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Sept. 7, 2013 - Jimmy Dore Show
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Get ready for an outstanding entertainment program, the Jimmy Dore Show.
In another rush to war, the media trotted out, predictably, all the experts who are expert at getting us into Iraq.
Hey, I'm just saying, sure, Iraq eventually, everything worked out, aside from the permanent chaos and bloodshed.
Here's a short list of some of the experts I saw on TV whose opinions were sought out by the media.
Donald Rumsfeld, the experts expert on military fiascos.
Rumsfeld's been trying to say that Obama's indecisive on Syria.
Yeah, while Bush was such a decisive leader, he invaded Iraq and fought there for 10 years on false information.
Hey, if Donald Rumsfeld's not your taste, I also saw that bleeding heart warmonger Thomas Friedman interviewed.
Or there's Bill Crystal, who, when talking about war, always brings a smile to his face.
Or there was the twitchy man baby, General Michael Hayden, a pro-torture surveillance contractor lobbyist who doesn't believe in civil liberties.
We also saw Joel Lieberman talking about Syria.
Keep in mind, Joel Lieberman, not only wrong about Iraq, but was a Democrat who campaigned against Obama.
So a huge dick.
They also actually sought out George W. Bush's opinion on Syria.
I have to say he is an expert on really bad interventions that seemed like they were going to be easy.
When he was interviewed, he said he wasn't a, quote, fan of Assad.
Yeah, Mr. President, you weren't a fan of Saddam either.
So you orchestrated the world's most expensive assassination.
Shouldn't George Bush only be interviewed if we want to know what not to do?
It's the Jimmy Dore Show.
The show for...
...the kind of people that are...
Convince me on tearing down our nation.
It's the show that makes Anderson Cooper save.
It's hard to talk to TV.
And now, here's a guy who sounds a lot like me.
It's Jimmy Dore!
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to this week's episode.
It's kind of a special episode where, as you know, I'm writing a book.
And so we have to take care of that.
So we're not in the studio today.
We have a special guest on the phone.
We have Mark Van Landuit, hilarious comedian writer for the Jimmy Dore show.
We're going to talk about Syria.
And then what's going to come up later is we're going to talk about Bob Schieffer's shameful interview with the NSA, former NSA Chief General Hayden.
So it was a pretty horrible, we're going to get phone calls today from Benjamin Netanyahu and John Boehner and a lot more.
Hey, you know what?
Let's get to some of the jokes before we get to the jokes.
You know, there's a lot of shows are premiering right now on, but the cable news keeps airing these reruns from 10 years ago.
Let's go to war and everything will be fine.
Have you seen that?
But you know what?
I'm not worried because we had the assurance from Barack Obama and John Kerry that the attack on Syria will be limited.
So make sure your welcome home troops banners are ready no later than 2023.
That's right.
2023.
You see, Obama is seeking congressional approval to bomb Syria as the United States Constitution mandates.
Talk about un-American.
But it's nice to know that John Kerry is certain that we have a reason to bomb Syria.
As certain as he was when he voted for invading Iraq.
And oh, wait a minute.
Hey, I don't know if you see Anthony Weiner got in a screaming match with a Jewish voter in front of a New York City bakery.
Did you see that happen?
I saw that.
Yeah, it was kind of wild.
It's all part of his preview of his stop and vetch policy.
I liked how Weiner was yelling at the guy, who are you to judge me?
Who are you to judge me?
Well, I think I'm a New York voter.
Yeah, that would be exactly a good point, Mark.
Okay, so that's what's coming up on today's show.
We're going to talk about the Syria thing.
I wasn't...
I got to tell you, here's what I don't understand.
Why does...
Why does this bother Barack Obama?
Why are we doing this now?
And so I kept thinking, wait a minute, there's no oil in Syria.
Then we find out.
Didn't we find out something, Mark?
We found out that...
There's a hell of a lot of pipelines that want to go.
So there's Qatar or Qatar.
They're the biggest producer of liquid natural gas, correct?
And so they wanted to send a pipeline that went through Syria so they could bring natural gas to Europe.
Well, Syria said no, no thank you, right?
So Syria was going to get a pipeline from Iran that went through Iraq and through Syria to Western Europe, right?
So Saudi Arabia doesn't want that to happen.
Cotter doesn't want that to happen.
And it looks like the United States does not want that to happen either.
It looks like the United States doesn't want that to happen.
So by the way, that's not being reported.
Very quietly, it's being reported.
I haven't seen it reported anywhere in the mainstream media.
Have you seen it reported anywhere?
Just in the UK papers, The Guardian and The New Statesman.
That's the only people I've seen talk about.
Yes, but like they're not even really talking about, like, it's kind of buried in The Guardian, isn't it?
It is.
Yeah, so that's, why isn't that a front page story?
So.
Well, I don't want, I think we don't want to think we're going to war for oil again.
That just bums everyone out.
I guess it does.
I guess it just bums everybody out.
And people don't know that what started this, got this all started, was there was a drought in Syria.
There's been a drought since 2006.
So 75% of their crops failed.
Farmers quit farming.
They came into the cities.
There was unemployment.
There was a lack of food.
And then all of a sudden, there was people protesting.
And Assad, the genius that he is, overreacted and was too brutal with the people.
And so they started rioting.
And then all these outside groups saw this as a chance to get in there and overthrow Assad.
And people, by the way, funded by Saudi Arabia, a lot of them, right?
So, and a lot of them are al-Qaeda, by the way.
