A November 20 Washington Times article by Jerry Seper repeated accusations in a House Republican report of wrongdoing by Eric Holder, who is reportedly President-elect Barack Obama's choice for attorney general, in the context of President Clinton's 2001 pardon of Marc Rich. In doing so, Seper suggested that Holder had illicitly worked with Rich attorney Jack Quinn to bypass career Justice Department officials and falsely suggested that Holder had written an email telling Quinn that "the 'timing is good' for Mr. Rich's request for a pardon." In fact, Holder did not write the email that Seper cited, and according to testimony by former White House counsel Beth Nolan, pardon applications were directed to the White House because the Justice Department's pardon office stopped handling new applications in the fall of 2000.

Seper reported that "[t]he former prosecutor whom President-elect Barack Obama wants to run the Justice Department bypassed the agency's career lawyers during one of the most controversial final decisions made by President Clinton in January 2001 -- the pardon of billionaire fugitive financier Marc Rich, congressional records show." He later claimed that evidence in a Republican-led House Government Reform Committee's majority report on the pardon "included an email in which Mr. Holder told Mr. Quinn to 'go straight' to the White House and that the 'timing is good' for Mr. Rich's request for a pardon." In fact, the email was not written by Holder. Rather, Quinn sent it on November 18 to several recipients not including Holder.

According to the majority report, the subject line of the email was "eric," and the body of the email said: "spoke to him last evening. he says go straight to wh. also says timing is good. we shd get in soon. will elab when we speak." The majority report said, "assuming the 'eric' referenced [in the email] is Eric Holder, this e-mail contradicts the heart of Holder's defense." While Seper noted that Holder "told lawmakers during the investigation that he thought he had done nothing wrong" and that Government Reform Committee report "was approved by Republicans, led by Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, over the objections of Democrats," Seper did not note that the Minority Views Report -- signed by 14 members of the committee -- stated that it is "unclear that 'eric' even refers to Eric Holder" and that "[a]ssuming the e-mail accurately reflects the words of Mr. Holder, it shows that he advised Mr. Quinn to submit the pardon petition directly to the White House. But this is not proof of wrongdoing." The minority report continued: "As Beth Nolan testified, the Pardon Attorney in the Justice Department had indicated by then the he would not process any more pardon applications, while the President was continuing to accept clemency applications at the White House."

Indeed, according to the Nexis database transcript of a March 1, 2001, Government Reform committee hearing, then-committee ranking member Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) asked Nolan: "Did the pardon attorney's office tell the White House in September or October of 2000 that they couldn't take any more pardon applications and that they weren't going to be able to review them or get the information to the White House?" Nolan responded: "They told us that sometime in the fall, I'm not sure of the exact date."

From the Minority Views Report:

The evidence before the committee also does not prove the majority's accusation that Mr. Holder worked with Mr. Quinn to cut other Justice Department officials out of the pardon review process. In retrospect, it is clear that Mr. Holder should have done more to include other Justice Department officials in the review process. Indeed, Mr. Holder conceded as much during testimony. This mistake in judgment is not evidence of misconduct.

The majority points to a November 18, 2001, email message as proof of a conspiracy between Mr. Holder and Mr. Quinn. The subject line reads "eric." The text of the message reads: "spoke to him last evening. He says go straight to wh. Also says timing is good. We shd get in soon. Will elab when we speak." Neither Mr. Quinn nor Mr. Holder testified about this message, however. Indeed, as the majority itself acknowledges, it is unclear that "eric" even refers to Eric Holder.

Assuming the e-mail accurately reflects the words of Mr. Holder, it shows that he advised Mr. Quinn to submit the pardon petition directly to the White House. But this is not proof of wrongdoing. As Beth Nolan testified, the Pardon Attorney in the Justice Department had indicated by then the he would not process any more pardon applications, while the President was continuing to accept clemency applications at the White House.

Seper also reported that "[t]he House committee concluded in the March 2002 report that Mr. Holder played a significant role in facilitating the pardon, first by recommending Mr. Quinn to Mr. Rich's legal representatives." Indeed, the majority report read: "After numerous failed attempts to have his case settled, Marc Rich hired Jack Quinn to represent him. Quinn was hired after a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder."

Seper did not note that the minority report, however, stated the following of the claim that Holder "recommended" Quinn: "To reach the conclusion that Mr. Holder 'recommended' Mr. Quinn to Mr. [Gershon] Kekst, the majority ascribes great significance to a chance social encounter in late 1998 between Mr. Holder and Mr. Kekst, who had never before met." It continued:

According to Mr. Kekst, he found himself seated next to Mr. Holder at a large corporate event. After Mr. Holder indicated that he "worked at Main Justice," Mr. Kekst recalled asking him general questions about the system of accountability at the Department of Justice and, in particular, to whom U.S. Attorneys were responsible. Mr. Holder apparently responded that they were accountable to him; that was his job. He recalls asking Mr. Holder what a person would do if he believed he was the victim of an overzealous prosecutor. Mr. Kekst said that Mr. Holder suggested hiring a lawyer in Washington, D.C., who knows the process. He recalled that Mr. Holder then spotted Jack Quinn and said words to the effect of, "There is Jack Quinn, someone like that." According to Mr. Kekst, Marc Rich's name never came up in the conversation.

