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White House senior adviser David Axelrod on "This Week."

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White House senior adviser David Axelrod on "This Week."

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Ia., on the road blocks to reform.

"This Week" recalls the lives of members of the military serving in Iraq.

Paul Krugman, Peggy Noonan, Michael Eric Dyson and Kathleen Parker.

Download | Play Download | Play Let's get ready to RUMBLE! The stage is set. Conservatives are fighting one another to see who will dominate the now defunct Republican party. Christian Conservatives led by James Dobson have been running things since Newt Gingrich launched his Southern Strategy back in '94, but some conservatives are not staying silent any longer about the dominance the religious zealots have had. Kathleen Parker has been speaking up ever since Bill Kristol convinced John McCain to nominate Sarah Palin as VP in their losing effort. She was blasted for it by angry righty wingers. KURTZ: Here is what you wrote this week: "Allow me to introduce myself. I am a traitor and an idiot. Also, my mother should have aborted me and left me in a dumpster, but since she didn't, I should off myself." Now, this is all because some readers didn't like what you had to say about Sarah Palin. PARKER: Some people were very upset. Approximately 11,000 so far, and counting. Yes, I wrote about Sarah Palin stepping down from the ticket. I felt after her third interview -- I didn't think any of her interviews were very good, but the third was catastrophic -- that she ought to leave the ticket and let McCain try to put somebody else in place to do a better job and help him with maybe the economy. KURTZ: What about the reaction? All those e-mails, all the vitriol directed at you, I mean, that has got to be somewhat depressing. Are you expected because you are on the conservative side of the spectrum to defend any nominee the Republican Party throws out there? James Dobson is none too happy with Parker for not embracing the extremely radical values of Palin and is now urging his flock to go after Parker in his latest screed. So, Kathleen Parker has determined that getting rid of social conservatives and shelving the values they fight for is the solution to what ails the Republican Party (“Giving Up on God,” Nov. 19). Isn’t that a little like Benedict Arnold handing George Washington a battle plan to win the Revolution? Whatever she once was, Ms. Parker is certainly not a conservative anymore, having apparently realized it’s a lot easier to be popular among your journalistic peers when your keyboard tilts to the left. She writes that “armband religion” — those of us who “wear our faith on our sleeve,” I suppose, or is it meant to compare socially conservative Christians to Nazis? — is “killing the Republican Party.” Lest readers miss the point, she literally spells it out. The GOP’s big problem? G-O-D. TAKE ACTION Do you have something you'd like to say to Kathleen Parker about her recent column criticizing socially conservative Christians and their involvement in matters of government and public policy? You can send her an e-mail — please be respectful — through our Action Center. This is an interesting fight taking place. The other favorite of social repressors is Bobby Jindal, the man who love Intelligent Design and brags about exorcisms. Poor Kathleen Parker, I almost feel for her. Who will win?

Author: JerryPomeroy Added: Wed, 19 Mar 2008 18:46:16 -0800 Duration: 258For more videos and commentary visit www.JustAverageAmerican.com

What can people learn about you on the internet? Does the rise of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook threaten your privacy and your future reputation? We'll talk this hour with Daniel J. Solove, associate professor at George Washington University Law School and author of "The Future of Reputation: Gossip, Rumor, and Privacy on the Internet" (Yale University Press, 2007).

