EPISODE NUMBER: 8007 (October 19, 2011)
GUESTS: Ali Soufan | Carol Browner
SEGMENTS: Indecision 2012 - Herman Cain Canes the Unemployed | Indecision 2012 - Job-Killing EPA | Indecision 2012 - Job-Killing EPA - Carol Browner | Rush Limbaugh’s Christian Killing Accusations
SUIT REPORT: Navy pin striped suit | Light blue shirt | Light blue tie with navy horizontal stripes
VIDEOS: Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Pull up a seat and enjoy a tall, cool glass of Leadonade as we talk about this fine episode. Tonight’s ep featured a really cool 2 (and 3) -camera technique in the Herman Cain’s Caning segment. It is hard to sell a populist message and be a hardline conservative at the same time, and Stephen’s/ Team TCR’s deboning of that sensibility in that moment was pretty darn impressive.

I also love how Stephen plays lengthy Limbaugh radio excerpts, along with the long radio pauses, just to extend the comedic effect. I always try to imagine someone’s Dad or Grandad driving along, listening to this bloviating fine Limbaugh gentleman and his “researched” commentary on the world of politics. Such the opposite of our diligently plotted Colbert Report! Kind of scary on the mission statement comparisons of the Nazi party, etc., which seems so sane and reasonable…at first…

The Ali Soufan interview turned out to be really riveting. When he said, “I was there and [Cheney] wasn’t…” I just kind of got chills. I think the example of Mr. Soufan shows how the Bush era policy of “contracting” so much of the military’s initiatives, coupled with morally sketchy ideology of “enhanced interrogation,” led to monstrosities like water boarding, and diminished the work of people like Mr. Soufan, who seem to demonstrate the virtue of good old fashioned intelligence work. Okay, that was the longest sentence ever.

Enough of me, what did you all think of the episode? Please feel free to share in the comments.

Quotables

From the Intro:

Republicans debate in Vegas. Either that, or Cirque du Soleil is really phoning it in.

Should we abolish the EPA? 65% of Americans say (cough).

From the Herman Cain Caning segment:

There was a Republican debate last night, which caught me by surprise, because I was not aware that the previous debate had ended.

And of course, moderator and arctic cloud sprite Anderson Cooper….

And that message of hope is sure to rally the nation’s unemployed to Herman Cain, if they weren’t so g*ddamned lazy.

Yeah, Unemployed, you should be in front of the White House, blaming yourself for not having a job.

May I remind you, Wall Street has not cratered our economy in like 2 years. That’s ancient history. At this point who can remember who took worthless subprime mortgages, and knowingly bundled them as mortgage derivatives to be sold, rebundled, and then sold to pension funds an banks around the world, because this entire scheme was a castle made of sand and s**t, it inevitably collapsed, annihilating 17 trillion dollars of our national economy, centuries’ old financial institutions, and the life savings of untold millions of Americans. I can’t remember.

Because Herman Cain will fix the economy and get you a good job, because Herman Cain knows the buck stops with 9, 9, 9. These people understand.

From the EPA segment:

Just look at China: it’s in there someplace.

This job killing cemetery is murdering jobs and then burying them in itself. Jobs.

I have always hated the jack-booted Birkenstocks over at the E.P.A., ever since it was created by that bleeding heart liberal, Richard Nixon. Get a haircut, hippie!

And Ohio’s Cuyahoga River was so polluted it caught fire 11 times. Who knows what caused that? It could have been pollution. I personally think the trout torched it for the insurance money.

When something is clean you don’t need to clean it anymore; that’s why I sold my dishwasher, and my bidet.

From the EPA interview:

SC: We protected the air and the water, we cleaned it up. Now you’re just rubbing it in our faces by continuing to keep it clean.

Carol Browner: The EPA creates opportunities.

SC: No you do not. As soon as an employer is about to hand start paperwork to a new employee you slap it out of their hands.

