On Friday's Ed Schultz radio show, NBC chief legal correspondent Dan Abrams came on to discuss the Manhattan trials of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and four other accused terrorists. He was not optimistic that it would help Obama politically at all:

I think that on sort of the international front, that once the proceedings start, I think it's just going to provide nugget after nugget for these people who want to use propaganda....I don't know that Obama had much of a choice here but to move forward with this. But from a propaganda point of view, and from a political point of view, I think it may be a lose and a lose.

When Schultz asked what the chances were of these terror suspects getting acquitted, Abrams guessed that the chances for KSM were "not very high," but it could happen with the other suspects, which would create political problems. As far as KSM, Abrams said, "I think he's gonna make a mockery of the proceeding...What if Khalid Sheik Mohammed says he wants to represent himself, and as a result, he wants to create a mockery of the proceeding. I see that as a real possibility here."

Schultz asked: "Politically, is this risky territory for Obama?"

Liberal radio host and MSNBC bobblehead Ed Schultz deserves credit -- he's that rare left-winger willing to throw political correctness to the wind and describe accused Ft. Hood killer Nidal Hasan as a terrorist.

After finding such clarity unsettling, however, Schultz quickly reverts to form.

Here's what Schultz told his radio listeners on Thursday (click here for audio) -- 

SCHULTZ: We've gotta stop being so damn academic about what a crime is. I think you could easily make the case that the guys that stepped on the planes on Sept. 11, 2001 had the exact same motivation as this guy did, vice versa. And I'm not afraid to take nasty email from people who think that I'm leaning to the right. There's no left, right, center, blue, green on this. You know, we're gonna get hung up on definitions on what a terrorist act is. There's 13 people dead! What was the motivation for that? It was hate. It was ideological. It was religion. It was faith-based, all of that, and we missed it. And now people are dead and many injured.

This from the side of the aisle always prattling about sensitivity.

Radio show and MSNBC host Ed Schultz yesterday provided further evidence that deep down he's shallow, talking about the Army missing warning signs of Major Nidal Malik Hasan's radical Islamic views (click here for audio) --

SCHULTZ: When somebody's down at the mouth and when somebody is not with the program, why does the military keep him and expect him to do things? Because you don't do that in private business. Well, (voice turning sarcastic) this is the military, well, wait a second now! You know, if they're absolutely our finest and we support them to the max, it would seem to me that there was a chink in the armor somewhere. Right? That's how I feel about it! That the vetting process of the military personnel was, maybe I'm totally wrong on this one, totally off-base and everything else. But, I don't know.

It just seems to me that if this guy didn't want to go, put him in a place where he can still help out. (pause) I just had to get that off, I've been thinking of that all weekend long. I been thinking about, I been thinking about that all weekend long, about where this is all going and what's happening. And then when I think about Joe Lieberman, I get even more depressed.

Disclaimer: we're talking politics here, not personal stuff . . .

If there's a bigger sourpuss in Congress than Barney Frank, I wouldn't want to meet him. On MSNBC this evening, the dyspeptic Member from Massachusetts got into it with, of all people, Ed Schultz.  You might think the two libs would make beautiful progressive music together, but what made this spat especially entertaining was that Barney found himself being attacked . . . from the left.

The topic was the billions in bonuses awarded by Wall Street firms that had received TARP money.  Schultz's beef was that Congress blew it by awarding TARP dough without obtaining advance agreement limiting bonus payouts. 

View video here if flash player not visible.

The liberal blogosphere is cheering one of its heroes for insulting a former Republican member of Congress on national television who as a result walked off an MSNBC set in disgust.

Appearing on Friday's "The Ed Show," Daily Kos owner Markos Moulitsas said to former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, "I did not get a deferment because I was too depressed to fight in a war that I supported in Vietnam."

Tancredo asked for an apology, and when one was not forthcoming, he took off his microphone and earpiece, and left (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Mediaite):

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.

How angry are ultraliberal talk show hosts over Joe Lieberman’s opposition to a government "competitor" in the health insurance system, the so-called "public option"? Ed Schultz was mad enough Wednesday to get very personal with Hadassah Lieberman, the senator’s wife, who has worked for several DC lobbying firms. Schultz suggested she was a "whore." He said:

Now, the pillow talk in the Lieberman household in the sack had to be rather interesting, OK? You have got the wife working on behalf of the industry that's lining the pockets of the senator who has now come out against the public option. OK, look, how dumb are we? Is this a coincidence?

He asked: Does the word 'whore' apply? Are we there yet?

Mrs. Lieberman’s interests in the health debate are nebulous, according to left-wing journalist Joe Conason at Salon.com:  

If you were a cable TV host whose audience size is obliterated by O'Reilly's, buried by Beck's, hammered by Hannity's and slam-dunked by Susteren's, would you really go around mocking someone else's ratings?

Appparently yes, if you're Ed Schultz. The host of the miniscule MSNBC program went out of his way this evening to belittle the ratings of Dennis Miller's radio show . . .

Schultz's snide comment came during his Psycho Talk segment.

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.

MSNBC’s Ed Schultz lamely went after Media Research Center President (and NewsBusters publisher) Brent Bozell on his Tuesday night program, trying to mock Bozell’s statement that the Obama White House’s crusade against Fox News was baseless. “You can’t point a finger to anything that Fox News had done incorrectly,” Bozell had said Monday on Lou Dobbs’ radio show.

Ha, ha, ha, Schultz stage-laughed into MSNBC’s cameras. He then ran six clips of pundits and opinion hosts on Fox saying various things about Barack Obama, most of which could be categorized as personal opinion (such as a clip from Bill Sammon referring to “Obama’s agenda towards socialism”). Here we go again. As is so typical with these attacks on Fox News, Schultz was unable to come up with a single instance of a Fox News correspondent or news anchor saying anything incorrect — certainly nothing that would justify the Executive Branch going to war against the network — thus proving Bozell’s point for him.

