It’s the second time in a month that CNN commentators have come under fire for controversial comments: Dana Loesch recently cheered reports of members of the United States Marine Corps urinating on the bodies of dead Afghans and suggested that had she been present, she would have joined in. But while Martin apologized and will experience an indefinite suspension, CNN and Loesch refused to apologize for her remarks, and she’s remained on the air.

The clear difference between the two cases? A sense that CNN’s audience was offended. GLAAD, which keeps a careful eye on defamation against gays and lesbians in the media, moved quickly to call for Martin’s dismissal and to track the network’s response to the incident. CNN got the message that its own constituents were upset, and that it would suffer consequences — or at least a lot of annoyance — if it failed to act.

Loesch’s comments on the other hand, offended human rights advocates and decent people everywhere. But that’s not the same as running afoul of an organization with a well-established plan to respond to these kinds of events and a well-worn path to media outlets who would cover and amplify their response. While Loesch’s comments were reprehensible, there was also no organized group who was likely or able to hold CNN accountable for her words, and for continuing to let her appear on-air without penalty.

Taken together, the way CNN handled Martin’s and Loesch’s comments makes it look like CNN has no consistent internal values, and no internal standard for how to respond when it commenters express sentiments that are an anathema to those values. I’m glad to know, per CNN’s statement, that “Language that demeans is inconsistent with the values and culture of our organization, and is not tolerated.” But why should it take several days of consideration for CNN to arrive at that conclusion? If the network’s truly committed to the proposition that violence against gay people is no joking matter, that’s something it should know in advance, and CNN should have a personnel policy in place to determine what the appropriate penalty is when someone violates their standards. Similarly, whether Loesch’s comments violate CNN’s internal values shouldn’t be something that’s determined by the level of outrage outside the network’s headquarters.

“We are trying to seek the same exact benefits that other spouses of disabled veterans are receiving,” Harris told host Ashleigh Banfield. “These benefits include burial benefits in any veterans cemetery. They also include survivor’s benefits for the widowed or widower’s spouse”:

BANFIELD: So should the worst case scenario prevail and you have to prepare for the reality end of life. Your wife gets nothing?

HARRIS: That is correct.

BANFIELD: And she can’t be buried alongside of you in an official cemetery?

HARRIS: That is correct… So even though I am a veteran, I served for 12 years and I was honorably discharged and am receiving disability benefits from the Veterans Administration, they consider me a single spouse. So if something should happen to me, my wife will not be taken care of as a spouse of a similarly situated spouse of a veteran who has died.

Watch it:

According to the complaint, as a single veteran rated 80 percent disabled, Tracey receives $1,488 less in disability compensation every year — almost a full month’s worth of support — because the government does not recognize her marriage. In the event of Tracey’s death, her wife Maggie will not be entitled to a minimum survivor’s benefits of $1,195.

That made last night’s debate, which was held in Jacksonville, the appropriate place to ask the remaining Republican candidates how they would address the crisis. Voters, in fact, were waiting to hear the candidates’ answers.

Unfortunately, the debate’s moderator, CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, bungled his opportunity, turning to a submitted question that couldn’t have possibly led to substantive answers from the candidates. And then, after Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney gave answers littered with falsehoods and turned the discussion toward each others’ investment portfolios, Blitzer failed to press them for actual plans to deal with housing:

BLITZER: We have a very important subject: housing. Not only here in Florida, foreclosures really, really bad, but all over the country. A lot of people are wondering if the federal government contributed to the housing collapse in recent years. We got a question that came into us. Let me put it up there and I’ll read it to you: How would you phase out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Does the private mortgage industry need additional regulation?

Watch it:

Blitzer’s original question focused on what the candidates would do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored mortgage firms that have been targets of Republican ire since the crisis began. But it was private industry, not Fannie and Freddie, that sparked the crisis. More than 84 percent of the subprime loans in 2006 were issued by private lenders, including 83 percent of the loans that went to low- and moderate-income borrowers.

