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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?

Those pesky wabbit Wepublicans, complained MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, always waising the bar on Democrats. 

During her show Aug. 20, Maddow recruited former WNBA player Sue Wicks to shoot baskets in studio to illustrate alleged machinations by the GOP. Here's what Maddow had to say after Wicks nailed one of her shots --

MADDOW: Sinking a shot on a regulation, 10-foot hoop, yeah, it's not a sure thing but with effort and focus you learn how to do it. These are the rules. Or these were the rules, OK?

You know why you never hear about the Senate needing 51 votes to pass anything any more? It's because since the Republicans have been in the minority in the Senate, they've taken a once rarely-used exception to the 51-vote rule and they've turned it into a new rule. It's called the filibuster and it means that the minority won't even allow something to be voted on without 60 senators giving it the nod.

All of weeks ago, Ed Schultz reacted with disgust on his radio show to news that Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., told other Republicans that Obama's attempt to enact massive health reform could be the president's "Waterloo."

Here's Schultz on July 21, responding to DeMint's remark while interviewing Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore. (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: So, Jim DeMint basically is showing where the Republicans really are. They just want to, they want to Waterloo the president.

Yes, "Waterloo" as verb. And yes, Schultz actually talks like that.

Hey, if you can't poke fun at someone whose name dovetails with that of a potentially devastating neurological disorder ...

MSNBC cable show host Rachel Maddow demonstrated what passes for humor on her show Aug. 12 when she said this about Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette of Ohio --

MADDOW: Next up on the bizarre health-care debate circuit, Republican Congressman Steve LaTourette attended a town hall event in his Ohio district yesterday. There, he very responsibly urged his audience to be civil. (cuts to footage of LaTourette)

Email message from Katrina vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation, to Chris Hayes, the magazine's Washington editor, anonymously forwarded to NewsBusters --

From: Hurricane K
To: Hayes, C.
Re: Maddow show -- WTF?
CC: Rahm Emanual, Robert Gibbs, Keith Olbermann

Chris,

Things seemed to go well with your last Maddow facetime until you derailed narrative with lapse into independent thought.

This from a man of the cloth, no less.

That Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police sergeant James Crowley may attend a baseball game together has the Rev. Al Sharpton concerned.

Sharpton had this to say on his radio show on Monday while talking with Gates' lawyer Charles Ogletree, who also teaches at Harvard (click here for audio) --

SHARPTON:  Let me start out by asking you, where, what is the status with Dr. Gates? You're his lawyer. Some people feel like we've made enough conciliations. I'm reading now he's talking about going to the ballgame with Sgt. Crowley. I need not tell you, some of us are saying that, wait a minute, enough is enough. What's going on here?

It's shabby but in character when liberals won't extend the presumption of innocence to those whose politics they disdain, as when calling for that undisputed war criminal George W. Bush to be hauled in shackles before a tribunal at The Hague.

That much shabbier and still in character when liberals extend the presumption of innocence to terrorists after they've been convicted.

On July 24 the New York Times ran a story claiming that then-Vice President Dick Cheney wanted to send federal troops to the Buffalo, N.Y., suburb of Lackawanna in the summer of 2002 to arrest suspected terrorists who came to be known as the Lackawanna Six.

Long before Obama and the Sotomayor confirmation process elevated "empathy" to supreme importance, it held an honored place in the pantheon of liberal values.

That being the case, why is it liberals appear incapable of empathizing with those who don't share their politics?

Recent example: Princeton political science professor Melissa Harris-Lacewell appearing on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show July 23 to talk about Obama saying at a press conference the night before that Cambridge police "acted stupidly" in arresting Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. --

First it was Jon Stewart going wobbly. Now this.

Ominous enough for Obama that a left-wing propagandist like Stewart should turn on him, as Stewart did in skewering Obama's initial response to the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.

All of a day later, on Friday, liberal radio and MSNBC host Ed Schultz said this on his radio show about Obama's lackluster performance at his July 22 press conference (click here for audio) --

I thought the president was off his game the other night. You may disagree. At times I thought he looked like he was a beaten man. You may disagree. And there was just a moment that went through my body, soul, mind -- I wonder if he's going to run for re-election? I mean it, that's how I felt!

