When in doubt, cite the need for more government funding of health care. You won't find an argument on MSNBC.

Among the guests offering their perspectives about the Fort Hood massacre on Rachel Maddow's show last night was Salon.com national correspondent Mark Benjamin, who tried to downplay growing evidence that suspected assailant Nidal Malik Hasan was motivated by a jihadist's hatred of America --

BENJAMIN: There are people that believe that this is a person that was suffering some sort of secondary post-traumatic stress from treating soldiers and there are people that believe he was somehow influenced by Muslim extremism. I think it could be a combination of both. I certainly have met mental health care providers in the military who after sitting all day long and listening to some really disturbing tales, you know, when they're treating these soldiers coming back from Iraq, and in combination with the fact that they're overwhelmed, overworked, don't have the resources to do their jobs, become extremely stressed and frazzled. And there's no reason to not think that this could, this could ultimately lead to that kind of a conclusion.

The Chicago way indeed.

Listen to a caller to Ed Schultz's radio show on Tuesday for an example of how liberals were unhinged by the offyear elections before results were even announced (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: John in Chicago, you're on the Ed Schultz show, thanks for calling.

CALLER:  Ed, I am out of my mind with anger and frustration. We gotta tell these Democrats to sack up and grow a pair because this is not what I voted for, I know it's not what you voted for, I know it's not what any of my progressive friends voted for. The difference between the progressives of the '60s, the peace and love, and the progressives of today is that we are gun-totin', we are angry and we're not afraid to take a punch. These Democrats are pissed, they are angry because the Democrats, those weak-ass, water-filled, pantywaist Democrats in Washington, they're not willing to not even take a punch! They're afraid they're going to get hit and they're going to bleed.

Yet another example of the folly of assigning liberals to guard duty.

Joining Rachel Maddow on her MSNBC show Thursday to vent about that pesky wabbit Joe Lieberman was Fire Dog Lake firedoglake blogger Jane Hamsher.

Democrats wield considerable leverage over Lieberman, Hamsher opined, to keep him from joining a GOP filibuster of ObamaCare or punish him if he does --

MADDOW: ... I think you're right to point out that other senators sort of gently expressing their disapproval of his proverbial toplessness at this point is a bigger deal than it would be in the real world, that their words do actually sort of calibrate differently. But what leverage can they really bring to bear on him in order to get him to get in line?

Emboldened by his keen sense of omniscience, left-wing radio host Ed Schultz argued with a caller who dared criticize Schultz's command of the facts.

"There isn't anything I say on television or radio that I can't back up," Schultz claimed on Friday (click here for audio). "Anything."

All of his next radio show later, on Monday, Schultz demonstrated the flimsiness of this boast when he tossed out an assertion just as dubious, about Tim Pawlenty (here for audio) --

SCHULTZ:  This is a guy who was a governor in Minnesota where a bridge fell down and killed 13 people and he didn't want to build another one. I mean, this guy, he didn't, he was against, they hadn't raised a sales tax on gas in that state in some 25 years. And he was against that. And the extra money was going to go to infrastructure because the people of Minnesota wanted to make sure that they had better roads and bridges and they took it upon themselves and of course they had enough votes for an override.

Can you believe it, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow joked with Dallas Morning News reporter Wayne Slater -- George W. Bush, along with George H.W. and Laura Bush, have been lined up as speakers at Get Motivated! seminars.

The conversation on Maddow's show Tuesday night dripped with condescension, as if to say -- what losers!

Not surprisingly, both Maddow and Slater neglected to mention something that many viewers, even Maddow fans, might consider newsworthy -- the younger Bush is the sixth former president snagged by Get Motivated! to speak at their popular seminars.

Fortunately, this oversight was duly corrected by Maddow's first guest the following night -- Get Motivated! co-founder Tamara Lowe.  Here's how the conversation went --

As to be expected from a person who plays a journalist on TV -- a correction more accurately described as a "correction".