Blitzer could have asked Republicans to address the misconception that Fannie and Freddie sparked the housing crisis. He could have pressed Romney on what seemed like a change of position on housing in Florida. He could have asked where the candidates stood on the plan President Obama put forward in his State of the Union address to refinance mortgages, or asked what the candidates would do about the rampant fraud and abuse that private lenders perpetuated during both the housing boom and its subsequent bust. And yes, he could have pressed Romney to find out how much he knew about his investments into funds that profited off of Florida foreclosures.

But he didn’t. The result, as Reuters noted today, were soft outlines of policies that “could prolong the pain for years,” aren’t supported by market data, and showed little understanding of how the crisis happened in the first place. The Republican candidates continue to dodge questions about what, specifically, they plan to do about the housing crisis. Unfortunately for voters, questions like Blitzer’s only make it easier for those dodges to continue.

As Gingrich himself admitted later in the interview, he was not exonerated on every count. While most of the initial charges against him were dropped, he was sanctioned on one count of flouting tax laws relating to a college course he taught that received non-profit status even though it was political in nature.

And contrary to Gingrich’s claim that House Republicans voted to reprimand him simply to move on, many said at the time that they were very disturbed by Gingrich’s actions. “Newt has done some things that have embarrassed House Republicans and embarrassed the House,” said Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) at the time. “If [the voters] see more of that, they will question our judgment.” Even Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), who cast the lone dissenting vote on the ethics committee against charging Gingrich, said the Speaker made “real mistakes but they shouldn’t be hanging offenses.”

GINGRICH: Because you’re saying to religious group, give up your religion. That’s absurd. The idea that the state would impose its secular values on a religious organization is an absurdity.

O’BRIEN: If you want funding. Isn’t that if you want funding.

GINGRICH: No. No. In Massachusetts.

O’BRIEN: You can do whatever you want but if you want funding.

GINGRICH: No, that’s not true. That’s not true. There are states now, including the District of Columbia, which essentially adopt laws that say you can’t offer an adoption service unless you meet the secular standards of the state. They are in effect saying the secular standards of the state are more important than religious freedom. I think it is inherently anti-Christian and anti-Jewish. It is in favor of a secular model, that I think is wrong. And I think that it’s wrong for the government to impose its values on religion. That’s the whole point of the First Amendment, is to not have the government imposing values on religion.

Watch it:

O’Brien is right, of course: religious adoption services have a right to believe whatever they want under the First Amendment, but they cannot use tax payer funding to treat gay and lesbian couples like second-class citizens. DC Catholic Charities — which received government funding — voluntarily shut down rather than provide adoption services to same-sex couples and Catholic Charities in Massachusetts “refused to place children with same-sex couples as required by Massachusetts law. After a legislative struggle — during which the Senate president said he could not support a bill ‘condoning discrimination’ — Catholic Charities pulled out of the adoption business in 2006.”

CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Perry about the topics during an interview:

BLITZER: Since ’67, every U.S. president, Democrat and Republican, have called Israeli settlement activity in the occupied territories, in the West Bank, illegal under international law. Would you continue that activity?

PERRY: …No I wouldn’t. I consider the Israeli settlements to be legal, from my perspective, and I support them.

BLITZER: Even if they’re in the West Bank?

PERRY: Where there is arrangements that have been made, where the Israeli’s are clearly on Israel’s land that they have hard fought to win and to keep, absolutely.

Watch the video:

It’s not the first time Perry has endorsed the settlements. In September, he said Israel should build more. His views put Perry out of step with every administration from both parties since the occupation of Palestinian territories in 1967, who unanimously viewed the settlements as a violation of the Geneva Conventions’ provisions against moving civilians into occupied territories.

Blitzer also asked if Perry would move the U.S. embassy in Israel, which is currently located in Tel Aviv, to Jerusalem. “Absolutely,” replied Perry. “As soon as I could. I would clearly say, if you want to work for the State Department of the United States, you need to be packing your bags and move to Jerusalem as soon as you can.”