So I can't believe, like, if we strike against Assad, who we're helping is Al-Qaeda.
The fractious fractions include many Islamist jihadists.
Yes.
They're usually spilling over from the chaos that's in Iraq.
The chaos in Syria is because of the chaos in Iraq.
And yes, these are the same.
If they're not exactly Al-Qaeda, they are certainly sympathetic to the Al-Qaeda anti-secular, anti-Western ethos.
So once again, just like in Afghanistan, we're going to be supporting our future enemies.
Yes.
We're back to square one.
Yes, we are back to.
So I wanted to make those points.
I wanted to let people know that, wow, it turns out it is about, well, it's not oil, it's natural gas, right?
So versus unnatural gas.
Yes.
So you're going to.
I haven't heard that story.
I've read about it right in The Guardian.
So and I just don't.
I just can't believe anybody believes that this is about Barack Obama being upset.
And we have to enforce our norms, right?
We have to enforce international norms.
Well, isn't one of the international norms is against war crimes like torture?
Why don't we enforce those norms, right?
But we didn't because we're harboring two war criminals in our own, or a couple, right?
Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George Bush.
They can't travel internationally because they're war criminals.
So this isn't about upholding norms because we're not upholding the norms right here in our own country.
When people commit war crimes here, we ignore them.
They cannot travel internationally, but they can appear in any TV news show that they wish to as experts.
As experts.
So that's my whole point: is that this can't be about upholding international law because you don't care.
You let them, you let people who committed war crimes get away with it.
Wasn't it a war crime to invade Iraq illegally against the UN?
It was.
So why didn't so does would that mean that Syria would be able to legally launch missiles at our country, not to start a war, but to send us a message not to invade countries anymore?
Jimmy, you're ignoring the exceptional nature of America.
We're above the rules.
So this is all crazy, right?
And the fact that people can get behind lefties, I've seen plenty of progressives.
I'm going to play this thing from the I was on the Young Turks last night, and we had this discussion.
I'm going to play it.
And it was with Jenk Uger and Ben Mankiewicz from Turner Classic Movies, the young guy.
I always have to say that.
And it was, you know, these guys, I think, are really quality thinkers and progressives.
Yet I found myself having to explain this to them.
And so I'm going to play that now.
And, you know, it just doesn't make sense if you say that this is about enforcing international norms.
And this doesn't make any sense.
Because then we're supposed to, while we still have Guantanamo open, we can't fix that, but we're going to somehow fix Syria with some missiles.
If that's all it takes to fix things, why don't we just bomb Guantanamo?
Wouldn't that fix it?
So none of this makes sense.
So, okay.
So, Mark, thanks for taking time out to talk to us.
And I think we explained my, I think that I wanted to give some information.
I'm not hearing anywhere else.
And now we'll get to the discussion.
So we'll get to our phone call with Benjamin Netanyahu.
And then we're going to listen to our discussion that I had on the Young Turks.
And then we're going to have from John Boehner.
And then we're going to get to the horrible job that Bob Schaefer did with the NSA.
Woo-hoo!
I'll see you next time.
So now let's get to my phone call with Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu.
Happy Rosh Hashanah, Jimmy.
Oh, right back at you.
Oh, wait a minute.
Are you Jewish?
No, I'm not.
Okay, then fuck you.
Okay, listen, Ben, a lot of people think that the...
Bibi, a lot of people think that there's ulterior motives to the president's planned attack on Syria, that it's not really about these chemical weapons.
What?
What are you talking about?
This is from what I understand, it's completely for humanitarian reasons.
Well, you know, over 6 million people have been killed in the Congo in the last, I don't know, 10 years.
I really don't.
My point is, I don't really think this is about Barack Obama caring about the couple of hundred or a thousand people.
Six million.
Well, that is too many.
Yes.
So, I mean, this doesn't pass the smell test for me, BB.
Come on.
All of a sudden, he cares about this.
That's not what this is about.
Do you know anything about this pipeline?
What pipeline?
Oh, boy.
You don't know that Cotter wanted to put a pipeline for natural gas through Syria so it could get natural gas to Western Europe.
Who told you about this?
I read about it on the internet.
I bet your wife would like some nice dresses.
Why don't you go down right down that hallway?
Go on, go on.
No, no, they're really nice.
Just keep going.
Keep going.
Right, right, right in there.
Right in there.
You know, if this is about chemical weapons being used, I'm pretty sure the United States used chemical weapons in Fallujah.
And didn't Israel use chemical weapons?
Phosphorus bombs on the Polestim.
I know.
It's hilarious.
It's ridiculous that people believe any of this.
That people believe that this is actually.
Your biggest ally, Israel in the Middle East.
Use phosphorus bombs for innocent people.
If this has to do with chemical weapons, this is hilarious.
You people are so stupid.
So this has more to do with Iran, right?
This is all about sending a message to Iran because Syria and Iran are.
We have to stand up to Iran.
See, that's what this is about.
Yeah, I do it.
And you know what?
Everybody seems to...
Everybody seems to pretend.
Up on my watch.
Why does everybody forgetting that the United States didn't have any problem with chemical weapons when Saddam was using them against Iran and using them against the he didn't have any problem with it?
But I know.
You're right.
You people are so stupid.
I can't believe anyone buys this.
The American people are thinking this has to do with dead Arabs all of a sudden.
We are concerned with dead Arabs in your country.
Yes, that's always been a grave concern.
And not because I made a phone call.
Actually, it's very simple.
I don't even have to get on the phone anymore.
