slam of Bush policies via a Maddow defense of Obama's choice of Leon Panetta as CIA Director:

RACHEL MADDOW: Well, I think that he made a bold choice in Leon Panetta, and we have seen from Barack Obama a lot of leadership by building consensus, by making people not disagree with him about important and hot-button issues. But on Panetta that was an, "elections have consequences" moment. If you were in the Bush administration and which, with, with warrantless wiretapping and enhanced interrogation, torture. With rendition, with these other controversial policies in the intelligence community, that's not going to be a career asset. And if you were a Democratic senator in an intelligence oversight role, while all these things were happening, your objections may not be the most important thing for this new president looking to make a clean break.

Maddow appeared during the 7am half-hour where, according to the Drudge Report, Coulter was originally scheduled to have been slotted before being bumped/banned. The following is the full transcript of the Maddow segment as it was aired on the January 6, "Today" show:

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MEREDITH VIEIRA: Rachel Maddow is the host of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on MSNBC. Rachel, good morning.

RACHEL MADDOW: Hi Meredith.

VIEIRA: Thanks for getting up early for us.

MADDOW: Oh sure.

VIEIRA: Like his daughters, it was really first day of school for Barack Obama yesterday. And by all appearances he seemed to be the most popular kid in the class but underneath, as Chuck pointed out, a lot of drama going on, some bumps along the way. How do you think he did?

MADDOW: Well, I think that he made a bold choice in Leon Panetta, and we have seen from Barack Obama a lot of leadership by building consensus, by making people not disagree with him about important and hot-button issues. But on Panetta that was an, "elections have consequences" moment. If you were in the Bush administration and which, with, with warrantless wiretapping and enhanced interrogation, torture. With rendition, with these other controversial policies in the intelligence community, that's not going to be a career asset. And if you were a Democratic senator in an intelligence oversight role, while all these things were happening, your objections may not be the most important thing for this new president looking to make a clean break.

VIEIRA: So, when they say some of these Democratic leaders that he does not have, Panetta does not have the intelligence experience, are they wrong?

MADDOW: Well, when you look back at the past eight years, of the people who've been involved in the intelligence community, it appears that the Obama administration, the, the transition team looked at those people and said, "You know what, if you were there in the last eight years, we're gonna leapfrog over you and look to people who have different kinds of experience." You sort of can't find anybody who is more Washington mainstream than Leon Panetta, and he does have a lot of experience in national security and, and, and sensitive matters. He served on the Iraq study group and has been involved in the highest levels of government.

VIEIRA: He's also another Clintonite though. That's what some people are saying.

MADDOW: In a lot of ways, he is a very, very safe choice. The only pseudo controversial thing about him is he was not in the intelligence community during these last eight years. But anybody who was, has political problems now. And if they were in a senior role in the intelligence community, the elections have consequences. And with torture and warrantless wiretapping and rendition and these other things, those things are going to continue to resonate in your career for the rest of your life.

VIEIRA: Let's talk about expectations, because right after he was elected, Barack Obama said he wanted this economic stimulus package, that he was pushing yesterday, on his desk for signing day one, January 20th. That is not gonna happen. Now he's saying, "End of January, beginning of February." Is that realistic, or is he gonna continue to lower expectations?

MADDOW: Well, he's not lowering expectations about what the outcome is going to be ultimately, it's how fast it's going to get done. Unfortunately, in this economic climate, the reason there is going to be an economic stimulus package is because something needs to be done quickly. That's what all the economists say. So, the, the, this seems like the ambition on how to move forward in the, on the economic field may be being curtailed a little bit by the desire to make it appear that we are moving forward by consensus, to hope that there isn't a big acrimonious fight between Republicans and Democrats about this, about these things. It may be the Republicans' ball, ultimately to decide how big a fight this is gonna be.

VIEIRA: Alright, let me give you two names, you tell me what's going to happen. Roland Burris, Al Franken.

MADDOW: Roland Burris is going to continue to have the time of his life. He is enjoying this process very much. I interviewed him last night about that.

VIEIRA: I saw, yes.

MADDOW: And he's-

VIEIRA: He's gonna go today and expect to be sworn in? He's gonna put on his nice suit and go.

MADDOW: I do not think that he is so deluded that he should expect to be sworn in, but I think he's gonna do everything he can to try to get sworn in. He sees this as his moment. Doesn't matter to him that Blagojevich was the person who appointed him. The fact that, that matters very much to Senate Democrats will be a point of contention, but I think for him he's gonna ride this train as far as it goes.

VIEIRA: And in the end, do you think he will be?

MADDOW: In the end, I think that the Senate Democrats are going to put in such an awkward position that they will, they may delay, they may make it awkward, but it will be hard to imagine him not becoming senator in some way.

VIEIRA: And Al Franken, will he be a senator Saturday night and every other night?