On the December 9 broadcast of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker claimed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney s (R) December 6 "Faith in America" speech will help Romney s presidential campaign in New Hampshire because "New Englanders tend to respond to religion more in terms of liberty and tolerance than in terms of emotional responses." Host Chris Matthews called it "a great speech" and "the best speech of the campaign so far." However, neither Matthews nor his guests -- Parker, NBC chief White House correspondent David Gregory, Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, and National Public Radio All Things Considered host Michele Norris -- noted that Romney attacked unnamed people who "seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God," claiming: "It s as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America - the religion of secularism. They are wrong." Nor did they note Romney s claims that "[f]reedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom," and "[f]reedom and religion endure together, or perish alone." During the segment, Gregory praised Romney for his "conviction" and "authenticity" in delivering the speech, adding: "The guy looked presidential, it was a speech that was bigger than sort of the politics of the moment." Washington Post columnist David Ignatius claimed: "I thought it was a good speech. I still felt that it was a careful speech. I didn t feel that I saw the inner man." By contrast, as Media Matters for America noted, during the 10 a.m. ET hour of the December 6 edition of MSNBC Live, journalist Sally Quinn said of Romney s speech: "I m really stunned because I think it was an obliteration of the idea of the separation of church and state. He eliminated anybody who was a doubter, an atheist, an agnostic, a seeker. It s like, if you believe in God or Christ, you re on my side. If not, you re not." From Romney s December 6 speech : ROMNEY: There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us. If so, they are at odds with the nation s founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator. And further, they discovered the essential connection between the survival of a free land and the protection of religious freedom. In John Adams words: "We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. ... Our Constitution" he said, "was made [sic: only] for a moral and religious people. " Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone. Given our grand tradition of religious tolerance and liberty, some wonder whether there are any questions regarding an aspiring candidate s religion that are appropriate. I believe there are. And I will answer them today. [...] ROMNEY: It is important to recognize that while differences in theology exist between the churches in America, we share a common creed of moral convictions. And where the affairs of our nation are concerned, it s usually a sound rule to focus on the latter -- on the great moral principles that urge us all on a common course. Whether it was the cause of abolition, or civil rights, or the right to life itself, no movement of conscience can succeed in America that cannot speak to the convictions of religious people. We separate church and state affairs in this country, and for good reason. No religion should dictate to the state nor should the state interfere with the free practice of religion. But in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning. They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God. Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life. It s as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America -- the religion of secularism. They are wrong. The founders proscribed the establishment of a state religion, but they did not countenance the elimination of religion from the public square. We are a nation "Under God" and in God, we do indeed trust. On the blog TPM Election Central, reporter-researcher Eric Kleefeld wrote in a December 7 post that Romney s campaign has "thus far" refused to say "whether Romney sees any positive role in America for atheists and other non-believers after Election Central inquired about the topic yesterday." From the December 9 broadcast of the NBC-syndicated Chris Matthews Show: MATTHEWS: Well, let me just tell you, that may be the sort of the cosmetic attitude people have, but there is this sectarian problem that Huckabee s exploiting against him. So, that speech this week, a lot of people thought it was a great speech. I thought it was a great speech. Do you think it s going to have a big impact on Iowa? Later in New Hampshire as his firewall, where he might do better? Or later on in the campaign when he has to run for president? PARKER: I think it s going to help him most right now in New Hampshire because it is a speech about big ideas, and we know that New Englanders tend to respond to religion more in terms of liberty and tolerance than in terms of emotional responses. But I think in the general election it will also help him. I ve just been following some of the threads online and people are saying that they have completely changed their position on Romney. That he has raised - you know, he s elevated in their eyes because of this speech. So I think it s had a strong effect. Whether it helps in Iowa, I don t know. GREGORY: I think it s positive, Chris, primarily because he had conviction, he had authenticity, this is a subject he knows and believes in -- MATTHEWS: And he s not flipping on his religion. GREGORY: And he s not flipping around. And that s his biggest problem, is that he s a flip-flopper and he s compromised -- that s how a lot of people see him. He did not appear compromised here. And, so, I think, you know, whether it helps him in Iowa or New Hampshire, I mean, voters are going to look at him and have a visceral reaction. The guy looked presidential, it was a speech that was bigger than sort of the politics of the moment. MATTHEWS: He got verklempt there, you know, to use the Saturday Night Live term. I mean, he really got emotional when he talked about the patriotic meaning of the First Continental Congress and how everybody had a different religion and they got together on prayer. Well, it worked for a lot of us. GREGORY: You can dissect this, but it still had a - it was still tactical, in that he was still trying to slow Huckabee down in Iowa. MATTHEWS: Michele. NORRIS: I think that it will help him outside of Iowa. I m not sure that -- when you re there you get the sense that they ve -- voters have sort of turned the corner. Huckabee has picked up so much momentum in Iowa I think it s going to be difficult -- MATTHEWS: The Christian leader. NORRIS: -- to slow his roll in Iowa. But, you know, Romney is also -- he s a manager. He always takes the long view. So I think in giving this speech he was looking beyond Iowa and looking at New Hampshire and beyond. MATTHEWS: David? IGNATIUS: I thought it was a good speech. I still felt that it was a careful speech. I didn t feel that I saw the inner man. On a topic like this, you know, you really want to see into someone s heart, and I still felt that he was being cautious and careful. When Huckabee talks about religion, when Huckabee says immigrants are the children of God, you have a sense of the passion of the man, that I didn t feel even with this fine speech. MATTHEWS: How much work went into this? PARKER: A lot. This is not something that came up suddenly, this was not really timed for Huckabee, this sort of Huckabee wave just coincided with it. They really wanted to deliver this speech at Thanksgiving, but recognized that Americans don t really want to talk about politics when they re getting together for the family. But they ve been working on this for months, he reached out to other denominations to get the words right and the ideas right. He really wanted to make a big ideas speech. MATTHEWS: I thought it was the best speech of the campaign so far. NORRIS: One thing some people were looking for is the sort of shame-on-you quality also for people who were questioning his faith, and if he had used some of Huckabee s rhetoric - "America s better than this" -- MATTHEWS: I - that -- NORRIS: -- it may have served -- MATTHEWS: In other words: Huckabee, back off. OK, we ll be right back.