I just, there's a map in the Oval Office of the world.
And I touch a button here and the country lights up on the map that I want you guys to bomb.
Well, it's pretty amazing.
Syria turns red, and then they know, all right.
I have an app on my mobile phone that doesn't know.
It's a great new app.
It's called Bombsa.
Wherever I am, I just touch boop.
Syria lights up.
So how do you see this ending up?
So you think the United States is going to go ahead and bomb Syria.
And then even though they say it's not an act of war, how could anyway?
And then.
What makes you think you have the clearance for me to tell you how this is going to end up?
I don't, you know what?
Just between me and you, Bibi.
Oh, really?
Yeah.
Well, you know how...
Basically, I'll put it in a way you can understand.
You know how all of the Marvel Universe properties for Iron Man, the Incredible Hulk, they had their own movies, and they all introduced Nick Fury.
All of that over a five-year period was basically leading up to the Avengers, the super movie.
All of the pieces were being put in place, Captain America, all of this.
Well, that's what we're doing bit by bit to go to war with Iran.
War with Iran is the Avengers of Middle Eastern wars.
I think I follow you.
Okay, so you're putting...
Oh, okay.
I got you.
Okay.
This isn't all for you, Jimmy.
I understand you're communicating with my audience.
I got you.
So, yes, there is going to be a big war with Iran, and that will end the threats to Israel once and for all.
Hello?
But if you're on, but if you're on the side of the, you know, but it seems like a lose-lose over there, Bibi, because, you know, on one hand, you got Assad, right?
But on the other hand, you have the authority.
Oh, but he is in league with Hezbollah.
Assad is?
Yes.
And he is the client state of Iran.
So he is dirty business and has got to go.
So you think that if you get rid of Assad, that you'll be able to put in some kind of a puppet government in Syria?
I don't care what happens there.
I don't even care what happens to Palestinians on my own front step.
What do I care about these other Arabs?
You know what I don't get is I understand how George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld could be so stupid to not be able to foresee that evading Iraq would actually have the opposite consequence, that it would make Iran stronger.
But you would think Israel would know that, right?
Because George Bush didn't know the difference between the Sunni and the Shia.
But you would think Israel would know that.
So why didn't Israel tell George Bush to stay the hell out of Iraq?
Because they knew what was going to happen.
Because we are playing for a longer game than they are.
We see all of this.
We know what the commitment is.
Of course we wanted to destabilize Iraq, to make Iran more powerful, to make them a threat worthy of being attacked.
Oh, you guys do play a long game.
Yes.
How about that?
Not bad.
Pretty badass, no?
Yes, that is pretty badass.
Way to go.
Yes.
Everybody can come suck my dick now.
You're welcome.
Well, Jimmy, I have to let you go.
I'm going to be fed olives and grapes by Palestinian slave boys for about an hour.
It's a weekly thing.
Okay, BB.
Thanks very much, buddy.
for being our puppets the jimmy door show is available as a podcast for free on iTunes or for other ways to subscribe go to jimmydoorcomedy.com and while you're there you can listen to past episodes and you can comment on them too remember Jimmy spells his last name D-O-R-E JimmyDoorcomedy.com
so i wanted to take you to a discussion i had on the young turks network you know i do the jimmy door show on the young turks network which is started by cenk uger who uh the young turks which is the largest
online news show in the world over a billion views so it's a big show and we were on there it was i was on there with cenk uger and john adiotal and ben mankowitz from turner classic movies the young guy and we were talking about syria and the chemical weapons and i think all three of those guys are very progressive minded they're very good thinkers and i couldn't believe that i had to convince them uh that the strike was a bad idea anyway
i wanted to play that conversation i had with them uh for you now uh because it's always interesting more interesting when people don't agree 100 percent than when they do so let me play that for you now and you'll get to see how i feel about this on more than you already do know and uh you get to see what some other progressives think of it so let's get to uh the conversation i had with cenk uger johnny idearola and
ben mankowitz okay so jimmy you're psyched about this yeah yeah we're going to syria i can't wait i think it's we have to stand up to evil we can't let it stand there's international norms we have to
have to make sure it's to you know Jimmy if we don't stand up to evil evil will think we're a pussy that's right yeah you guys so I'm curious Jimmy that you that this doesn't accomplish much and hence what's the point but uh does that mean that if it did accomplish more you'd be in favor of it or no like so you're against it under all circumstances under all circumstances,
I'm against it because it's just more war and there's no reason to it.
Certainly not the reason they're giving us.
I have a hard time believing that Barack Obama gives a shit about the civilians in Syria.
I really don't think he cares.
And because if he did care, if that was really the solitmas test of innocent people, why aren't we bombing North Korea?
Why aren't we bombing?
Because we can't.
Isn't that fair?
Look, I'm going to take you guys on on that.
Okay, because so we can't bomb Russia if Russia uses chemical weapons because we don't want to start World War III.
You're right, absolutely, right?
Okay, but why don't we take the low-lying fruit?
Okay, like send a message wherever we practically can.
So North Korea, I'd love to decapitate all the leaders in North Korea and set that country free, but we might lose sole South Korea and millions of people within the world.
We can't do it, right?
And if we can do it in Syria and help some people, well, okay, that's a good place to start.
Well, the reason why you can't selectively enforce the law is because it breeds disrespect and contempt for the law.
So if you're trying to uphold international law selectively, you're doing the exact opposite.
You're undermining international law.
So if you wanted to really set a line, you would have went after Israel for using phosphorus in Gaza.
