The epitome of disingenuous journalism.

I have no problem watching a show presenting ideas with which I disagree.  But I am on the lookout for bad logic, bad procedure, lying and disingenuousness.  Greta Van Susteren nabs some pretty influential guests (whatever you may think of their policies), and one would think the show would be informative for that reason.  I don't watch it all the time, so I will not make a general statement about the show.  But I've begun to notice a pattern of disingenuousness that this clip from December 4 takes to an extreme.  First, instead of asking her guest, Rick Santorum, his opinion of POTUS' fiscal cliff offer, she asks Santorum to argue in favor of the deal.  This is a classic straw man--of course Santorum is not going to give the strongest version of the argument (he likely doesn't know it).  So, knocking it over should be a piece of cake.  A conversation regarding Santorum's position would have been interesting and informative--asking him to defend it is a cheap attempt and the trappings of fairness.  In addition, Van Susteren had the chance to correct Santorum on an obvious error.  When he discussed filibuster reform, he claimed that POTUS wanted to "change the rules of the senate to make 51 votes all that is necessary to pass a bill in the US senate."  Regardless of how you feel about filibuster reform, this would not represent a change--this is the current rule in the senate.  The filibuster is the exception to that rule.  Again, a discussion as to why Santorum is not in favor of filibuster reform would have been interesting--but not if it is firmly founded on a falsehood.

Mitch McConnell, worst negotiator ever!

As I've noted many times in recent weeks, the debt ceiling is a chimera.  Actually, it's not just a chimera, it's a chimera that was created by the US and that legislators are using to scare the public.  POTUS and Tim Geithner have now inserted the debt ceiling into the fiscal cliff talks.  The response of Greta Van Susteren and Sarah Palin was to compare such an eventuality as giving debt ceiling responsibility to POTUS to giving him a limitless credit card.  This was an incredibly uninformed response, but neither here nor there since neither of these women is a policy maker or legislator.  However, this week Mitch McConnell chimed in with the same (false) analogy:

The analogy is, of course, demonstrably false, and we should assume that McConnell knows it's false.  So why would he make such a claim?  It's part of the pissing contest over the fiscal cliff.  It simply looks bad to give your opponent anything, no matter how insignificant.  This is a terrible tactic for negotiating.  If you have something entirely meaningless (both to yourself and in itself) that someone else wants, and for which someone else will give you something in exchange, you take that deal--that is a successful negotiation.  What McConnell is doing is more akin to throwing a tantrum.

Debt ceiling, again.

I've posted recently about the debt ceiling--this week Greta Van Susteren interviewed Sarah Palin regarding the fiscal cliff and the debt ceiling.  Both reacted to Timothy Geithner's request that the task of reviewing and raising the debt ceiling be given to the president.  Palin and Van Susteren agreed that that would be tantamount to giving president Obama a credit card with no limit.  Now Boehner and Fox News are showing their indignation over Giethner's suggestion.  "Congress is never going to give up this power," the House Speaker told Fox News Sunday.  Boehner doesn't understand the debt ceiling any more than Van Susteren or Palin.  First, it is not a power, it's a responsibility--the US gains nothing by raising the debt ceiling (except that we guard our credit rating); we do not get more money out of the situation.  Second, congress already shirked this responsibility (which resulted in a downgrade of the credit rating of the US).  

Debt ceiling-what it's not.

It's not a credit card with no limit, as Greta Van Susteren and Sarah Palin suggest toward the end of this video.  Van Susteren's outrage (shared by Palin) over the idea that POTUS might take over the responsibility of raising the debt ceiling (subject to approval by congress) is incredibly mis-informed.  Raising the debt ceiling is largely a matter of optics--congress regularly reviews (and raises) the ceiling simply to remind themselves of how much they owe (of our money) before they think of borrowing more.  Whether or not the US can borrow more money has absolutely nothing to do with the debt ceiling--though if the international community of lenders sees that we are so irresponsible as to not review and raise our debt ceiling, they may be disinclined to lend to us.  In addition, the idea of taking the debt ceiling review out of the hands of congress was suggested my Mitch McConnell in 2011.

As far as the first half of the video, Leno is being held up as the only example of a journalist over at CBS with enough balls to call for answers regarding who changed the talking points on Benghazi before Ambassador Rice went on air.  Unfortunately, Leno's balls are not as impressive as his tardiness--the intelligence community has already indicated that they were responsible.  Maybe Leno missed the same meeting McCain missed.