The CNN host accurately pointed out that, since 1948, no administration has agreed to move the embassy. In 1995, Congress passed a law forcing the embassy move, but every president since then has exercised a waiver to keep the mission in Tel Aviv. Palestinians want to have East Jerusalem, which was occupied by Israel during the 1967 Six Day War, as the capital of their future state — a move that could be imperiled by the presence of an embassy in the city, which is technically internationalized according to international law. The embassy’s presence would be tantamount to recognizing Israel’s disputed sovereignty over all of Jerusalem.

Another GOP candidate, Mitt Romney, also said he would move the embassy. At that time, ThinkProgress interviewed Jerusalem expert Daniel Siedemann, who expounded on the pitfalls of moving the embassy:

Were an American President be actually so irresponsible as to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem outside of the context of a comprehensive permanent status agreement, such a President would contribute nothing to legitimizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Instead he would be following Israel into abject isolation, and the United States into an weakened and marginal regional and global role.

When Blitzer pointed out that all presidents had avoided the move, Perry responded, “There may not have been a president of the United States that feels as strongly about Israel as I do.” In the past, Perry has said, “My faith requires me to support Israel.”

This was like retro debate. I felt like we were going back into the past. The neocons — it was like the last hurrah, celebration of the past. Not looking at the current threats and the way the president has handled them and perhaps how we handle future threats to this country.

Brazile is right: Despite the rise of the Tea Party, with its disdain for government, and libertarian non-interventionist Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) primacy in important Republican races, the GOP seems inextricably wedded to the foreign policy ethos that defined the first George W. Bush term.

Last night’s debate was hosted by two think tanks with close links to the personnel and ideology of the Bush Administration. Most of the “audience questions” came from scholars from the organizations, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the Heritage Foundation. The latter, though not as renown for militaristic neoconservatism as the former, nonetheless advocates many similar positions, such as robust defense spending levels, continuing large-scale military commitments in the Middle East and Central Asia, hawkishness on Iran and unflinching support for Israeli government policies.

The Bush foreign policy era connections were on full display last night, despite the fact that Bush himself was barely mentioned. The former president’s unpopularity in the waning days of his administration may be the reason he’s barely been mentioned. In the ten previous debates, Bush one came up only 19 times, most of them critical mentions, according to an analysis by Michael Cohen. Last night, Bush got two shout-outs, both of them from “audience questions” from top former Bush administration officials.

Those officials, and the think tankers that cheered on the administration, featured prominently in the debate. Here’s a quick run-down of some of the most controversial ones and what they asked about:

DAVID ADDINGTON: The Heritage staffer, former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and co-author of the infamous “torture memos,” asked about Syria and what the candidates thought constituted U.S. interests, and “what would you do to protect them.”

DANIELLE PLETKA: The vice president of foreign policy and defense studies at AEI and wife of Romney campaign staffer Stephen Rademaker, Pletka held to her longstanding hawkishness on Iran, positing that “Iran is probably less than a year away from getting a nuclear weapon” and wondering if sanctions could bring an end to Iran’s nuclear program.

EDWIN MEESE III: The former Reagan administration Attorney General and Heritage fellow asked, “Shouldn’t we have a long range extension of the investigative powers contained in [the Patriot Act]?”

MARC THIESSEN: A speechwriter for the Bush White House and Donald Rumsfeld‘s Defense Department who advocates relentlessly for permissive interrogation guidelines — ie. torture — the AEI fellow asked what national security issue the candidates thought was going unmentioned but that loomed on the horizon.

PAUL WOLFOWITZ: The AEI scholar and, at the Bush Pentagon, a key architect of the Iraq war, asked if the foreign development aid levels of the Bush administration were possible to attain in the age of austerity.