You would have gone after the United States for using phosphorus in Fallujah.
If you wanted to, if you cared about international norms, you would have maybe bombed America because we illegally invaded Iraq and a million people were killed, displaced, other millions, countless.
How many thousands of innocent people were killed in that?
That was an illegal war.
We lied about it.
Where's our what?
If nobody kept us in check, somehow we have to still keep other people in check.
I said it yesterday, you can't have Tony Soprano giving out parking tickets.
It doesn't fucking work.
Yeah, but if you, but here's the, yes, it's totally hypocritical, but then we're paralyzed and can't do anything.
And if Tony Soprano is elected sheriff, he's going to hand out parking tickets.
Okay.
I disagree.
I think we could start being consistent.
I think we could stop torturing people in Guantanamo.
I think we could stop torturing people in our own prison systems.
There's a lot of inhumane shit happening right here that we could fix first.
Why do we got to do this?
Because that's not what it's about, you guys.
You guys keep pretending you think this is about chemical weapons?
It's so ridiculous.
I don't know what it's about.
I have to speculate because the government is lying.
A lot of people said, well, this is a sentence because of Iran.
We have to send a message because Iran might try something or North Korea.
We have to send a message.
And I'm like, so this isn't about this.
And so now we have to kill other innocent people to send the message that you're not supposed to kill innocent people in a worse way.
It's just so backwards.
I can't believe that I have to argue this point.
I think you're right on the second half, which is that it's crazy that we have to kill innocent people to send the message that we shouldn't kill innocent people.
And I think that that's it.
I don't know what the message is, and I don't think there's some here.
I don't see it.
No one's presented it to me.
You haven't presented it here either, which you even said you don't know.
But like, I don't get why it would be, except for the reasons.
I just think those reasons, and so do you, those reasons don't have, those reasons aren't strong enough.
I think that when we live in a world where 100,000 civilians are killed in Syria, right, or 100,000 killed in Syria, many of them combatants, but many of them civilians, right?
Most, almost certainly not.
And then for two years, that goes on, and we live in a world where Wolf Blitzer gets to ask on CNN, why don't you think anybody cares about Syria?
Like, well, you don't talk about it.
Nobody talks about it.
Nobody talks about it.
Nobody showed us those bodies.
Then we get a moment where chemical weapons are used and we see the bodies and we have this reaction.
Inconsistent as it may be, people reacted differently to that because they saw it.
And all of a sudden, there was intense coverage of Syria.
My hunch is if we'd had that kind of coverage, if we'd seen 400 dead babies on month three killed by a missile strike or executed in a room, then maybe there would have been a movement to attack them.
So why don't we go to the international court?
We don't have a right.
We don't prosecute them.
This is a crime.
So why don't we prosecute them?
Why don't we put out a warrant for his arrest, Assad's arrest?
Why don't we do it like that, like the rest of the world does against Dick Cheney and George Bush because they're war criminals.
That's why they can't travel internationally.
Why don't we do it that way?
So let me build off of Ben's point.
So Jimmy, if you're saying we've been hypocritical in the past.
In the current, right now.
In the very, very recent past.
Right, currently.
I agree with it.
Yeah, I agree.
Of course, I agree with you, right?
That's not the sensible position.
That's the correct position.
It's a matter based on facts.
Okay, you're right about that.
But by the same point that Ben was making during the civil rights movement, we could have said, I mean, you're telling me that the country that has enslaved these people, that has oppressed them, that has segregated them, that has done all this stuff, oh, now you're going to trust them to do civil rights?
Well, you got to start somewhere.
Yes, you're right.
We were a giant hypocrite and we were terrible, etc.
And part of the reason, you know, look, this is goofy because I just saw the butler and it had this scene in it.
But JFK in that movie says, I didn't know this was my country.
And to put the movie aside, a lot of people saw that kind of vicious racism for the first time.
Vicious.
I mean, they've seen other forms of racism throughout, right?
But in the North, the West, et cetera, they're like, oh, my God, look at what they're doing to those people.
It's the first time they saw it on tape.
So it changed them.
So is it possible this is the same where we actually see the dead kids and it changes opinion a little bit?
Plus, this is the beginning to fixing our hypocrisy.
First of all, no one thinks this is going to solve the problem.
No one thinks this is going to stop him from using chemical weapons again.
Yet we're still going to do it.
I think some people think that.
I think that I think that if we impartially enough for using it, it could dissuade him from using it in the future.
How many innocent people do you have to kill to make that happen?
And of course, that's the question.
How many innocent people do you have to kill to send a message that killing innocent people is wrong?
And of course, that's a great point made by me.
So that's why I'm double emphasizing it.
Okay, we're going to get back to a little bit more of that conversation.
It's kind of interesting, right, that I'm on a panel full of quote-unquote progressives.
And here I am having to remind them that progressives are supposed to be skeptical of the government when they say we need to bomb someone for humanitarian reasons.
Okay, so that's, if you're a progressive, you should be a little bit more skeptical.
I mean, Barack Obama, the whole government's been lying to us non-stop since 9-11, including Barack Obama.
You know, I mean, we all know what the NSA, we all know.
Anyway, you know, you want to launch a missile to fix a humanitarian problem.
Why don't we launch a missile at Guantanamo Bay?
I mean, if that's how you fix moral grievances, right?
When someone is doing something immoral, you launch a missile, some cruise missiles, and that fixes it.
So we got more of that conversation coming up.