During the December 4 edition of MSNBC s Hardball, host Chris Matthews asked about Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): "So does her attack on him [Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL)] for having had ambition as a teeny-bopper -- not a teeny-bopper, a kindergartner, does she look like Nurse Ratched here?" This is not the first time Matthews has referenced Nurse Mildred Ratched, a character in Ken Kesey s novel and in the movie based on the novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest, when discussing Clinton. In fact, a Media Matters for America Nexis search found that hosts, including Matthews, and guests of programs on NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC have a long history of associating Clinton with Kesey s fictional character, whom Cliff s Notes describes as a "scheming, manipulative agent" who "asserts arbitrary control simply because she can." Indeed, during the August 9 edition of MSNBC s Tucker, host Tucker Carlson said, "I think we have a picture, actually, of Hillary Clinton in a nursing outfit we re going to put up on the screen in a second." MSNBC then aired a screen shot of actress Louise Fletcher portraying Ratched in the 1975 film adaptation of the novel. Carlson went on to say, "I m sorry. That s Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest. I m sorry. It must have gotten confused in the files." From the August 9 edition of MSNBC s Tucker: Media Matters also found the following comparisons of Clinton to Ratched on programs on the NBC networks: During the February 20, 2005, edition of Hardball, syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker said of Clinton, "It s Nurse Ratched. How about that? Nurse Ratched." Matthews responded, "Nurse Ratched is a great one, the one in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest." Parker continued, "She smiles while she s basically twisting the knife, and I think people feel that from Hillary Clinton, whether or not justified. That s what they perceive." The October 11, 2000, edition of NBC s Today and the October 13, 2000, edition of MSNBC s Hardball broadcast an interview with NBC s Lisa Myers during which nationally syndicated radio host Rush Limbaugh said, "I don t see it. I just -- I see Nurse Ratched. I -- when I see Hillary, I feel like I m in the insane asylum of a hospital, and she s the nurse. And I think that s where she wants me." After Myers responded, "She probably does, given some -- given some of the things you ve said about her. It would be understandable," Limbaugh asserted, "No, but that s -- I think she s -- about everybody, Lisa. I think, for the most part, that s how she views people." On the August 3, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews asserted, "[Hillary Clinton is] now saying, I kept this emotional basket case going all these years, because I m a good Nurse Ratched, and this is a cuckoo s nest at the White House. But now I m ready to be off on my own, so elect me as the nurse. " On the August 2, 1999, edition of Hardball, Matthews asked The New York Observer s Tish Durkin, "[D]o you want to be so disciplined as to propose yourself as the new Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest? Does [Clinton] really want to play herself as this tough nurse that looked out for this guy who has psychological problems like -- like the Jack Nicholson gu -- character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest? Nurse Ratched, I m a nurse. I stuck with him because he needed therapy. " Later, in an interview with Gennifer Flowers on the same episode of Hardball, Matthews asserted, "[N]ow it seems like she s offering herself in a new role, as a kind of a person who s had a therapeutic role in life. Sh -- her job is to take care of a -- a delinquent, someone with psychological problems that she s had to fix or deal with or accept or maintain, or whatever you will, not as particularly a political partner, which was a role she offered up before. You know, for -- you get two for the price of one. Now you get a nurse for the price of the patient, all right? What do you think about her offering herself as Nurse Ratched to -- to the cuckoo s nest here?" Moreover, references to Nurse Ratched in the context of Hillary Clinton predate the August 3, 1999, edition of MSNBC s Hardball and extend beyond NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC. A June 1, 2000, New York Times editorial observer column by Eleanor Randolph noted "the concentrated effort by so many speakers to depict the first lady as an invading Nurse Ratched": For the