Even Schultz’s NBC/MSNBC colleagues have stood up against the Obama White House's effort to block Fox News reporters from participating in a pool event last week, which shows how far out Schultz has to be if he’s still defending Obama's efforts at media intimidation.

Here's the transcript of Schultz's rant from last night (video below the jump):

It is bad when an anchor from a sister network feels compelled to call out a colleague about the lack of ideological balance, but that's just what CNBC's Larry Kudlow did on his Oct. 27 program. 

In a time when some of CNBC's critics demand the network be held to a high standard when it comes to balance, a different standard is applied to MSNBC. And a lack of balance is something Kudlow pointed out.

Kudlow, referring to the Oct. 26 broadcast of MSNBC's "The Ed Show," which featured Rep. Barney Frank, perennial presidential candidate Ralph Nader and the host Ed Schultz, noted all the participants were left-of-center.  And in the appearance, Frank made a pitch for the expanded role of government and argued the only reason people opposed it was because they were disillusioned by the government for its failures during the Bush administration, specifically dealing with Hurricane Katrina.

Want to be noticed by any one of the hosts that have a primetime show on MSNBC's weeknight lineup? Just figure out a way to make Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.  the subject matter, and there's an excellent chance either Ed Schultz, Chris Matthews, Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow will take a shot at it, or her, during their shows.

In the Oct. 25 Washington Post, George Will penned a column about Bachmann, outlining her ascendancy into the national spotlight, which told of her start in politics and how she grew to become reviled by the left. And it was just a matter time before one of the charming personalities on MSNBC made some sort of remarks about the column, albeit two days later. That came on Olbermann's Oct. 27 "Countdown" broadcast.

Barack Obama likes to claim he believes in the free market, even as he lards his administration with what Hugh Hewitt has delightfully dubbed "Mickey Maoists" like Anita Dunn and Ron Bloom.

But Ed Schultz has given away the game.  On his MSNBC show this evening, Schultz said of ObamaCare: "this is the first step toward single-payer. I admit that."

Here's Schultz's full statement . . .

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?

Equipped with the state-of-the-art Media Research Center TV studio and the excellent production work of MRC Video Producer Bob Parks, we at NewsBusters have been hard at work developing a new biweekly program that mocks the liberal media's most outrageous and humorous soundbites.

We debut the new "Notable Quotables" video program on Monday, October 12, but you can catch a preview in a video embedded below the page break. Note: The show will not be replacing NewsBusted but will be in addition to it.

It probably wasn't totally unexpected, since the tally of time the on-air talent at MSNBC spends on Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., increases with every broadcast hour.

Bachmann, not one to hold back on expressing her opinions, has criticized MSNBC on not one, but two occasions recently. And one of those appearances, on Fox News' Oct. 7 "The O'Reilly Factor," she called her critics on the left-leaning network "personal stalkers, only they have TV shows." And that earned her the top spot on Olbermann's "Worst Person in the World" segment.

"But our winner, Michele Bachmann," Olbermann said, referring to the first place contestant, the "worst" person. "[Fox News host Bill O'Reilly], dimly aware of the world around him, asks her, ‘Now you are a pretty interesting politician, Congresswoman. You are second to Sarah Palin in far-left angst. You know, Sarah Palin leads the league, no doubt. But they're after you now. We hear it all the time, Michele Bachmann, she's this, she's that. How did you get into that wheelhouse?'"

Video below fold

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?

We've already seen CNN's Paul Begala, affectionately referred to as "The Forehead" by Rush Limbaugh, and one ESPN personality, Fred Roggin, taking shots at Limbaugh on the heels of news of his interest in the National Football League's St. Louis Rams.

But it was just a matter of time before the usual culprits on the left would attempt to make an issue of it, in what seems to be an effort to gin up some reason for the talk show host not to have an ownership stake in an NFL team. And, MSNBC's Ed Schultz isn't waiting for pointers from the left-wing blogosphere to set the "Stop Rush's Bid for the Rams" agenda. He took it to Limbaugh on his Oct. 6 program immediately.

"There's also some comical football news out there," Schultz said. "The drugster's talking about buying the St. Louis Rams. That's right, the leader of the Republican Party is bidding for ownership of a team that's been giving more money to Democrats than any other team has over the last 10 years, at least that's what the survey says. He'll have to do something about that I'm sure."

Ultraliberal talk show host Ed Schultz took to his radio show Thursday to raise the roof for Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Florida) and his charge that Republican health plan is "die quickly" and their neglect has led to a "holocaust." Schultz thinks he should write speeches for Obama. That wouldn’t exactly match Obama’s whole unite-not-divide campaign, but Schultz doesn’t care:

"This guy is an all-American representative. This guy had, you think he's worried about re-election?! You know why he's doing this? Because he's representing the people in his district. This is how Americans feel....

Gosh I wish President Obama would take that material and lay it right on these 40 obstructionists in the Senate. In fact I wish this Grayson guy was a speechwriter for President Obama...

This is what liberals have been missing for two decades. This type of punch-'em-in-the-nose mentality, give it right back to 'em. Now I think that there are progressive talkers out there that have done this, including myself, I'm not the only one.

It was bound to happen.

Although some in the liberal media were all too eager to point out instances where some are celebrating President Barack Obama's "epic fail" in the media, it was just a matter of time before conservatives and Republicans got the blame for the President's inability to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.

Enter MSNBC's Ed Schultz. During his Oct. 2 MSNBC show, the liberal host launched into a rant blaming the Republican Party and went as far as comparing the party to the anti-American antics put on by Jane Fonda during the Vietnam War. (audio available here)