With forced ebullience, Rachel Maddow sought to set the record straight on her MSNBC show Monday about a dubious quote from radio host Rush Limbaugh, which Maddow claimed back on June 3 that Limbaugh had once stated. As in, last spring. It's now autumn. In fairness to Maddow, these things take time, especially for those busy providing cover for the left wing of the Democratic Party.

Here's what Maddow said about the incendiary quote, which she cited in June without attribution. You know, as required by actual news organizations --

MADDOW: And finally, a quote falsely attributed to talk show host Rush Limbaugh recently resurfaced during the debate over whether or not he should or would be part of a group bidding to buy the St. Louis Rams football team. On June 3 as I was reporting on opposition to then-Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, I was among the people who erroneously referred to the quote as if Mr. Limbaugh had said it. To set the record straight, Rush Limbaugh apparently never said that Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassin should receive the Medal of Honor and I was in error when we reported that he had. Mea culpa.

Potential title of Tom Wolfe novel with protagonist based on Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat of Florida -- A Man in Fulsome.

Rachel Maddow had just introduced Grayson on her MSNBC show Monday night and what does he do? Disparages the size of her audience.

Maddow was talking about Florida Republicans gearing up to unseat Grayson -- 

MADDOW: I know that two of the people who are going to run against you are tea party activists ...

GRAYSON: That's right.

MADDOW: ... Patricia Sullivan and Dan Fanelli. I'm helping them out with their name recognition right now. What do you ...

GRAYSON (laughing): Well, good, now four people know them instead of two.

Since the Iraq-Vietnam analogy they were so fond of citing no longer holds water, liberals have switched to applying the threadbare comparison to the war in Afghanistan.

In the process, an observer will occasionally hear things from left of center he's rarely heard before.

For example, on Ed Schultz's radio show Oct. 9, John Nichols of The Nation magazine had this to say about the dilemma facing Obama in Afghanistan (click here for audio) -- 

NICHOLS: So the real reason he should be drawing down in Afghanistan is because it's - a - bad - place - to - be. 

SCHULTZ: Have we ever escalated the 96th month into a conflict?

Every now and then, though not often, MSNBC has its moments.

Like when one of its left-wing pundits has something good to say about Fox News. Yes, that Fox News.

On her cable show Thursday night, Maddow and Democratic strategist Joe Trippi were discussing a poll conducted by Opinion Dynamics and reported by Fox.

Between his daily radio show and nightly television program on MSNBC, which boasts of itself as "the place for politics," Ed Schultz somehow managed to miss the news of President Obama's ambivalence about "victory" in Afghanistan.

A caller to Schultz's radio show on Monday told Schultz of this, but Schultz wasn't buying (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ:  Do we send 40,000 more troops in? Brian, what do you think?

CALLER: You know what? I heard someone say we're not in it to win, we're not in it for victory. And I was stunned when I heard that, so ...

SCHULTZ: Well, what do you mean we're not in it for victory?

Anyone who makes fools of liberals on a regular basis can't be all bad. For this, yet again, we can thank Sarah Palin.

The upcoming release of Palin's memoirs, "Going Rogue: An American Life," has already led to attempts by left wingers in the media to rewrite the Troopergate scandal.

Palin was accused of abusing her power as governor by dismissing Alaska Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan for his refusal to fire state trooper Mike Wooten as a danger to the public. Wooten was Palin's former brother-in-law and had gone through a nasty divorce and custody battle with Palin's sister.

Here, for example, is Alaskan blogger Jeanne Devon of The Mudflats.net with her skewed take on Troopergate when she appeared on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show Sept. 29 --

This is what passes for fairness from liberals.

On his radio show Friday, Ed Schultz demonstrated that he hasn't a clue as to how the principle actually works.