Viewers of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on July 20 were treated to something seldom seen -- a political analyst trying to set the record straight after an argument, in the absence of the second pundit.

Maddow preceded her criticism of MSNBC colleague Pat Buchanan by saying this tactic is "not cool" and "not fair" before proceeding with it anyway --

MADDOW: It's not cool to talk about guests after their segment is over. It's also not fair to relitigate these arguments in the absence of one of the parties who participated in the argument and I will not try to do that now.

Looks like it might be time for summer school instruction in American history for left-wing radio and MSNBC host Ed Schultz.

Here's what a caller said on Schultz's radio show July 16 and Schultz's oblivious response (click here for audio) --

CALLER: This gentleman who called previously, asking where in the Constitution does it say that health care should be provided? And I know where it says. It says that you have the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. So, without health care, people can be deprived of life due to death from lack of medical care.

Among those most overwrought about alleged illegality by the Bush White House in not informing Congress of a covert CIA effort to kill al Qaeda operatives is liberal radio host and MSNBC pundit Ed Schultz.

The implications of such rank criminality are profound, Schultz told his radio listeners on Tuesday (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: I was absolutely astounded today listening to Liz Cheney on MSNBC. Let me, this is one of my favorites right here. She makes the declaration that there were no laws broken. Here we go --

On a rainy September night in 1972, a man on a ferry bound for Martha's Vineyard tried to throw another passenger overboard. The target of the assailant's attack -- former defense secretary Robert McNamara, then president of the World Bank.

The assault received considerable attention at the time though was largely forgotten in the decades that followed. After McNamara's death earlier this month at age 93, the incident was recounted by University of Pennsylvania professor Paul Hendrickson when he was a guest on Rachel Maddow's MSNBC show on July 7.

As she was about to introduce Hendrickson, an incredulous Maddow described the attack and told her audience, "This is not a metaphor" -- which turned out to be exactly how Hendrickson would describe it to Maddow. To which I respond -- it wasn't the only metaphor at work.

Listen to Rachel Maddow introduce a guest on her MSNBC show Wednesday night, as seen and heard in the embedded video, and savor a Freudian slip for the ages.

A question that comes to mind -- how does one accurately transcribe this? Is the correct spelling "wretch," defined in my Random House dictionary as "a deplorably unfortunate or unhappy person," or "retch," as in "to make efforts to vomit"?

Fortunately for Maddow, it could have been worse .... Joining us now is New York Times columnist Frank Bich ...

Maybe the "Saturday Night Live" character immortalized by the late Chris Farley -- Matt Foley, motivational speaker -- is not the dominant influence to liberal bombthrower Ed Schultz.

Given Schultz's tendency to open wide and insert feet, perhaps comedian Norm Crosby and his signature shtich of inventive malapropisms is Schultz's actual guiding spirit.

One of my favorite Schultz gaffes came on April 16, back when liberals were atwitter about Texas Gov. Rick Perry's alleged secessionist tendencies (click here for audio) --

Fans of the late great comedian Chris Farley, take comfort -- liberal radio host and MSNBC talking head Ed Schultz often bears an uncanny resemblance to one of Farley's best-known characters on "Saturday Night Live," that of Matt Foley, motivational speaker.

Schultz has been on a Foleyesque tear of late, raging at Democrats as "spineless weenies" for not standing up to Republicans, despite holding the White House and sizable majorities in Congress.

Here's Schultz on his radio show June 17, spewing his warped theory that Dick Cheney wants thousands of Americans murdered in another terrorist attack to help Republicans regain political power (click here for audio) --

This must be what it's like to listen to pundits in a country with state-run media.

Former president George W. Bush offers what barely passes as criticism of his successor and Obama's media apologists rush to his defense, as if to stanch a wound.

Here's Rachel Maddow and Dallas Morning News political reporter Wayne Slater on Maddow's MSNBC show June 18. In the first portion transcribed below, Maddow teases her discussion with Slater coming later in the show --