Digby points out MSNBC nonsense that was bothering me all day yesterday. After election results were in for 2009 Nancy Pelosi said:

“From my perspective, we won last night. We had one race that we were engaged in — it was in northern New York. It was a race where a Republican has held a seat since the Civil War, and we won that seat. So from our standpoint, no. We had a candidate that was victorious who supports the health-care reform… So from our standpoint, we picked up voted last night, one in California [CA-10] and one in New York.”

via Pelosi: ‘We won’ – First Read – msnbc.com.

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi is making a simple and logical point: in a typical election the House Democrats would reasonably expect to come out of these races losing the very red NY-23 and winning the very blue CA-10. Instead, Democrats held the CA-10 effortlessly and in NY-23 Palin, Pawlenty and Teabaggers nominated a carpetbagging far right candidate. Both house elections went Blue. Getting majority vote on climate change, education reform, health care, extending unemployment benefits, and repealing don’t ask don’t tell became a bit easier for Pelosi and House Majority Whip James Clyburn. The DCCC, the political arm of the House fought one race with funding and man power, that was NY-23 and they won. That is the “we” in her statement. Mitchell, a long time reporter, analyst and pundit, and former US Representative Scarborough know the intelligent and honest way to talk about this in context.

MSNBC’s Chuck Todd seems to understand that “five straight special elections in swing Republican districts that Democrats have won” is a “helpful governing tool for Pelosi”.

Now let’s actually look how Joe Scarborough decided to frame her statement:

Mika Brezinski: Going back to Nancy Pelosi, and you’re really good at this [looking at Scarborough], when you’ve lost something, you’ve lost something. I don’t understand how she can say ‘the Democrats won’ last night. You had Mark Warner who said very plainly said ‘we got walloped’. Why can’t they just… Why can’t ya just say it?[..]And Tim Kaine was spinning.

The last 5 House special elections have meant more votes for Pelosi. Why can’t she just say “we lost”? Because she won.

US Senator Mark Warner, former Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia should say “We”. We being the Democratic Party of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Along with current Virginia Governor Tim Kaine, who also happens to be DNC chair, they have to determine how a state which has elected two Democratic governors, went overwhelmingly for Obama a year ago went to someone as far right as McDonnell. They should start with the Virginia gubernatorial primary in which Terry McAuliffe carpetbagged his way into the race and resulted in the nomination of Creigh Deeds. Deeds was not a supporter of the President’s popular initiatives for health care reform and he

Tim Kaine, as DNC chair, also needs to look to the blue state of New Jersey where Jon Corzine lost his Governership to Chris Christie. Corzine let the race devolve along the standard New Jersey line: darkly tinted, sinister voice over, attack ads. The Democratic machine in NJ waited to long to wheel out Christie’s crooked political past and let him say he was going to clean up New Jersey.

That same DNC chair needs to question President Obama, who decided not to stump for NYC Comptroller Bill Thompson versus Mayor Michael Bloomberg. The same Mayor Bloomberg that endorsed George W. Bush for a second term before leaving the GOP for political expediency, won his bid for NYC Mayor, after getting City Council to circumvent the will of the citizens by throwing out Mayoral term limits, won the election with only 50.6% of the vote.

That same soon to be former Virginia Governor and civil rights attorney also needs to question where the election of the far right McDonnell leave incarceration in Virginia? Virginia spends more than most states on corrections because of inflexible sentencing guidelines for non-violent offenders, Tim Kaine’s measures were rejected and probably won’t be adopted by McDonnell.

Jane Hall doesn’t think MSNBC has any conservatives on. Of course Howard Kurtz doesn’t disagree.

HALL: No, I didn’t. The reason I left was in part because they’ve had less debates than they used to. It is a fair point to say how much debate is there on MSNBC? How many Republican strategists? We have a bifurcation of the media.

The proof doesn’t support Hall’s beliefs.
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The Obama Administration, Secretary of Defense Gates, Adm. Jones and Gen. Petraeus cannot be pleased with the General who is in charge of the “war of necessity” kneecapping the executive branches policy deliberations from lecterns in London. Senator Jim Webb puts the situation into the simple context of following the chain of command.


Eugene Robinson is on the same page as Webb:

McChrystal’s view — that a strategy employing fewer resources, in pursuit of more limited goals, would be “short-sighted” — is something the White House needs to hear. He is, after all, the man Obama put in charge in Afghanistan, and it would be absurd not to take his analysis of the situation into account. But McChrystal is out of line in trying to sell his position publicly, as he did last week in a speech in London.

via Eugene Robinson – Gen. McChrystal’s War of Words – washingtonpost.com.