Take it away, Ed (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ (talking to caller): What do we need? We need stories is what we need. We need people to stand up and tell their story in front of elected officials and demand some answers, as this lady has done. But what we also need, is we need to follow Tom Harkin on the Senate health bill and support that because it's got preventative clinics. We could set up, a one preventative clinic in every state in this country, 50 preventative clinics, that would do colonoscopies, that would do heart exams, that would do blood tests, all kinds of preventive stuff that could be done. That could be done!

Don't you love it when a liberal lapses into candor?

Here's a recent example of this delightful phenomenon, courtesy of Rachel Maddow's show on MSNBC this past Wednesday, with New York Times columnist and Princeton economics professor Paul Krugman one of Maddow's guests.

Maddow and Krugman talked about a speech given by Sarah Palin to investors in Hong Kong, and of Krugman's new book, "The Return of Depression Economics," when Maddow asked him this (click here for audio)--

Yes -- "un-future-y." Rachel Maddow actually says things like that, and there are people out there -- and out there, they are -- who consider it charming.

At the end of her MSNBC show Monday, Maddow chatted with sidekick and pop culture reporter Kent Jones about "Star Trek" actor George Takei ("Mr. Sulu") and his partner becoming the first gay couple to compete on "The Newlywed Game."

As might be expected of likeminded liberals, both Maddow and Jones had trouble envisioning Takei as married, same-sex or otherwise --

MADDOW: I have to say, the idea of Mr. Sulu being married is so un-Sulu to me. I mean, I'm really happy that he's married as George Takei, but I think of him as Mr. Sulu and Mr. Sulu could not be married.

Talk about grasping at straws.

Once again, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow can't let a week pass without denigrating former vice president Dick Cheney, the better to shift attention from Obama's beleagured presidency.

Here's Maddow on her cable show Sept. 8, relaying news of British intelligence officials apparently still chagrined at Cheney for forcing their hand to arrest suspects in the '06 airline bombing plot before they were prepared to do so --

Is there a sentient person over the age of 12 who believes our health care problems are as serious as the peril facing America after 9/11?

At least one person whose belief in this has been confirmed, though I suspect many others drawn to MSNBC think likewise.

Here's Princeton political science professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell on MSNBC's "The Rachel Maddow Show," where she is a frequent guest, on Sept. 10 --

The specter of ObamaCare's demise has so unhinged Ed Schultz, the nation's top-rated liberal radio host and what passes for a political analyst at MSNBC, that Schultz can't string together sentences without contradicting himself.

Latest example? Schultz on his radio show Tuesday, enthusing about President Obama's speech to school children and one of its core messages -- which Schultz promptly undermined with cheap-shot allusions to Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck (click here for audio) --

If only Rachel Maddow watched her MSNBC show when someone else is guest hosting, she might avoid inconvenient juxtapositions.

The first part of the embedded clip shows Maddow on Aug. 31 taking aim at former vice president Dick Cheney's unapologetic defense of Bush administration tactics against al Qaeda and the war in Iraq.

The second part shows Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff appearing on Maddow's show Aug. 24 and inadvertently undermining what Maddow would say about Cheney a week later.

The things you hear from a liberal radio host who calls himself  "the czar of the truth."

Here's a snippet from Ed Schultz's radio show yesterday, a rebroadcast of a town hall meeting in Boulder he moderated over the weekend, with Schultz responding to Glenn Beck's criticism of Obama's penchant for appointing czars (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: Government's such a bad thing, we got all these czars. Let me tell you something, I'm the czar of the truth.

"Truthiness" is closer to the mark. On Friday, Schultz provided yet another example of how his adherence to "truth" is flexible indeed.

Law of averages being what it is, only a matter of time before a moment of candor eluded the thought police on left-wing radio.

Appearing on Ed Schultz's top-rated liberal radio show this past Monday, Newsweek chief political correspondent Howard Fineman provided an example of this when he traced Obama's difficulties in overhauling health care to his vague promises about reform during the '08 campaign (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: What do you make of the president's leadership so far on this? Should the Democrats be this divided at this point on some of these major issues in health care reform and what responsibility does the White House bear for that?