FRED KAGAN: The AEI scholar and Iraq war dead-ender asked: “Do you think that an expanded drone campaign in Pakistan would be sufficient to defeat al-Qaeda and to secure our interests in Pakistan?”

The Washington Post ThinkTanked blog wondered yesterday if two think-tanks which are closely affiliated with some of the candidates and their hawkish advisers can host an unbiased debate. But journalist Max Blumenthal asked if the bigger issue wasn’t whether a “news network… has handed control over its campaign coverage” to ideological neoconservatives. It seems, though, from watching the debate, that the GOP also acquiesces to a strong neoconservative influence over its foreign policies. If the party retakes the presidency, which controls foreign affairs, the U.S. seems likely to return to the aggressive policies of the first Bush term.

CROWLEY: Six big oil companies piled up $36 billion maybe be profits at the end of this year $100 billion. Can you see how people go we need to help the oil industry?

DURBIN: Part of problem is that the facts aren’t out there. There are no loopholes. These are basic tax deductions that every industry is allowed to use.

Watch it:

In fact, there are tens of billions of dollars of special tax breaks and programs that are special to the fossil fuel industry. Here is a short list of such loopholes, with their ten-year cost on the federal budget:

$12.6 billion in percentage depletion for oil and natural gas wells and hard mineral fossil fuels
$12.9 billion in expensing of intangible drilling costs for oil and gas and expensing of exploration and development costs for coal
$18.7 billion domestic manufacturing deduction for oil, gas, and coal production
$0.4 billion in capital gains treatment for coal royalties
$0.2 billion exemption to the passive loss limitation for working interests in oil and natural gas properties
$0.1 billion deduction for tertiary injectants
$2.5 billion in federal tax subsidies to coal companies
$1.3 billion tax credit for refineries
$9.5 billion in royalty-free oil and gas leases

The big oil lobbyist is partly telling the truth, however. There are massive tax loopholes that are also used by other industries in addition to big oil, although they especially advantage the oil industry:

$52 billion in “last in, first out” accounting for inventories, a tax credit that disproportionately helps the oil and gas industry
$10.5 billion dual capacity tax credit, which also largely benefits oil and gas companies

Federal tax policy and programs subsidize the oil industry in other ways that add up to billions of dollars of taxpayer money a year, from oil defense to oil spill liability caps. The biggest oil loophole may be the free pollution of greenhouse gases that have an estimated cost to society of $100 a ton. The American Petroleum Institute is willing to spend millions running ads on CNN and sponsoring its presidential debates.

Marty Durbin is Sen. Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) nephew. Sen. Durbin has called for the end to oil subsidies worth $4 billion a year.

CNN's Steve Hargreaves

Ultimately it is an election year and it will create a lot of jobs and it will be a lot of money and Americans are concerned about energy, they’re concerned about energy independence, they’re concerned about high gasoline prices. So to vote — to limit the amount of oil coming in to this country especially coming into it from a place like Canada would be a very difficult thing for Obama to do while facing what’s going to be a tough re-election. So most analysts, yes, they do expect it will be built.

Watch it:

Independent analysts whose work wasn’t paid for by the oil industry believe that the claims Hargreaves made are likely false. The tar sands pipeline will be as bad for the American economy as it is for the environment:

Keystone XL Could Kill American Jobs. TransCanada and the American Petroleum Institute cite a study by the Perryman Group, commissioned by TransCanada, that claims the pipeline’s construction will generate 20,000 American jobs. The U.S. State Department’s analysis, drafted by Cardno Entrix and also commissioned by TransCanada, estimates that the construction will only involve 5,000 to 6,000 workers, including non-American employees.

The only study independent of TransCanada influence, by the Cornell Global Labor Institute, finds that even the State Department’s employment figures are too rosy. In the first stages of the pipeline project, steel from Canada and India was used, and only 11 percent of workers were local hires. The pipeline will reduce air quality in both Canada and the U.S., increasing health care costs and thus killing jobs, for decades after the brief construction period of the pipeline.

