KILMEADE: Let’s go to your second question. What did you talk about in your off-the-record meeting with opinion journalists at the White House-friendly media outlet for over two hours and why should it be kept secret? Who was there? What do you need to know Michelle?

MALKIN: Well, we know that a lot of left-wing opinion journalists were invited to this off-the-record meeting that lasted two-and-a-half-hours. That’s a lot longer than General McChrystal got and I think that the news-consuming audience ought to know what was discussed. We ought to know and it ought to be disclosed what was discussed by those attendees when they talk about this White House and its policy. Why shouldn’t this be completely transparent?

Watch it:

As Crooks and Liars’ Susie Madrak notes, the complainers at Fox appear to be “suffering from memory loss” about President Bush’s many off-the-record chats with conservative columnists and radio hosts, including Fox News personalities Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham and Glenn Beck. Additionally, they seem to forget that Obama shared an off-the-record dinner with conservative columnists, including Fox contributors Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol and Paul Gigot, before his Inauguration. Malkin should note that the dinner lasted two-and-half hours.

Many right-wing commentators later piled on. “John Bolton is right,” declared the Weekly Standard’s Steve Hayes. “This is a lifeline to a regime that is a terrorist regime that has proliferated nuclear technology,” he said. Former Bush press secretary Dana Perino even blamed Vice President Al Gore for the journalists’ imprisonment because he is a co-founder of the company (Current TV) that employs them. “Al Gore is responsible if he made the order, but ultimately, he’s responsible, and I think we need to hear a little bit more about that,” she said last night on Fox News. Some other lowlights:

– Fox News’ Dick Morris called Clinton’s trip “awful” and “ridiculous” and suggested that Ling and Lee should “live with the consequences of their decision to go” to North Korea.

– Charles Krauthammer complained that North Korea “got a lot” out of the deal and that “it does help the North Koreans in their legitimacy.”

But some conservatives did see the utility of Clinton’s trip. “I think it’s wonderful, obviously, that he secured their release,” Laura Ingraham conceded. Shortly after landing in Los Angeles, Ling expressed her “deepest gratitude” for the rescue:

LING: Thirty hours ago Euna Lee and I were prisoners in North Korea. We feared that at any moment we could be sent to a hard labor camp and then suddenly we were told that we were going to a meeting. We were taken to a location and when we walked through the doors we saw standing before us President Bill Clinton. We were shocked but we knew instantly in our hearts that the nightmare of our lives was finally coming to an end. And now, we stand here, home and free. Euna and I would just like to express our deepest gratitude to President Clinton and his wonderful, amazing, not to mention, super-cool team.

Watch it:

But what many conservatives don’t understand is that, as nonproliferation expert and Ploughshares Fund president Joe Cirincione noted yesterday, Clinton was “the right man at the right moment.” And the BBC’s John Sudworth noted that now was the time to get the deal done:

And not least, there’s always the fear that North Korea could, by holding on to these two journalists, continue to use them as leverage. So I think in Washington’s wider — and perhaps colder — political interests, it makes good sense to try to clear this up now.

“I am very happy that after this long ordeal, Laura Ling and Euna Lee are now home and reunited with their loved ones,” President Clinton said in a statement. “When their families, Vice President Gore and the White House asked that I undertake this humanitarian mission, I agreed. I share a deep sense of relief with Laura and Euna and their families that they are safely home.”

KRAUTHAMMER: And resigning from the Republican Governors’ Association chairmanship is not going to do it, and the reason is that there is a dereliction of duty here. I know that’s the titillation of the reason for it, but even apart from that, he is the governor of the state.

The governor of the state is chief executive, and if there is a disaster in the state, and this guy is incommunicado, he is nowhere to be seen and he doesn’t transfer authority to his lieutenant governor who calls out the National Guard, you cannot recover from that. I think he doesn’t last a week in the office of governor.

Watch it:

Transcript:

BAIER: but Byron, what about this story and how strange it has been?

BYRON YORK, CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, WASHINGTON EXAMINER : Well, I think he’s toast. It’s been a bizarre scene over the last week.

South Carolina has just been a hotbed of rumors. I talked to someone in South Carolina a few days ago and said What’s going on? And they said, well, the theory is it’s either a Susan Boyle-type breakdown or another woman, or maybe both. And it seems to have kind of been both.

He has a large group of social conservatives in South Carolina who never loved him all that much who are very upset about this.