moment, though, Republicans seem united in celebrating a candidate who is not only the anti-Hillary but also the non-Rudy. The G.O.P. leadership is betting that as a candidate who lacks the polarizing features of both Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Lazio can command broad if bland swatches of the middle ground. Hence the concentrated effort by so many speakers to depict the first lady as an invading Nurse Ratched. That may work, but a campaign to make Ms. Clinton into a fearsome outsider could also turn Rick Lazio into Ricky Nelson. In such a match, some of those swing voters might wind up going for the more forceful character after all. Media Matters searched the Nexis news database for instances in which "Nurse Ratched" or "Nurse Ratchet" appeared within 250 words of "Clinton." Media Matters then analyzed each of the 125 news articles, columns, and transcripts to determine whether the writer or speaker brought up Nurse Ratched in talking about Clinton: The first reference to Nurse Ratched in the Nexis database in the context of Clinton appears to have been a July 19, 1994, column by Peter Ruehl that appeared in the Queensland, Australia, Courier-Mail, and the Adelaide, Australia, Advertiser that asserted, "These flight attendants are polite -- to a point -- but if anything strange goes on, they can turn into a combination Nurse Ratched and Hillary Clinton." In an August 31, 1998, "Inside the Beltway" column in The Washington Times, John McCaslin described a hypothetical movie depicting the President Bill Clinton s administration: "Hillary will be played by that actress in One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest -- Remember Nurse Ratched?" In an October 11, 1998, Newark, New Jersey, Star-Ledger column, Paul Mulshine wrote, "There s a certain gaze Hillary affects when she s up there firing up all those tender-minded people who seek her leadership. And just the other day it finally occurred to me why that look scares me so much. I ran to the photo archives of The Star-Ledger to check out my theory. Sure enough: Hillary Clinton is a dead ringer for Nurse Ratched in the movie One Flew Over the Cuckoo s Nest." Mulshine further noted that "America has a lot of people who have roughly the same mentality as the bulk of Nurse Ratched s patients. They just want to be taken care of." He later wrote, "These people look to Hillary for leadership. She obliged them by putting her philosophy into a book, It Takes a Village. Her vision of America -- a nice, clean and safe place in which all the little people do their little tasks under the watchful eye of a loving and caring authority -- would also cover Nurse Ratched s mental ward. You d have to be crazy to enter either one." In a September 25, 2000, New York Post column (subscription required), John Podhoretz wrote, "This is the worst, least inspiring, least interesting, most frustrating political season since the advent of the Great Depression, and for once, it s not entirely fair to blame the candidates for it. They deserve plenty of blame for all sorts of things, no question -- Gore s difficulties with the truth, Bush s difficulties with English, Hillary s difficulties in sounding exactly like Nurse Ratchet, Lazio s difficulties with not saying every 32 seconds that he s a New Yorker." During the August 25, 2005, broadcast of his radio program, as Media Matters documented, Limbaugh said of Clinton, "[M]y favorite name for her is Nurse Ratched." On the May 25, 2006, edition of CNN Headline News Glenn Beck, radio host Roe Conn said of Clinton, "She has the clinical instincts of Nurse Ratched, I think. Not a chance she ll ever become president." In an August 28, 2007, American Spectator online column, David Hogberg wrote of Clinton, "The American people will not elect Nurse Ratched to the Oval Office." From the December 4 edition of MSNBC s Hardball with Chris Matthews: MATTHEWS: Well, he wasn t born a politician, I m amazed. Because that is exactly what Jack Kennedy used to do. He d report -- he would repeat Nixon s attacks on him and just do it with a little wry smile. And there he is, "I understand she s quoting my kindergarten teacher from Indonesia." JAMAL SIMMONS (Democratic strategist): Well it was perfect pitch. And you could see for one second he had a little tick-tock, like, "Do I really want to talk about this? No, I don t. This is good enough." MATTHEWS: But then he did. He quoted her back to her, which was the best shot. So does her attack on him for having had ambition as a teeny-bopper -- not a teeny-bopper, a kindergartner, does she look like Nurse Ratched here?