This morning, C-SPAN’s Washington Journal hosted the National Review’s Rich Lowry, a conservative media figure who openly supported and advocated the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent “surge.” During the segment, a woman from Tampa called in to criticize the host and C-SPAN for continuing to host neoconservatives despite the fact that their ideas have “failed.” She likened Lowry to an inadequate car mechanic a customer keeps returning to:

CALLER: I would like to know why, if you had a car, ma’am, and it broke down and you took it to your dealer and it kept breaking down, and breaking down. Wouldn’t you change dealers? Why do you keep bringing these neocons on? [...] This failed! …And you keep on bringing on failed policy. [...] I would like you to tell me why we are still using this car dealer who has failed America.

While the host did not answer to the caller’s question, moments later, Lowry offered his support for giving an “or else” ultimatum to the Iranians on talks regarding its nuclear program. Watch it:

The caller’s criticism has a ring of truth. A 2007 Center for Economic and Policy Research study found that C-SPAN “overwhelmingly favor[ed] conservative think tanks in its coverage by a three-to-one margin over all left-of-center think tanks.” Indeed, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow recently asked of the neocons, “Why is it that people who are catastrophically wrong about big important things like foreign policy and war never, like, flunk out of that as a subject?”

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In an interview with CNN earlier this week, Vice President Biden responded to former Vice President Cheney’s criticism that the Obama administration has made America less safe by saying that “the last administration left us in a weaker posture than we’ve been in any time since World War II.” Biden added that when Bush left office, America was “less regarded” and garnered “virtually no respect in entire parts of the world.”

Former Bush Press Secretary Dana Perino responded to Biden on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor last night, claiming it was “absolutely not” true. “I actually think that we are respected in the world,” said Perino.

Asked by O’Reilly if it was “a valid point” that the Bush administration “alienated” allies with “its swaggering” at a time that “we need cooperation to defeat terrorists,” Perino replied, “Where is the proof of that?”:

O’REILLY: But they feel — the Obama administration says look, we need cooperation to defeat terrorists. And we weren’t getting it because the Bush administration alienated so many people by its swaggering and its cowboy and the Dick Cheney stuff . Isn’t that a valid point ?

PERINO: Where is the proof of that?

O’REILLY: There isn’t any proof. It’s total speculation.

PERINO: Right.

Perino then asserted that the Bush administration “had allies all over the world helping us,” so Biden is either “not being honest about the briefs that he has gotten, or he just doesn’t know.” Watch it:

In fact, there is no doubt that the Bush administration lowered America’s standing in the eyes of much of the world. In December 2008, the Pew Global Attitudes Project released a report showing that “the U.S. image abroad is suffering almost everywhere“:

Opposition to key elements of American foreign policy is widespread in Western Europe, and positive views of the U.S. have declined steeply among many of America’s longtime European allies. In Muslim nations, the wars in Afghanistan and particularly Iraq have driven negative ratings nearly off the charts. The United States earns positive ratings in several Asian and Latin American nations, but usually by declining margins.

The problems created by Bush’s “swaggering” were evident in Europe last week when President Obama convinced NATO allies to send roughly 5,000 more soldiers to Afghanistan. One analyst noted that while the troop increase was modest, Obama was able to secure “a lot more than Bush could have gotten.”

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Last month, Vice President Cheney claimed that President Obama is “making some choices that…raise the risk to the American people of another attack,” referring to Obama’s decisions to close Guantanamo and end torture. Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder responded to Cheney, telling CBS’s Katie Couric that Cheney’s comments were “totally false”:

HOLDER: Well, I think that’s totally false. It’s inconsistent with the facts. … All the things that we’re doing are designed to enhance the safety of the American people. And closing Guantanamo is, in fact, one of those things. It takes away from people who are our enemies. A recruiting tool. It actually makes our relationships with our allies a lot less complicated. If you look at what the president is doing, what this administration is doing in Afghanistan, what we’re doing with regard to Guantanamo, I think the former vice president’s remarks are are way off the mark.

Watch it:

Vice President Biden also said this week that Cheney is “dead wrong,” noting that the “last administration left us in a weaker posture than we’ve been any time since World War II.” Senior Obama adviser David Axelrod said on Sunday that Cheney has not been acting like a “statesman.”

In recent days, there has been no shortage of fear-mongering about same-sex marriage. Right-wing groups have said that marriage equality removes the “cornerstone of society” and may “destroy…democracy.” Morality in Media President Bob Peters goes even further today, linking same-sex marriage to the recent tragic uptick in mass murders:

This secular value system is also reflected in the ‘sexual revolution,’ which is the driving force behind the push for ‘gay marriage;’ and the Iowa Supreme Court decision is another indication that despite all the damage this revolution has caused to children, adults, family life and society (think abortion, divorce, pornography, rape, sexual abuse of children, sexually transmitted diseases, trafficking in women and children, unwed teen mothers and more), it continues to advance relentlessly.

It most certainly is not my intention to blame the epidemic of mass murders on the gay rights movement! It is my intention to point out that the success of the sexual revolution is inversely proportional to the decline in morality; and it is the decline of morality (and the faith that so often under girds it) that is the underlying cause of our modern day epidemic of mass murders.

Warren Throckmorton writes that using the “awful situation in [Binghamton] New York to bash gays takes it to a new level of immorality in media.” David Corn has more here on Peters. (HT: Box Turtle Bulletin)