A reconciliation, a public reconciliation with his wife would be very popular with them, but the wife released a statement today saying that she had actually thrown him out a couple of weeks ago, and as part of that arrangement, he was not supposed to get in touch with the family, and thus when he disappeared, went AWOL, she didn’t know where he was.

All of this stuff looks really bad, and a number of Republicans in South Carolina are saying this does not look good for him.

BAIER: And Mort, he was at one time considered to be in the running for 2012.

MORT KONDRACKE, EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ROLL CALL : I thought he was going to be the leading right wing candidate, and he was setting himself up to do that by refusing the $700 million from the stimulus package and all that. It raised his profile among Republicans.

But look, multiple affairs did not stop Bill Clinton from being elected president, but that’s because the Democratic Party is a lot more tolerant of licentiousness than the Republican Party is, and that’s the rub for poor old Mark Sanford here.

You know, he — this, plus John Ensign’s disclosure last week –

BAIER: Senator from Nevada.

KONDRACKE: Nevada — that he had an illicit affair is good news for Mitt Romney, for Bobby Jindal, for Pawlenty of Minnesota, for all the other candidates who might be running in 2012.

BAIER: Charles?

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: I would agree. I think he is toast politically.

And resigning from the Republican Governors’ Association chairmanship is not going to do it, and the reason is that there is a dereliction of duty here. I know that’s the titillation of the reason for it, but even apart from that, he is the governor of the state.

The governor of the state is chief executive, and if there is a disaster in the state, and this guy is incommunicado, he is nowhere to be seen and he doesn’t transfer authority to his lieutenant governor who calls out the National Guard, you cannot recover from that. I think he doesn’t last a week in the office of governor.

And the idea that he could actually have an affair in Argentina as an acting governor is sort of insane. If you go to Argentina, you have to have your passport stamped. You can’t hide it.

I don’t want to play psychiatrist on the show every night. However, the oddity of this and the self-destructiveness would suggest even to a layman that this is a near intentional political suicide.

KRAUTHAMMER: And the reason he did it is that he thinks he needs to preserve his relations with the existing regime so that he can negotiate nuclear disarmament with them, which in and of itself is a lunatic fantasy. It’s not going to happen. There’s no way he’s going to sweet talk, you know, the Supreme Leader out of his nukes. So, that was the point. He thought that if I support the protesters too much, I alienate and I prevent the relations with the government and I can’t.

Listen here:

The New Republic’s Chris Orr notes that Krauthammer also referred to Khamenei as “Supreme Leader” days before his column attacking Obama for using the phrase was published. This isn’t surprising, considering that top conservatives have regularly referred to Khamenei as “Supreme Leader.”

Will Krauthammer lash into McCain next for his “abject solicitousness?”

KRAUTHAMMER: But what’s really interesting, the president yesterday has said, he complained about FOX, and he said, I think accurately, that it is the one, only voice of opposition in the media.

And it makes us a lot like Caracas where all the media, except one, are state run, with the exception that in Hugo Chavez-land, you go after that one station with machetes. I haven’t seen any machetes around here, so I think we are at least safe for now.

Watch it:

Krauthammer isn’t the only person at Fox who views the network as working in opposition to Obama. In March, Bill Shine, Fox News’ Senior Vice President for Programming, told NPR that the network views itself as “the voice of opposition on some issues” with Democrats in power in Washington, DC.

Transcript:

KRAUTHAMMER: Well, look, the media are so in the tank, really, they ought to get scuba gear about this president.

But what’s really interesting, the president yesterday has said, he complained about FOX, and he said, I think accurately, that it is the one, only voice of opposition in the media.

And it makes us a lot like Caracas where all the media, except one, are state run, with the exception that in Hugo Chavez-land, you go after that one station with machetes. I haven’t seen any machetes around here, so I think we are at least safe for now.

But the rest of the media are entirely in the tank, and it’s embarrassing. You would think it would be embarrassment that would deter them.

Obama does u-turns on all kinds of policies — on taking money in campaigns, on rendition, on eavesdropping, on all kinds of issues, and the press does a u-turn, a whiplash u-turn in step.

In the end, what you have to could conclude is that it is, in part, ideological infinity with Obama, but also in part, he’s a rock star, and he sells. So it isn’t only ideology. It is greed. If you have him on the cover, he sells.

And that is the only defense that the mainstream media have, and it isn’t a pretty one — money.