Actually, John Boehner, who supports the president in bombing Syria for humanitarian reasons, we have him on the phone.
He's going to call in in the second half.
Plus, we're going to get to that Bob Schieffer interviewing General Hayden and the horrible, despicable job of quote-unquote journalism he did with him.
That's all coming up in the second half of today's show.
Right now, we're up against a break.
This is the Jimmy Doer Show.
We'll be right back in one minute.
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All right, let's get back to the second half of the show.
Hey, welcome back to the Jimmy Door show.
We got a lot coming up in the second half.
We're going to get back to our discussion I had with Jenk Uger and Ben Mankowicz and Johnny Idirola with the Young Turks Network.
We were talking about Syria and whether we should go in and bomb people for humanitarian reasons.
And I'm playing this because I find it shocking and surprising and indicative of what's wrong with the debate in America that I was on a panel with three other progressives who bought the government's line, hookline, and sinker about going in and bombing people in Syria because we're upset over chemical weapons and war crimes.
And of course, you know, my position is if we're so upset against war about war crimes, don't you think we would have prosecuted the two biggest war criminals in the world, George Bush and Dick Cheney, for illegally invading Iraq, which is a war crime, ordering torture, which is a war crime, you know.
So it was kind of disheartening to hear this conversation, but let's get back to it.
I fight the good fight.
Plus, in the second half hour of today's show, we're going to hear from John Boehner.
He weighs in on why he's supporting the president in bombing Syria.
And we're going to hear from Bob Schaefer and his horrible interview with the former head of the NSA, General Hayden.
Okay, so let's get back to the studio.
We're talking about Syria, the bombing with Jenk Uger from the Young Turks Network, Ben Mankiewicz from Turner Classic Movies, and Johnny Idirola, the host of TYT University.
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Yeah.
Jimmy, I got to ask you this.
Okay.
So is there any red line for you?
So if we don't bomb them, right?
And Assad goes, great, there's a green light, man.
I mean, hold on, hold on.
So he thinks, okay, well, they're not going to do anything.
And he's right.
We're not going to do anything, right?
So he says, okay, well, if I got free reign and these guys have been a pain in my ass for two and a half years, that's it.
I'm going to only share and guess on all of them, okay?
So last time I killed 1,400, this time I'm going to kill 140,000 with chemical weapons, and nobody's going to do a goddamn thing about it.
Do you, I mean, so what's your take on that?
One, that won't happen.
Two, that's not on us.
These are legitimate positions, right?
But I'm curious what your take on it is.
And is there any line where you would say, all right, let's come on.
We got to do something.
Well, this idea that the answer to a war crime is more war is what I'm rejecting.
So I don't think you saying, is there any, can Assad do anything so horrible that you would okay some missile strikes?
Isn't there another way to handle a war crime?
Aren't you supposed to go to an international court?
Don't you go to the UN?
Wait, wait, let's just say, don't you go to the UN and you try to get the UN, but you try to rally the world.
Aren't there nonviolent ways to deal with this first?
Or you just immediately, even before the UN has its report in, you just go ahead and we got to bomb these guys.
So this rush to war is so ridiculous.
And if you go in, you can't go in alone.
You have to go in with the world.
That's just the way it is, Jenk.
I mean, unless you, because I don't think that's why they're going in, Jenk.
And if you think they're going in for chemicals, I'll have to respect that.
But I don't think that that's why they're going in.
Okay, so listen, I do think they're going in for chemical weapons because they have no interest in Syria.
They let that war fester and 100,000 people die for two and a half years because there's no oil in Syria and they don't give a damn about Syria.
And that's what we've been saying here all this time.
And that's what you've agreed to and a lot of progressives have agreed to.
Now, all of a sudden, what changed the equation?
The chemical weapons changed the equation.
Now, Jimmy, you make really valid points.
And I think maybe one thing that we can achieve some consensus on is, look, I don't think there's a peaceful way of doing it.
It's like, hey, Assad, we're not going to send you flowers anymore.
That's not going to get the job done.
But if you said, hey, listen, we're going to follow the law to the, we're going to follow it to the letter of the law.
Okay, so meaning we're going to take a vote, but we're going to wait until the UN comes in with its report so that we have proper evidence.
I'm with you.
Okay.
Now, President Obama did the right thing asking for congressional authorization.
That swung me in a big way.
I thought that was the right thing to do.
It was very, very important.
If he hadn't done that, I was 100% against it.
Okay.
Now, number three is you could then go to the UN and the UN might vote no.
And the Security Council would vote no.
Unquestionably, Russia and China would vote no.
Then we say, hey, we tried, and they said no.
Now, Assad would view that as a green light.
And he dropped, my guess is he dropped chemical weapons again.
We go to the UN again.
And at some point, Russia and China might say, you guys are right.
He's done this too many times.
Maybe we got to go.
Maybe.
But, you know, Jimmy makes a decent point.
But that's what the law says, and that's what we should do.
So if the evidence on chemical weapons comes back overwhelmingly yes, but the Security Council says no, the Congress says yes, you say no.
I'm torn on that.
Here I am back to torn on that issue if it came down to that.
But that's a perfectly legitimate argument to make.
25 years ago, 20 years ago, 15 years ago, pre-George Bush, we didn't question Bill Clinton's motives for Kosovo.
We didn't question it and we didn't question it anywhere where we sent humanitarian aid to.
And now all of a sudden we doubt everything.
We think there's some ulterior motive.
I don't.
I think it's this.