Keystone XL Will Increase Gasoline Prices. Gasoline prices are expected to rise in 15 Midwest states, because the pipeline will allow Canadian oil producers to bypass that market and reach Texas refineries for export to China and the rest of the global market. In Canada, TransCanada says that one of the benefits of the pipeline is that it will raise the price of heavy crude oil in the Midwest.

Keystone XL Will Threaten Energy Independence. Canadian tar sands oil won’t reduce American dependence on foreign oil. The Keystone XL pipeline is designed to feed the global market, instead of U.S. demand. Its primary effect on American energy policy will be to increase the profits and thus the political influence of oil industry players like Exxon Mobil and Koch Industries, while accelerating the threats of global warming. Climate change, the greatest threat to global security, could reach a point of no return if Canada’s tar sands are fully exploited.

The Keystone XL debate is not economy versus environment — it’s a battle between dirty energy and clean energy.

CNN, whose campaign coverage has been sponsored for years by the coal and oil industry, has a shoddy track record of promoting dirty, risky, and expensive fossil fuel technologies, from “clean coal” to Arctic drilling.

Transcript:

KAYE: It is 1,700 miles long on paper anyway, and three feet wide. It would bisect the nation already split between economic hopes and environmental fears. as big and controversial as it is, the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline is “undercovered.” Here’s the plan: connect the oil sands of Alberta, Canada with the oil refineries of southeast Texas. In between are millions of acres of farms, forests, rivers and streams which no one wants to see covered in oil. But there are also millions of Americans who need jobs and TransCanada, the project’s owner, says Keystone XL will put 20,000 Americans to work. You may have seen pictures of the anti-pipeline protests. This one got Darryl Hannah arrested outside the White House. If President Obama missed them, he certainly knows that there is a backlash. Here he is yesterday in Denver trying to talk student loans.

OBAMA: All right. Thank you, guys. We’re looking at it right now. No decision has been made and I know your deep concern about it so we will address it.

KAYE: Since the pipeline would cross U.S. borders, addressing it is up to Hillary Clinton. State Department gets the final say after a series of public hearings and an environmental impact study that pipeline opponents say was fixed. That’s because TransCanada picked the firm and a TransCanada lobbyist is a former campaign aide to Clinton. See how this works? I’m joined by senior writer for CNNMoney.com, Steve Hargreaves. Steve, this story certainly isn’t “undercovered” by you. What would the pipeline mean for U.S. imports?

HARGREAVES: It would mean a lot of new oil, doubling imports coming from Canada’s oil sands into the U.S. Right now we consume about 1 million barrels a day. Pipeline would add 700,000 to that so it is a lot of oil.

KAYE: In terms of environmental concerns, these concerns go beyond the potential leaks in a pipeline. Right? We’re talking about something called tar sands here. Can you shed some light on that?

HARGREAVES: Yeah, correct. the oil comes from — in Alberta they have oil sands or tar sands and it is a heavier form of oil and it is basically like a tar mixed with a sand. In order to extract it you either have to mine it like a big open pit mine, or you have to use traditional oil drilling techniques but with the addition of heat. So what it all means is that they’re a little bit dirtier than a traditional form of oil. Estimates are that they produce anywhere from 5% to 30% more greenhouse gases on a well-to-wheel basis than traditional oil does. So that’s what has a lot of people concerned. They don’t like the additional pollution that would be associated with expanding production from these oil sands.

KAYE: And I’m sure that in your reporting you’ve probably talked with many analysts about this. Do they think that this pipeline will get U.S. approval?

HARGREAVES: Well, yeah. Ultimately it is an election year and it will create a lot of jobs and it will be a lot of money and Americans are concerned about energy, they’re concerned about energy independence, they’re concerned about high gasoline prices. So to vote — to limit the amount of oil coming in to this country especially coming into it from a place like Canada would be a very difficult thing for Obama to do while facing what’s going to be a tough re-election. So most analysts, yes, they do expect it will be built.