MADDOW: Al Franken's fate is, again, partly in the hands of Republicans. Norm Coleman has to decide what sort of legal challenges he's gonna put the people of Minnesota through in waiting to get their new U.S. senator. Franken has been declared the winner. This one is gonna be fun to watch.

VIEIRA: Alright Rachel Maddow. As always, a real pleasure to see you.

MADDOW: Thanks Meredith.

VIEIRA: And you can watch "The Rachel Maddow Show," weeknights at 9 Eastern on MSNBC.

Readers are encouraged to watch Harry Smith's interview with Coulter on Tuesday's "Early Show," and to read Brent Bozell's comment concerning NBC's banning of Coulter. 

—Geoffrey Dickens is the senior news analyst at the Media Research Center.


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This is absolute idiocy! Building consensus has no place...

January 6, 2009 - 11:54 ET by Thalpy

This is absolute idiocy! Building consensus has no place in the selection of a director of the CIA. The selection must be based on competence, not consensus. Multiculturalism and political correctness will be the death of us--if we allow it.

As much as I hate to admit it

January 6, 2009 - 11:55 ET by Prester John

Maddow (who makes my skin crawl) actually noted that there were Dems with oversight responsiblities of the CIA's activities in the GWOT.  In fact, they knew quite a bit what the Bush administration was doing and didn't seem to mind a whole lot.

What Congress Knew About 'Torture'

Beginning in 2002, Nancy Pelosi and other key Democrats (as well as Republicans) on the House and Senate Intelligence Committees were thoroughly, and repeatedly, briefed on the CIA's covert antiterror interrogation programs. They did nothing to stop such activities, when they weren't fully sanctioning them. If they now decide the tactics they heard about then amount to abuse, then by their own logic they themselves are complicit.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123120464870255997.html

Read it all.

Who cares if we torture these terrorists?

January 6, 2009 - 12:22 ET by NavyBuckeye

For one they are terrorists. Two they want to kill you, me, and your neighbors. These liberal weenies need to wake up and crawl out of bed into the real world (and stop believing it is "The Real World" because MTV and life are different).

Do these liberal, soft bellied,  spineless excuses for Amerians really beleieve they can get information from these individuals by sitting them down at a table and giving them a glass of tea and asking them nicely.

Truthfully. I think we should take these Muslim Extremists, video tape them getting christened by a priest, wearing crosses, and being baptized. Then tell them they are now Christians. Broadcast it across the news for the world to see like it is some big ceromony. Then threaten to turn them (along with thier new religous icons, including a bible) back over to thier buddies. I chuckle at the thought of what would happen to them.

 Nevermind thats to much work......there are simpler more  hideous ways to get information from these scoundrels........

 

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter”  - Thomas Jefferson

I just wonder what one of

January 6, 2009 - 12:37 ET by Seashell

I just wonder what one of these liberals would do if their child was kidnapped by a terrorist group and the CIA captured one of terrorists who new where the child was being held.  Would the liberal say to the CIA "ask them where little Johnnie is, but don't use torture".  You know they would want anything done to this terrorist to get their child back. 

What we have done to these terrorist to extract info. saved all our children, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, etc.  These liberal weenies fail to see this.

And this from today's Washington Post

January 6, 2009 - 13:06 ET by Prester John

Panetta, a former eight-term member of Congress who has run a think tank in California for the past decade, has no significant ties to the agency that Obama has criticized for using harsh interrogation methods. Panetta has openly objected to the use of such methods, writing in an essay last year that the United States "must not use torture under any circumstances."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/05/AR2009010503050.html?hpid=topnews

And how did Paneta feel about extraordinary rendition?

January 6, 2009 - 13:45 ET by Gary Hall

It will be interesting to find out what and how Paneta felt about Clinton/Gore ordering the CIA to establish the US policy of "Extraordinary Rendition?"  After all, Paneta was there.

[This from former White House intelligence advisor Richard Clarke's book].

RICHARD CLARKE - Snatches, or more properly "extraordinary renditions," were operations to apprehend terrorists abroad, usually without the knowledge of and almost always without public acknowledgement of the host government. . . The first time I proposed a snatch, in 1993, the White House Counsel, Lloyd Cutler, demanded a meeting with the President to explain how it violated international law. Clinton had seemed to be siding with Cutler until Al Gore belatedly joined the meeting, having just flown overnight from South Africa. Clinton recapped the arguments on both sides for Gore: Lloyd says this. Dick says that. Gore laughed and said, "That's a no-brainer. Of course it's a violation of international law, that's why it's a covert action. The guy is a terrorist. Go grab his ass."

And shortly thereafter, Bill Clinton ordered the CIA to establish the US program of extraordinary rendition (PDD#39); the idea being that we could ship them off to you know who in Egypt - so that they could be tortured to get information out of them. And according to Gen. Hayden in a Charlie Rose interview in Oct, 2007, we did about as many of those before 9/11 as we have done after.