SC: The Chinese are eating our lunch right now, because they can build factories and don’t have to worry about the cost of extra scrubbers, or extra safety for their workers…why do you want to hobble American factories? Why do you want to bind the feet of American factory owners?

CB: You’ve been to China right.
SC: I’ve been there many times.
CB: And you’ve breathed the air?
SC: No, I bring my own tank.

SC: That’s a job creator, if there’s more pollution, there’s more work for doctors who have to cure us of the diseases we get from things we eat and drink.

SC: You know what the air and water has done to us? Hurricanes and tornadoes. I say it’s time we fight back. I guess what I am trying to say is, we have come to point where we have to choose between jobs and clean water, that’s all these Republicans are saying.
CB: We don’t have to choose, and in fact, clean water can be good for our economy. Someone did a study…because of the Clean Air Act, 20 years, 2 trillion dollars in economic opportunity.
SC: I read another study that it cost 10 trillion dollars just to print EPA regulations. I read that someplace.

From the Rush Limbaugh segment:

Night after night I come out here, and I nail it. But when it comes to true punditry, I stand on the shoulders of true giants, like Rush Limbaugh. Actually, I stand on his back paunch. His shoulders are a little slopey.

Obama is wiping out Christians. He is not only a secret Muslim, he’s a secret lion.

Due Diligence always comes after accusing the President of killing Christians. That why it’s called re-search, if you do it before, it’s called pre-search.

..it’s also where Rush learned that the Lord’s Resistance Army broke up R.E.M.. and played “Booger” on Revenge of the Nerds.

As a broadcaster, I believe you have to trust what a organization says about itself on the internet.

Where do I send the donation check, ok…the “American Nazi Party.” Ok, we just learning about these Nazis, I hope I am pronouncing that correctly, we’ll do our due diligence research, and investigate the nasty rumors circulating about these folks.

I stand by the Bank of America….Oh my God! Oh no, Jimmy, Jimmy please, we got to edit this out, that is a career ender, they’ve got blood on their hands.

Interview Quotables

Ali Soufan: [A black banner] is what the Al Quaeda believe they are. It is a saying from the Prophet of Islam, the Prophet Muhammad-
SC: I know who that is, sounds like a good guy.
AS: -that the black banner will come…at the end of time for the battle of Armageddon, and Bin Laden made a lot of these people…believe they are part of this black banner myth that’s going to come at the end of time
SC: An apocalyptic vision.

SC: (After listing Mr. Soufan’s interrogation achievements) I assume that was all water boarding. Because enhanced interrogation is what got us the tips we needed to fight Al Quaeda.
AS: Actually none of this is because of enhanced interrogation techniques or water boarding.
For example Abu Zubaida…we started talking, and he gave actionable intelligence in the first hour of our interrogation with him.
SC: Yeah, but it wasn’t enough, because they eventually brought in an outside contractor who water boarded him 83 times, so if you were getting good information they wouldn’t have given him, the, you know, free swimming lessons.

AS: Where were you when I was on the front line?
SC: I was on the front line here, my friend, every night.

SC: You say you don’t need to use water boarding for any of that, but Vice President Cheney said, that enhanced interrogation, like water boarding, is how we got this information. Are you saying that he is not telling the truth.
AS: Well, I am saying, I was there, and he wasn’t. And I am saying that I am the only one in the U.S. government who gave a statement under oath about the alleged efficacy of enhanced interrogation.

SC:…you’re saying that Dick Cheney is not telling the truth. And I know the only way to get the truth out of him.

SC: An American citizen without a trial gets kabloned up over in Yemen because he’s on the “Kill or Capture” list.
AS: Stephen, I don’t like to discriminate based on nationality, if you declare war on the United States, and you want to kill us, we are going to kill you first, period.
SC: (audience erupts into cheers) I like these people. If you are on the “Kill or Capture” list how do you get off, and I’m just asking for a friend.
AS: I think one day… a drone takes you off the list.
SC: There’s only really one exit.
AS: It’s like the “Hotel California.”