KAYE: When will we have that final decision, do you think?

HARGREAVES: Well, it is a long process. The State Department just finished up some public hearings on it. They have a few more hearings to do. I think a decision is expected by the end of the year.

KAYE: All right, Steve Hargreaves, appreciate your reporting on that, what we think is an “undercovered” issue. Thank you.

Even before his defenestration from MSNBC and his move to Current, Olbermann’s ratings were falling. In 2010, Olbermann drew an average of 1 million adults and 268,000 adults aged 25-45 during the 8PM hour (that first number was down 11 percent from 2009, the second, down 25 percent in the same time period).

Olbermann wasn’t alone in his woes at MSNBC, though his numbers were slightly worse than some of his colleagues. Rachel Maddow’s numbers fell between 2009 and 2010, too, down 6 percent overall and 14 percent in that coveted demographic of younger viewers. And MSNBC saw its viewers between 8 and 11PM go down 9 percent overall and 18 percent in the demographic. In the same time period, for the same viewing hours, Fox News saw a slight but slower decline, falling 5 percent overall and 6 percent in the demographic. And CNN, which is now challenging MSNBC for that third-place, looked like it was in free-fall. Its number of overall viewers in the 8-11 hour was down 36 percent, and its number of young viewers was down 37 percent, to 184,000.

But this September, MSNBC pulled in 269,000 viewers ages 25-45 in the prime-time block, up modestly from an average of 249,000 in 2010. But CNN’s made a dramatic improvement, lifting its young viewers from an average of 184,000 for the primetime block in 2010 to an average of 257,000 in September 2011. The Times piece from which I’m drawing those numbers doesn’t break out Fox’s numbers for the full month of September, but looking at day-by-day data on TV By the Numbers, they appear relatively consistent with the figures the network pulled in 2010, when it averaged 2.4 million people total and 612,000 younger viewers in primetime.

So Olbermann’s numbers and MSNBC’s were declining at the time he left. And even in the context of Current’s smaller viewership, he’s continued his downward slide. MSNBC is available in 78 million households in the U.S., while Current is available in 60 million. But absent the network profile of MSNBC, Olbermann’s ratings initially fell more than the 23 percent that might have been the difference between the two networks and have continued downward. The week of Olbermann’s launch on Current, an average of 354,000 people total and 131,000 in the demo tuned in. The next week, after the novelty wore off, it was down to an average of 253,000 total and 93,000 in the demo. By August 1-5, those numbers had fallen to an average of 208,000 and 85,000 in the demo.

With all this context, it’s not totally clear to me that Olbermann, even if he’d stayed, would have reversed his ratings trend—and the network’s. Olbermann’s departure was messy and public. But while the resulting vacancy may have prompted CNN to shake up its lineup, it wasn’t the only thing affecting MSNBC’s viewership. How to get the network growing significantly in prime time is a question that’s much more complicated than one hour, and one anchor.

The documentary is presented in a “jobs vs environment” frame that is “devoid of any actual analysis of whether that frame is appropriate,” writes Appalachian Voices’ Matt Wasson. In reality, coal jobs disappear once mountaintop removal is instituted, since it requires fewer miners than traditional mining practices. Furthermore, the rise in mountaintop removal has done nothing to disrupt the long-run trend of declining production from the Appalachians.

Charleston Gazette’s Ken Ward Jr. is sympathetic to the “pretty balanced overview,” but believes the documentary failed by presenting coal as “the only possible future” for West Virginia’s children:

The problem was most simple. CNN interviewed Art Kirkendoll, who has been a county commissioner in Logan County for 30 years. They let him go on about what God does or doesn’t want done with West Virginia’s mountains.

But they didn’t bother to ask him about the fact that Logan County’s poverty rate is twice the national average, or why the college graduation rate there is one-third of the national average … They didn’t bother to ask him why kids in Logan County don’t deserve more than one option in life.

