IN RE AMBASSADOR SUSAN RICE: Brian Williams has a lot of explaining to do!

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 2012

Chuck Todd should be off the air: You can’t say we didn’t tell you!

Yesterday afternoon, we told you what Rachel Maddow would do, now that President Obama had stoutly defended Susan Rice.

This would free our team’s biggest faker to speak, we incomparably told you. And sure enough! Four hours later, the whole world saw we were right!

After two months of ducking and dodging—two months in which The One True Channel left Rice twisting in the wind—Maddow and her horrible stablemates suddenly leaped to Rice’s defense.

Now that Obama had spoken, they were free to defend Rice too! Gone was the fear that they might seem shrill if they got out over their skis! If they challenged the endless misstatements which have been made about Rice.

Now that they were free to speak, the children spoke to their heart’s content. Rachel fawned and emoted all through last night’s program. One hour later, Lawrence even staged one of his trademark, I’m-crazier-than-you-think, name-calling, low-IQ rants.

Has anyone even been more fraudulent than these manifest hacks?

Last night, the confection was general on MSNBC. Elsewhere, reporters walked a careful line on this two-month-old matter.

They've had plenty of time to look at the transcripts and the tapes. So how about it?

Did Susan Rice really say something wrong when she appeared on those Sunday programs? All over the dial, broadcasters sought the middle ground last night, producing some deeply horrible moments.

No one behaved more badly than NBC’s Chuck Todd, our old friend from the Hotline era.

Todd has a lot of explaining to do concerning last night’s performance. So does Brian Williams, managing editor of the NBC Nightly News—a hustler who clawed his way to the top by slandering the Clintons and Gore during the Jack Welch era.

(David and Joan won’t discuss that.)

Early in last evening’s program, Williams interviewed Todd about Obama’s press conference. Incredibly, this is what NBC viewers were told about Susan Rice.

Here’s what Rice said on September 16, NBC viewers were told:

TODD (11/14/12): The real fireworks came when the president was asked about negative comments from Republican Senators on the possibility that U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice could become secretary of state.

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (videotape): But we’ll do whatever is necessary to block the nomination that’s within our power as far as Susan Rice is concerned.

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (videotape): I don’t trust her. And the reason I don’t trust her is because I think she knew better. And if she didn’t, she should not be the voice of America.

TODD: Graham was referring to Rice’s appearance on Meet the Press days after the Benghazi attack.

RICE (videotape): But this is a spontaneous reaction to a video.

TODD: Today, the president was visibly angry.

OBAMA: If Senator John McCain and Senator Graham and others want to go after somebody, they should go after me. But for them to go after the U.N. ambassador, who had nothing to do with Benghazi, and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received, and to besmirch her reputation, is outrageous.

TODD: Overall, though, he was congenial and even reflective.

Brian Williams should stand and explain why that was allowed on the air.

In that cherry-picked quote from Susan Rice, Todd conveyed a flagrant false impression. He gave the impression that Rice said the attack on the Benghazi consulate was “a spontaneous reaction to a video.”

Viewers saw her saying those very words, right there on NBC Nightly News! For the record, the presentation perfectly comports with the slanders advanced by John McCain, who has lost what's left of his his mind in the course of this ugly affair.

But that cherry-picked video clip was grossly deceptive. It’s time for Brian Williams to emerge from his perfumed limousine and explain why he allowed this deception to run on his air.

It’s true—Susan Rice did speak those words on September 16. She spoke those words on Meet the Press, just as Todd said.

Here’s the problem: Rice wasn’t referring to the attack in Benghazi when she made that statement. Chuck Todd should be taken off the air until he and Williams can explain how this deception occurred.

Ambassador Rice did speak those words on September 16. But this is the fuller context from which Todd and Williams cherry-picked that grossly deceptive statement:

GREGORY (9/16/12): Joining me now for the very latest, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice. Ambassador Rice, welcome back to Meet the Press.

RICE: Thank you, good to be here.

GREGORY: The images, as you well know, are jarring to Americans watching all of this play out this week, and we'll share the map of all of this turmoil with our viewers to show the scale of it across not just the Arab world but the entire Islamic world, and flashpoints as well.

In Egypt, of course, the protests outside the U.S. Embassy there that Egyptian officials were slow to put down. This weekend in Pakistan, protests as well there. More anti-American rage, also protests against the drone strikes. In Yemen, you also had arrests and some deaths outside of our U.S. Embassy there.

How much longer can Americans expect to see these troubling images and these protests go forward?

RICE: Well, David, we can't predict with any certainty, but let's remember what has transpired over the last several days. This is a response to a hateful and offensive video that was widely disseminated throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

Obviously, our view is that there is absolutely no excuse for violence, and that what has happened is condemnable. But this is a spontaneous reaction to a video, and it's not dissimilar but perhaps on a slightly larger scale than what we have seen in the past with The Satanic Verses, with the cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.

Rice had been asked about “this turmoil,” turmoil which was occurring “across not just the Arab world but the entire Islamic world.” She had been asked about the turmoil in Egypt, Pakistan, Yemen.

Benghazi hadn't been mentioned yet. That isn't what she was discussing.

Rice was responding to Gregory’s question about that turmoil, the turmoil which was occurring “across the entire Islamic world.” It was those demonstrations to which she referred when she accurately said, “But this is a spontaneous reaction to a video.”

Last night, Todd cherry-picked that short statement by Rice. Falsely, NBC viewers were told that this was Rice's account of the attack on the Benghazi consulate.

Brian Williams just sat there and took it. This horrible climber needs to stand and explain why he allowed this.

In the last month, we’ve shown you a lot of cherry-picking when it comes to statements by Rice. As we did, multimillionaire hustlers like Maddow hid in their well-appointed caverns, deeply afraid they might sound shrill if they got over their skis.

Careers hung in the balance!

Last night, Maddow began to emote; Lawrence staged one of his crazy-man rants. But on the mother ship’s nightly news program, Todd performed the most egregious cherry-pick we have seen to date.

The career liberal world will ignore this misconduct. Reason? It always does!

Regular liberals will sit and stew. We fiery liberals don’t say squat until our “leaders” have said it first. Reason? We’re ditto-heads too!

That said, Chuck Todd should be off the air until he explains this remarkable moment. Brian Williams, who slandered his way to the top when Jack Welch was in charge of this circus, needs to come out of his aerie today and explain how this could have happened.

We’ll show you other such moments today. This deception by Todd was the worst.

Final thought: Yesterday, we showed you Michael Moynihan's recent odd statement. Journalists lose their careers for this sort of thing, Moynihan weirdly said.