I don't think, but I, but then I swing back to Jimmy's point is I think the motive is pure, but I, and if I would, who I want to agree with more than anybody is John's point, except I need somebody who's incredibly smart to say, oh, this will work.
This will have some, and it has no effect.
Then you're just, that's a big problem.
Then you're just a 12-year-old teenager who's killing the kid who had nicer sneakers.
General Mario.
Like then it's just about respect and it's silly and a giant waste of time.
I know General Westmoreland said after 9-11, he went over to the Pentagon and the guy told him, hey, guess what?
We're going to go into Iraq.
What did Iraq have to do with this?
He goes, I don't know, nothing.
A couple weeks later, he went back.
He goes, you're not going to believe this.
We're going to go into Syria.
We get Lebanon.
They're going into the, they got a whole place, plan to reshape the Middle East.
This is right after 9-11.
They had plans, plans to go into Syria.
So I'm just saying, don't think that people haven't wanted to do this for a long time.
And I'm not saying that's exactly what this is, but this isn't chemical weapons.
So a couple of things on that.
And then I want to go on to what Obama said.
It was generally Wesley Clark.
I'm sorry.
I said Westmoreland.
Yeah.
It starts the same exact word.
Uh...
I'm on the phone with House Speaker John Boehner.
Good to have you on the show, Mr. Speaker.
Hey, Jimmy.
John fucking Boehner here.
DGIF.
Speaker Boehner, you've come out in favor of a military strike against Syria.
You bet I have, Jimmy.
This aggression must not go unanswered.
I assume you're talking about Assad's alleged chemical attack against civilians.
Alleged my left nut, Jimmy.
The evidence I've seen convinces me beyond a shadow of a doubt that this attack was perpetrated by forces loyal to President Assad.
Well, Speaker Boehner, the U.N. has not even finished its work yet.
But I finished my work, pal.
It's Friday and it's after 11 a.m., a.k.a.
happy hour.
Speaker Boehner, let me ask you this.
Is President Obama's plan to attack Syria really about chemical weapons?
Of course it is, Jimmy.
We need to send Assad a message that using chemical weapons on civilians is just not tolerated amongst decent people or even people in the Middle East.
Well, isn't this whole Syria military strike thing really about Qatar's or Cotter's plan to build a natural gas pipeline through Syria?
Surfing the internet again, Jimmy.
You're impressing the shit out of me.
I'm serious, Mr. Speaker.
Qatar is one of the largest exporters of liquid natural gas in the world, but Assad won't let Qatar build the pipeline through Syria.
So Qatar wants to install a puppet regime in Syria, which would enable them to sell lots and lots of natural gas to Europe.
Isn't that true, Mr. Speaker?
I think you just gave away the plot to mission Impossible 5.
You want the truth about natural gas, Jimmy?
Just follow John McCain into the Benz Room right after a Mexican lunch.
A mistake I only made once in my career.
Talking about crimes against humanity.
Mr. Speaker, wouldn't you admit that this is the real backstory to the Syrian civil war that the Saudis want to side out to and it's just about money?
No, Jimmy, it's not just about money.
It's about billions and trillions of dollars of motherfucking goddamn money.
You see the difference?
These are complicated issues.
I don't envy the burden that President Obama carries on his shoulders every day, and not just because we Republicans are trying to crush him.
But aren't you all just being hypocrites talking about a higher morality when the whole purpose of intervening will be to help the Saudis and Qatar make fortunes on the pipeline and push the Russians out of Syria?
Have you ever spent any time with Russians?
Not really, no.
You're not missing anything.
They drink vodka, Jimmy, which is not scotch.
Mr. Speaker, aren't you worried that if we attack Syria, this would blow up into a serious regional conflict that we can't get out of?
It's a powder cake, Jimmy.
No question about it.
Which is why I've told the president they'll have to lobby the House members himself.
I will not participate in those efforts.
Is that because you think President Obama has to make the case himself?
No, it's because I hate talking to them.
They're the most contrary sons of bitches I've ever seen in my life.
If it weren't for them, I wouldn't even drink.
Okay, that was a lie.
Mr. Speaker, let me ask you what happens if Obama sends in ground troops.
Relax, Jimmy.
The House of Representatives will probably vote the thing down anyway.
The idea came from Obama.
They'd vote against pay raises and blowjobs.
Mr. Speaker, it disgusts me when I see yet another administration preparing to get bogged down on another war in the Middle East.
No wonder the British don't want anything to do with it.
How many more quagmires do we need, sir?
You're right, Jimmy.
It may well be another tragic foreign policy misadventure brought on by a mixture of greed, fear, and hubris.
And so avoidable, too.
When will we learn our lesson, Jimmy?
When?
Mr. Boehner, I've never heard you speak so frankly and from the heart.
I'm very impressed, sir.
No, don't be.
I'm drunk off my fucking ass.
Well, thank you for your time again, Mr. Speaker.
Right, right, right, right.
Hey, you.
Give me two more of these things.
ASAP.
Hello, Lloyd.
The Jimmy Door show is available as a podcast for free on iTunes.
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Thank you.
So Bob Schaefer is catching a lot of flack for this, and we're going to give him some more.
It's hard to believe that this guy's been a newsman his whole life, and he can't wrap his brain.
I mean, he's been there.
He's been there for the Pentagon Papers.
He's known that the Vietnam War was started on a lie.
He knows the Iraq war was started on a lie.
Well, he covered this hepato skin.
So he knows all this stuff.
And yet he still is on the complete wrong side of the Edward Snowden and the NSA thing.