“It’s not just about ‘how a mountain looks,’” Mother Jones’ Kate Sheppard critiques O’Brien. “Even though the segment falls short of what I hoped for, I guess I am glad to see MTR getting any coverage on cable television. I just wish they’d done a better job of it.”

The network brought on RNC Chairman Reince Priebus this afternoon to respond to numbers. While saying he hadn’t studied poll in depth, Priebus embarked on stunningly brazen spin, blaming the drop in Republicans’ approval on President Obama. Despite host Brooke Baldwin’s repeated attempts to get Priebus to address the GOP’s unpopularity, the chairman kept going back to Obama:

BALDWIN: To what do we attribute this? Fallout from the debt ceiling debacle?

PRIEBUS: First of all, I haven’t really looked at it too deeply, other than the fact that I think it’s true that people are frustrated with a lot of what goes on in Washington. I think, most of all, people are frustrated with the president who continues not to lead during the most important in our country. But it’s not just a matter of leadership, Brooke, it’s a matter of what this president has put in place when he’s had the opportunity to lead. [...] He put in Obamcare.

BALDWIN: Hold on, Reince Priebus. [...] You see the numbers right there. Now versus July.

PRIEBUS: Okay, Brooke, and I told you, I think people are frustrated with politics in general. But the reality is we have a leader in Washington –

BALDWIN: Well, you mentioned the president, but I’m asking you specifically about your party.

PRIEBUS: I think people are frustrated with a lot of people in Washington. [...] And we have a president who is not a willing partner.

Watch it:

Party chairmen are expected to present news in the most favorable light for them and their party, but blaming his party’s unpopularity on the head of the other party is comical. And CNN’s poll is not the first to show that Republican congressional leaders’ intransigence and hostage on the debt ceiling hurt them politically. Americans overwhelmingly disproved of the GOP’s handling of the debt negotiations, and 74 percent of even Republicans thought revenue increases should have been part of the final deal.

Priebus’s comments once again show here’s nothing conservatives aren’t willing to blame Obama for.

Brad Thor

Thor quickly jumped to the conclusion that Iran was reponsible for the attack, leading John King to interject that the site of the helicopter crash — just southwest of Kabul — was much closer to Pakistan than Iran. But that didn’t stop Townsend, taking cues from an aspiring Tom Clancy, to continue the baseless hypothesizing about Iranian involvement. Thor started off by pushing the conversation toward Iran:

THOR: The Afghan government is completely corrupt and it’s riddled with Iranian spies. [...]

KING: I’m not discounting the importance of any Iranian relationship, but this to me, based on the history and people you talk to, is a Pakistan issue, not necessarily an Iran issue, right?

TOWNSEND: That’s right John, except to Brad’s point, look, we have seen an increasing amount of Iranian involvement and support in Afghanistan. And oh, by the way, they have been spoilers inserting themselves into Afghanistan and undermining U.S. efforts. You know, the Iranians don’t always come in the front door and oftentimes they work through proxies and they insert themselves to cause Americans and American forces difficulty around the world. We saw it in Iraq, and that makes sense to everybody since that’s a neighbor, but we see it in places like Afghanistan as well.

THOR: Fran’s analysis is always spot on. It’s why I enjoy watching her so much. I’d like to add that there’s word out that whatever took down the helicopter might be known as an IRAM, an improvised, rocket assisted, mortar. We first saw this with Shiite extremists in Iraq with Iranian fingerprints all over them. And that’s why I’m so concerned. They call these things in the military “flying IEDs.” We don’t have confirmation on what brought this helicopter down but that and the fact that the Iranians have so penetrated not only the Afghan government but a lot of the indigenous support at our forward operating bases and around the country of Afghanistan makes me wonder. You know, the Taliban, they’re good but man, I don’t think they’re that good. I really think this has the fingerprints of Iranian cooperation on it.