And according to ABC news:

Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who resigned from the agency in 2004, has told Die Zeit that the US administration had been looking in the mid-1990s for a way to combat the terrorist threat and circumvent the cumbersome US legal system. "President Clinton, his national security adviser Sandy Berger and his terrorism adviser Richard Clark ordered the CIA in the autumn of 1995 to destroy Al Qaeda," Mr Scheuer said. "We asked the president what we should do with the people we capture. Clinton said 'That's up to you'." Mr Scheuer, who headed the CIA unit that tracked Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden from 1996 to 1999, says he developed and led the "renditions" program.

I'm told the minority side in any Senate Select Intelligence Committee hearings will bring it up. gary

NavyBuckeye

January 7, 2009 - 11:31 ET by NorthCoaster

Put CNN, ABC, CBS in vans behind to watch the magnanimous return of the terrorists to their home countries. Then watch in shock and awe as the Islamists deal with their apostates with Damascas Steel.

Maddow's qualifications

January 6, 2009 - 12:11 ET by KC Mulville

Since when is Rachel Maddow an expert on what it takes to be the head of the CIA? 

No conservative, by the way, would ever say that the CIA was Bush's biggest supporter. Remember, Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. The CIA went out of its way to resist the White House, whenever possible. The image is that the CIA wants to be a self-governed, independent agency, free from all that humiliating subservience to elected officials. The CIA was anything but Bush's friend.

Of course, none of that mattered to Maddow's keen analysis. Submerged in liberal stereotypes, she just wanted to gratuitously attack Bush. She wanted to take a cheap shot. So classy.

No conservative, by the

January 6, 2009 - 17:41 ET by BD

No conservative, by the way, would ever say that the CIA was Bush's biggest supporter.

Boy, you got that one right.  I would amend it to "No conservative would ever say the CIA Was AMERICAs biggest supporter.  Particulalry THIS Conservative.

Personal sotry:  Years ago I was in a meeting a with a mid range CIA analyst during which we were discussing defense issues.  He seemed to be hesitant to commit to anything concrete in the realm of war planning. 

During a break in one of the sessions I told him that an Intelligence Agencies primary role was to work towards ensuring a nations victory in time of war. 

This guy then sniffed in a very superior manner and informed me that sometimes there were "Higher ideals and more important tasks" than winning a nations wars.

I was stunned and it became an instructive moment for me and has opened my eyes to the nature of the differences between the CIA and other Intelligence agencies.  Since then I have worked with CIA guys on several occasions - some good, some bad.  But all seem to be less commited to the ideals I laid out earlier than any of the other agencies.

If I had my drothers and was on the panel asking him questions during his confirmation hearing, I would ask Mr Panetta which side of the issue he came down on.  "Mr Panetta, Is there anything more important for the CIA than to ensure the nations victory in time of war?"

If he tells the truth, the answer will be very telling.

VIEIRA: Thanks for getting up early for us.

January 6, 2009 - 13:23 ET by YahooWatcher

MADDOW: Oh sure.

Memo to Vieira and Maddow:  Most of America gets up pretty earlier so they can go to work and be taxed to fund your whack-job leftist agenda. 

Don't Tax Me, Bro.

Maddow, Maddow, Maddow, you

January 6, 2009 - 14:13 ET by kg

Maddow, Maddow, Maddow, you silly pony. She asked how you thought Obama did......NOT how you felt about Geroge Bush.

"Forget change, I want improvement!"

And still no answer to the

January 6, 2009 - 14:57 ET by HockeyKid

And still no answer to the eternal question, "Who is this Maddow guy?" 

"Beauty is only skin deep, but liberal's to the bone." - me

The Mancow once again stinks up the room.

January 6, 2009 - 15:06 ET by CT

The utterances of the Mancow are the echo of the gurgling toilet flush that was the credibility of the One’s accession to the presidency.  All hope of those of us who were reconciled by or at least holding judgment on the cabinet and staff of the incoming administration is on the way to the sewer.  It appears that Che poster in the One’s campaign office was more prescient than we wanted to believe.

Panetta. the clinton ties go deep

January 6, 2009 - 18:56 ET by UndercoverConservative

let us not forget that Monica Lewinsky was Panetta's intern for the office of Chief Of Staff. Plus possible involvement with a "check-kiting" scam while here in CA.

http://www.cnn.com/A...

 

"to call an illegal immigrant an "undocumented alien" is the same as calling a streetcorner drug dealer an "unlicensed pharmacist".

"You spend your money anyway you want and respect other's rights to do the same"

another madcow post

January 7, 2009 - 02:18 ET by gordon

My God, this excuse for a female is such a blubbering idiot.  She's just about as funny as that no-talent a$$ clown Franken.

What sewer do they dredge these people up from?  They look for the most incompetent, one-sided, moronic idiots they can find, then pay them a fortune to ruin their network's reputation.