Could not be more wrong about it.
He's just a government stenographer, repeater.
He's almost a spokesperson.
So here he is.
He had on a panel of people to talk about the NSA because Barack Obama gave a speech where he's going to change it now.
Even though Edward Snowden's not a whistleblower, turns out, it turns out some of the stuff he said we're going to change.
But none of the credit goes to him.
Yeah, we were doing stuff wrong, and he told us about it, but he's still a jerk.
So Bob Schaefer convened a panel of pro-government.
What did I say?
He keeps saying Schaefer.
It's Schiefer.
Bob Schieffer had a panel of pro-government.
They were very pro-government spying, anti-constitution a-holes on the show.
And the first guy on was General Hayden, who oversaw the NSA and most of the illegal unconstitutional spying.
So what a better guy to tell you the truth about it than the guy who's got caught lying to us.
So naturally, Bob asks him.
He starts off with a very hard-hitting question right off the bat.
You ready?
Here we go.
People need to know more about what the National Security Agency is doing because there are a growing number of people in the Congress who are wondering, is the NSA infringing on Americans' right to privacy?
What do you think?
You ran the place.
What do you think is the most significant thing that the president said?
Bang!
Right in the kisser.
Bang!
Look out!
Bob Schaefer, you got Schiefferd.
You feel your feet?
That's the fires.
That's right.
Bad.
You put him right Back on his heel.
Well, what's your take on this?
You know what, Bob?
Anyway, wow, talk about softball teeing it up.
So here's what he has to say.
Here's what General Hayden says, that he thinks the most significant thing that Barack Obama said in his speech was.
I mean, there's no suggestion that what he was doing and what President Bush was doing before him with regard to these programs was anything other than lawful, effective, and appropriate.
And so that's, I think, the first thing.
That's the first thing.
And Bob, you know, and I know, I don't get paid to tell you that the NSA is totally fucked up, right?
You know that, Bob.
By the way, this general, I saw the video of this, and I have a vivid memory of this guy being on TV constantly during the lead up to the Iraq war and being wrong about everything.
Yes, this was that guy.
Yes, you're right.
You're right.
Perfect.
I thought you were going to make a joke, but that's exactly right.
Yes.
And I think this was heartening for people with backgrounds like me and particularly folks who are still doing this kind of work.
He also suggested that the oversight regime for this was already quite good.
He pointed out there have been no abuses under him or under his predecessor.
What is this guy talking about?
The whole reason.
If he said it in his speech, then how can you question it?
He said that there's been no, actually, no breach.
Are you kidding?
He said that.
Come on.
But the whole reason that it's a big deal is because you guys got caught doing stuff that's wrong.
That's what this is all about, you idiots.
Jimmy, he said it wasn't wrong.
I understand about that.
Yeah, you know what, Frank, you make a good point.
He goes on.
He's got a little bit.
But he does have this issue of confidence, this issue of transparency.
And so the president is trying to take some steps to make the American people more comfortable about what it is we're doing.
That's going to be hard because what we're doing, frankly, is lying to you still.
And we're breaking the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution on a daily basis in ways you couldn't possibly imagine on a scale greater than you would ever been led to believe.
Anyway.
I don't know, Jimmy.
I don't know as an American if I could handle the truth.
No, you can't handle the truth, Jack Nickerson.
To make the American people more comfortable about what it is we're doing, that's going to be hard.
Because, frankly, Bob, some steps to make Americans more comfortable will actually make Americans less safe.
Bingo!
I didn't see that coming.
Bingo did not see that coming.
Did not see a little fair mark.
So it turns out that the most important thing the president said in his speech was that they aren't doing anything wrong at all.
That people who aren't spying on us are all really good people.
And if they stop spying, you know, the spying he says that isn't happening, that if we stop doing that, then the al-Qaeda will kill us all.
No, your choice.
That's what he's saying.
Your choice.
I'm going to leave it up to you.
Either we completely demolish the Constitution or Al-Qaeda kills you.
It's up to you guys.
So now that we've heard from Goebbels, let's watch.
And by the way, by the way, I think that's sort of a mischaracterization of a lot of that speech.
I listened to that speech.
I wasn't happy about it.
No.
But I didn't feel like it was the speech he's describing.
No, no, no.
You're right, Robert.
You're right.
This guy is pretending.
Well, Bob Schaefer's going to hold his feet to the fire on that.
He's going to make the point.
I'm sure Bob Schaefer, veteran newsman, is going to push back against all this BS that the former head of the NSA has been giving.
Well, you know, some of the privacy advocates, when they hear you say, well, the good news is he didn't, what he didn't say, he's not going to change anything.
That might cause them to be a little uneasy.
Well, no.
Bam!
Right in a kisser.
Privacy advocate, Lulu.
They might be a little upset.
Bam!
Didn't see that coming, did you?
The pushback from Bob Schieffer is so non-existent.
His question is so weak that the NSA chief literally giggled before he answered.
Way to make him sweat, Bob.
Listen, you'll hear him giggle.
Watch.
Listen for him to giggle.
What he didn't say, he's not going to change anything.
That might cause them to be a little uneasy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the guy who's at the head of the biggest lying, cheating scandal in the history of our country is giggling when he comes up against Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation.
Bob Schieffer wasn't even throwing softballs at him.
He was throwing bubble bath at him.
Yes.
So here, Bob Schaefer asks him, isn't this going to make people upset?
And here's what General Hayden says.
Well, no, and if you look at the commentary on this, folks from the so-called left are a bit uneasy.