Watch it:

A Lexis Nexis search for “Iran AND Afghanistan AND helicopter” turns up no relevant news accounts of Iranian involvement in the attack. It would seem that Thor and Townsend are currently the only pundits to subscribe to the Iranian-bogeyman theory of how the U.S. suffered its single worst day of casualties in Afghanistan. (HT: antiwar.com and Bahman Kalbasi)

Ex-News of the World Editors Piers Morgan, Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson (Brooks and Coulson have been arrested)

Morgan opened his show last night by briefly addressing the issue with a short monologue, before bringing in guests to discuss the wider hacking scandal. “For the record, I do not believe that any story we published at either title was ever gained in an unlawful manner, nor have I ever seen anything to suggest that,” Morgan said. Watch it:

Morgan promoted the book he wrote about his time at the tabloids, which includes an eyebrow-raising section that explains how to hack into someone’s voice mail account.

Ex-News of the World Editors Piers Morgan, Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson (Brooks and Coulson have been arrested)

Piers Morgan, the British journalist and talk show host who took over for CNN’s venerable Larry King earlier this year, is a former editor of the now-defunct News of the World, the tabloid at the center of the hacking scandal. Moreover, Morgan has been implicated in a separate celebrity phone hacking scandal while he was editor of the U.K’s Daily Mirror.

But so far, CNN has failed to report any of this. A ThinkProgress search covering the last 30 days of several media monitoring services and CNN’s own website, show the network has not so much as mentioned Morgan’s connection to the failed News Corp. tabloid, nor the separate Mirror allegation.

A CNN spokesperson confirmed the lack of coverage to Ad Week last week, “saying that the network hasn’t covered the matter because Morgan has not been officially called to testify in England.”

Morgan himself did address the issue on Monday, telling a CBS talk show that neither he nor his former publication have broken any laws.

The allegations are especially troubling given this passage from Morgan’s 2005 book, The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade:

Apparently if you don’t change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don’t answer, tap in the standard four digit code to hear all your messages. I’ll change mine just in case, but it makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick.

As Ad Week notes, “Morgan has been sounding a fairly sympathetic note about Murdoch.” In the CBS interview, he said, “I’m not going to join the Murdoch bashing. I’ve always been a big admirer of his. He gave me my first break in journalism. He made me editor of [News of the World] when I was 28 years old.”

Even some of his Republican colleagues are criticizing him or his remark but Rohrabacher isn’t showing any remorse. He refused to apologize in a statement last weekend and now he’s coming out on the attack. On CNN last night, contributor E.D. Hill, the former Fox News host of the “terrorist fist jab” fame, talked with Rohrabacher about the incident and appeared equally credulous at the Iraqis’ gall. “Did that kind of shock you? she asked, adding, “after all we have done?” Rohrabacher agreed and then critized the Iraqis for not being grateful for starting a war in their country:

ROHRABACHER: We spent a trillion dollars trying to free those people from the Saddam Hussein dictatorship and help them build a more democratic society. Yet now it seems there is no gratitude on the part of the people who now are in charge of the Iraqi government. And that should give us pause if we’re thinking about spending any more money or leaving our troops over there any longer. They just aren’t grateful for what we’ve done. … American people gave their lives, their children, and we expended billions of dollars, which now we’re — is hurting our economy.

Watch the segment:

Rohrabacher’s point is well taken. Americans have sacrificed much in both blood and treasure in Iraq and no one on either side of the coin should forget that. But it’s also important to remember that President Bush’s justification for launching a war in Iraq was to rid Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction, not to liberate Iraqis. And what Rohrabacher seems to leave out is that the Iraqis, both civilians and soldiers, have sacrificed too.

But Rohrabacher is right about one thing, that the financial cost of the war – which is still ongoing — is a huge strain on the U.S. economy and should serve as a reminder when U.S. officials consider having U.S. troops stay in Iraq past the Dec. 31 deadline to withdraw.