KRAUTHAMMER: What Fox did is not just create a venue for alternative opinion. It created an alternate reality.

A few years ago, I was on a radio show with a well-known political reporter who lamented the loss of a pristine past in which the whole country could agree on what the facts were, even if they disagreed on how to interpret and act upon them. All that was gone now. The country had become so fractured we couldn’t even agree on what reality was. What she meant was that the day in which the front page of The New York Times was given scriptural authority everywhere was gone, shattered by the rise of Fox News.

Elsewhere in his speech, Krauthammer tried to explain why his award was more valuable to him than the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is “awarded to those, from Yasir Arafat to Jimmy Carter, who give the most succor to the forces of terror and tyranny,” Krauthammer said. (HT: TPM)

Leaving the verdict on the Bush Administration to “the next generation’s David McCullough,” Krauthammer also told POLITICO that he isn’t rooting for Obama to fail.

“What I want to say is — I don’t want to repeat his name – I don’t want Obama to fail,” he said, referring to radio host Rush Limbaugh. “I want our country to succeed. And when I criticize him, it’s because I think his ideas are misguided.”

As ThinkProgress has previously observed, conservatives criticize Limbaugh at their own peril. As RNC chairman Michael Steele learned in March when he called Limbaugh an “incendiary” and “ugly” “entertainer,” conservatives who criticize El Rushbo are quickly forced to kiss the ring and apologize.

MILLER: And I’m going to move beyond that and say the pertinent question to me is, is it necessary. Where do you stand on this?

KRAUTHAMMER: You know, I’m in the midst of writing a column for this week, which is exactly on that point. Some people on the right have faulted me because in that column that you cite I conceded that waterboarding is torture. Actually, I personally don’t think it is cause it’s an absurdity to have to say the United States of America has tortured over 10,000 of its own soldiers because its, you know, it’s had them waterboarded as a part of their training. That’s an absurd sentence. So, I personally don’t think it is but I was willing to concede it in the column without argument exactly as you say to get away from the semantic argument, which is a waste of time and to simply say call it whatever you want. We know what it is. We know what actually happened. Should it have been done and did it work? Those are the only important questions.

Listen here:

No where in Krauthammer’s original article did he say that he was making the concession for the sake of argument. Given his comments to Miller, it seems that Krauthammer feels comfortable asserting claims in his Washington Post column that he doesn’t actually believe to be true. Responding to falsehoods in a previous Krauthammer column, Yglesias once wrote that “the only question is why The Washington Post thinks it’s a good idea to publish columns that are designed to mislead its audience rather than to inform its audience.” It’s still a good question.

But apparently, the conservative establishment finds such outreach objectionable. On Fox News yesterday, John Bolton, Bill Kristol, and Sean Hannity all derided Obama’s comments to the Turkish parliament. They argued that in fact, the Iraq war served as evidence of America’s concern for Muslims. CNN’s Lou Dobbs also decried Obama’s praise for the “great civilization of Iran”:

BOLTON:There are an enormous amount of things we’ve done to benefit Muslims in countries all over the world. We have nothing to apologize for.

KRISTOL: But could Barack Obama say something that would be mildly unpopular to an audience which he was speaking? No. Could he say that the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq are just and that we have fought for Muslims, incidentally under President Clinton we fought for Muslims in Bosnia and Kosovo?

HANNITY: It seemed to me…that this was an attempt to apologize for toppling Saddam Hussein and the war on terror.

DOBBS: In his efforts to charm our allies, President Obama noted that Islam helped shape the world for the better, including the United States. He even declared Iran to be a great civilization.

Charles Krauthammer said Obama’s parliament speech was “not original and not terribly important.” Kristol responded that Krauthammer was being “too nice.” Watch a compilation:

In his first trip abroad, Obama also extended a hand towards Europe, saying that America had “shown arrogance” and had “been dismissive, even derisive” towards Europeans in the past. Again, the right wing saw this as evidence of Obama’s anti-Americanism.

The outreach is desperately needed. Over “70 percent of Egyptians, Pakistanis, Indonesians and Moroccans believe the United States is trying to weaken and divide the Islamic world,” an April 2007 WorldPublicOpinion poll said. It seems that for the far right, however, the best outreach is always through bullets and bombs.

KRAUTHAMMER: What this is is the President giving in to populist pressure, demanding a head on a pike, which is the titular head of the company, whether or not it makes any economic sense at all. And that makes you worry.