They don't want a little more transparency with regard to the metadata program.
They want the program stopped.
I don't think it will be.
Okay, so, and then Bob Schaefer lets him pretend that the only people who are upset about this are a few people on the left, you know, hippies and drug addicts.
It's not like everybody in the Tea Party.
Go ahead.
I thought by on the left he meant al-Qaeda.
Yes.
Hey, by the way, I thought, wasn't Barack Obama supposed to be on the left?
Isn't that why we voted for him and he won?
Because he was on the left.
That was my favorite thing about him.
I didn't realize that when we voted for Barack Obama, it was a mandate for him to be Donald Rumsfeld.
No, he's on the left because the drone attacks always come from the left.
From the left.
Oh, yeah, I see what you're saying.
I like how he said, I hope I don't seem too coy when I say I don't think that it will be.
It just means that the folks who want transparency are going to be able to see right through my bullshit.
Yes, yes.
And I wish...
Yes, he convened.
The panel was him, Peter King, and a third person who was pro of the spying.
I can't even remember who it was.
So here he's got more.
So now I wish I could say that that was the worst that Bob Schieffer had to offer, but in reality, he hasn't even gotten started.
So here Bob repeats the government talking points about how innocuous the NSA spying is, then adds a little more of his own before throwing it to Captain Break the Constitution and call it freedom.
Here we go.
Here's Bob with some government talk.
Bob is a court.
This is the court that meets in secret in any time.
This is the court that meets in secret.
And then he doesn't go farther and say, you know, that has absolutely no old, nobody knows what they're doing or what they're saying.
And they've never turned down a request for information ever.
They've never said no.
You can't go wiretap.
You know that court, that court that has no checks and balances.
That is a rubber stamp.
That court, that FISA court.
Yeah, that court.
That court.
The FISA court, which also, by the way, we know because of Edward Snowden, issued an 80-page report that listed how what the NSA was doing was actually unconstitutional.
Wow.
And the reason we know that is because Glenn Greenwald told us, because he found out from Edward Snowden.
But we would never, we know that now, yet still Bob Schieffer Doesn't tell us about it.
He knows that, yet he doesn't say it.
If that court, if that court was any more of a rubber stamp, you could get into the Viper room with it.
Okay, so let's go.
The question I've always wanted to know, it's on record that since 1978, the FISA court has turned down about three applications of all the applications.
They've turned down three.
What were those applications?
We just want to rectally examine everyone.
I think that's the first time.
No, yes.
They wanted to tap the judges on the FISA court.
Oh, they said no.
That's probably.
They said, you know what, you're going a little too far.
So listen, so according to Bob, so they have to go to this FISA court, which never says no to them because that's how rigorous our legal protections are in this country.
All right, here, Bob goes on to explain a little bit more.
This is the court that meets in secret.
And anytime NSA comes across something, they think we need to go in and listen in because they don't listen in just because they get a tip or something.
They have to go to this court to get permission to listen to you.
Yeah, they have to go to this court to get permission.
This court that never says no to them.
They have to go.
Target is an American person.
If the target is an American, which is not true.
If the person is the, if they think the target of this is a person outside of the United States, but that person is talking to someone inside the United States, they can tap your phone.
And they don't even have to be right.
They just have to think that that person is a terrorist and they'll tap your phone and they'll listen to your phone.
And as we found out on this show last week, they are doing that.
Okay, so here we go.
So here's Bob Schieffer with some more government talking points.
It's an American person.
Now, one of the things that the president's talking about doing is adding a kind of a privacy advocate onto the court.
This would be someone that when the government comes in and says we need to go in and wiretap this person, we need to eavesdrop.
This person would say, wait a minute here, that's going too far.
You really don't have a reason to do that.
Is that workable?
Pretty sure this privacy advocate, just think Woods and True Believer, like a ponytail, really mad, smokes pot, like that guy.
It does sound very, you know, heavy duty the way he phrases it.
They want kind of a privacy advocate in there, you know.
Kind of, but not actually.
And they're just going to call someone in off the street.
Hey, could you come in and be kind of a privacy advocate?
Stand over there.
Yeah, of course.
Of course they're going to have a privacy advocate.
That'd be the best first job an intern ever got.
That is exactly what the legal intern's first job will be.
You're going to make the coffee.
You're the FISA court privacy advocate.
Now get over there and make us some coffee.
Yeah, that's exactly.
Honestly, I expected Hayden to get up from his chair and high-five Schaefer after that one.
Is it even workable?
Those two married?
What's going on?
Is it even workable?
I mean, can you even do this privacy thing?
Of course it's workable to have a privacy advocate.
We've never had anything in America like checks and ballots.
Ever.
Ever.
We've never had.
It's not like that's what our country's founded on.
Of course it's workable, Frank, to have a privacy advocate as long as you completely ignore everything that they say.
Yeah, yes.
Well, as long as they're so into privacy that you don't even hear them because they're alone in their room reading a book because they want privacy.
They want privacy.
I don't get it.
A court with an adversarial process?
That's crazy.
That's crazy.
You mean like every other court ever in the history of Western democracy?
Not really a court if there isn't an adversarial process.
Oh, there's Dangaru court.
It's more of a meeting.
It's more of a meeting.
So here's Captain Fuckmore right.
Okay, there's a lot more to us taking Bob Schieffer to task over his shit job of journalism and siding with the government.
Not only siding with them, but repeating their talking points.
Anyway, okay, you heard it.
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That's right.
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