Watch it:

Like many other Fox pundits who have been railing against unions today, Krauthammer added that organized labor has “utterly destroyed the auto companies.”

While conservatives have joined in the mass discontent with AIG, some are taking their anger a bit too far. Yesterday on a local Iowa radio show, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA) suggested that AIG executives consider committing suicide. And last night on Fox News, far right pundit Charles Krauthammer and his milder counterpart Mort Kondracke argued that some should be put to death:

KRAUTHAMMER: I’m all in favor of keeping this heaping opprobrium. I would deny them the bonuses if possible. I would be for an exemplary hanging or two. Have it in Times Square, invite Madame DuFarge. You borrow a guillotine from the French and we could have a party. If that’s what it takes to maintain popular support, let’s do it. But it’s not going to change anything economically. [...]

KONDRACKE: I was going to recommend boiling in oil in Times Square, but look, because these are the people who invented these crazy credit default swaps that are leading to the whole disaster.

Watch it:

Whether it’s terrorism, international crises, domestic crime or, in this case, excessive corporate greed, some conservatives seem unable to see problems as anything other than a nail for which the only solution is a hammer.

KRAUTHAMMER: Conciliatory, but also apologetic and defensive, I thought needlessly. We heard him say that he we shouldn’t paint Islam with a broad brush. Who does? That’s a straw man.

Watch it:

Krauthammer’s objections are ironic given the fact he’s guilty of the sort of “broad brush” thinking that Obama was warning against. In December 2002, for example, Krauthammer characterized Islam as violent and “hate-driven”:

From Nigeria to Sudan to Pakistan to Indonesia to the Philippines, some of the worst, most hate-driven violence in the world today is perpetrated by Muslims and in the name of Islam.

Krauthammer and those who share his views are, in part, responsible for the propagating the myth that Muslims “hate” the West. During his interview, Obama was rightly arguing that the U.S. must discredit such notions.

Your pool has been told it’s a dinner party.

And, thanks to an enterprising photographer, a shot through a window showed op-ed stalwarts William Kristol and David Brooks are also part of this unlikely gathering of tight, right suits. [...]

This is for real, folks. The bloggers are going to love this one.

Ben Smith notes, “All three wrote, at times, both kind and scathing things about Obama, though Kristol in particular pushed sharp attack lines against him in the waning days of the race.” HuffPost’s Sam Stein notes, “Obama has pledged to be a bridge divider once in office. He’s also said he is willing to take policy suggestions from any source, regardless of ideological affiliation, as long as they work. So far, he’s living up to his word.”

KRAUTHAMMER: We’re going to have to have a law which is going to allow indefinite detention, and it is going to be Democrats who will actually have to craft it. I think that’s poetic justice. [...]

BARNES: Guantanamo will be hard. You have to pass new laws. As Charles says, you have to pass a permanent detention law in the case of some of these guys.

However the two did not agree on the rationalization for such a law. Barnes said Gitmo detainees are “almost” treated better there than in any other prison in the world, while Krauthammer argued that the U.S. interned Germans and Japanese indefinitely during WWII and the same should apply now. Watch it:

Referring to Obama’s Berlin speech that was reportedly in front of more than 200,000 people, neo-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer said he did not get a bounce because apparently, Americans don’t like it when politicians emulate Adolf Hitler at a Nazi rally:

HUME: Panel, help. Did [Obama] get a bounce from the trip or not? [...]

KRAUTHAMMER: I’m not sure — I don’t think he got a bounce. I’m not sure it was his intention. You don’t get a bounce out of standing in front of 200,000 Germans at a rally who are chanting your name. Bad vibes sometimes, historically.

Watch it:

Some other members of the panel chuckled at Krauthammer’s distasteful analogy. But unfortunately, he isn’t the first right-wing media figure to link Obama to Hitler and the Nazis. Referring to Obama’s decision to deliver his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination at Denver’s Invesco Field, Ben Stein proclaimed: “Seventy-five-thousand people at an outdoor sports palace, well, that’s something the Fuehrer would have done.”

Last February, National Review contributing editor Jonah Goldberg said, “You know, when Barack Obama campaigns, he’s basically saying, ‘I’m a silver bullet. I’m going to solve all your problems just by electing me.’ FDR, Hitler, all these guys, they basically said, ‘All your problems can be solved.’”

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