From the House Committee on Government Reform's March 1, 2001, hearings on President Clinton's pardons (from Nexis):

REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D-CA): Did the pardon attorney's office tell the White House in September or October of 2000 that they couldn't take any more pardon applications and that they weren't going to be able to review them or get the information to the White House?

NOLAN: They told us that sometime in the fall, I'm not sure of the exact date.

WAXMAN: And so around the time that the pardon attorney's office at the Justice Department was telling the White House that it would process no more pardon applications, the president was seeking out more applications and there was also an increase in pardon requests. Isn't that right?

NOLAN: Right, there had been in fact a great increase all through the year in applications, so the pardon attorney's office had more applications and hadn't been able to move them in any significant, faster rate.

WAXMAN: In December and January, did you feel overwhelmed by the amount of pardon requests that you were asked to process?

NOLAN: We were really inundated with pardon requests, and, in fact, sometime around Christmas week, I think, I spoke with Mr. Podesta and said, "We have to have a cut off. We can't possibly finish what we have, if more pardon requests come in and..."

WAXMAN: Where were they coming from?

NOLAN: They were coming from everywhere, Mr. Waxman. We had requests from members of Congress on both sides of the aisle and both Houses. We had requests from movie stars, newscasters, former presidents, former first ladies. There wasn't anybody -- I refused to go to holiday parties because I couldn't stand being -- nobody wanted to know how I was, thank you very much. They wanted to know about a pardon. So I just didn't go.

WAXMAN: So let me make sure I understand this. The White House was involved in closing up its operations, but still trying to issue new regulations and negotiating a Middle East peace agreement. The president was insisting that you consider as many pardon applications as possible, despite the fact that the Justice Department wouldn't take any more applications after October of 2000, and you were being besieged by members of Congress and others to consider an ever-growing number of pardons. And on top of that, I suspect you weren't even aware of some of the pardon activities. Is that a fair statement of what was going on at the White House?

NOLAN: I think that is a very fair statement. I would add that we were also doing this shortened transition period and trying to work with the incoming administration, so that was another...

WAXMAN: And, Mr. Podesta, is that an accurate statement from your point of view?

JOHN PODESTA (former White House chief of staff): I think that's accurate, yes.

WAXMAN: You were hearing from members of Congress, and I even called you on behalf of a constituent, who I thought deserved consideration for a pardon, Mike Milken, who did not get a pardon.

NOLAN: That's right.

WAXMAN: And I understand you got calls from congressman and senators. Did any of them suggest you not follow the Justice Department Guidelines?

NOLAN: Yes, certainly. Several of them suggested that they knew it was too late, really, to go through the Department of Justice, but they wanted to send the pardon application directly to the White House.

WAXMAN: How many contacts, if you know, did you get from members of Congress, House and Senate?

NOLAN: I don't no, sir. I had probably 30 or 40 phone calls. And I think I took less than half of the calls. I just couldn't possibly respond to all the calls I had.

WAXMAN: Mr. Podesta, do you have any idea of how many calls you...

PODESTA: I would guess it's in the high double or in the triple digits.

WAXMAN: Were there any examples that stand out in your mind of congressman or senators that were asking you to issue pardons and not follow the Justice Department guidelines?

PODESTA: Well, let me clarify one thing. I don't think that members of Congress said, "Please issue a pardon, and, by the way, don't follow the Justice Department guidelines." I think they basically just didn't care whether we followed the Justice Department guidelines.

For example, I think in one particular case in which we did issue a pardon for Mr. Lake, that was done at the end, and I think did not go through the Justice Department. I think both the chairman and the Senate Judiciary Committee and the chairman of the counterpart committee to your committee in the Senate called on his behalf, or at least made their views known on his behalf.

WAXMAN: Senator Hatch?

PODESTA: Senator Hatch and Senator Thompson. I don't think they really cared whether that had gone through the Justice Department guidelines or not.

From the Times article:

The former prosecutor whom President-elect Barack Obama wants to run the Justice Department bypassed the agency's career lawyers during one of the most controversial final decisions made by President Clinton in January 2001 -- the pardon of billionaire fugitive financier Marc Rich, congressional records show.

Eric H. Holder Jr., then the deputy attorney general, worked with former White House Counsel Jack Quinn to ensure that department officials -- particularly federal prosecutors in New York who handled the Rich case -- "did not have the opportunity to express an opinion on the Rich pardon before it was granted," the Republican-led House Government Reform Committee concluded in a 467-page report in 2002.

The committee's evidence included an e-mail in which Mr. Holder told Mr. Quinn to "go straight" to the White House and that the "timing is good" for Mr. Rich's request for a pardon. Normally, pardon requests are reviewed by career prosecutors before a recommendation is forwarded to the White House.

Mr. Quinn responded in a typewritten note to Mr. Holder, just 10 days before Mr. Clinton issued the pardon, "Your saying positive things, I'm told, would make this happen. Thanks for your consideration."

Mr. Holder was not available for comment on Wednesday. But he told lawmakers during the investigation that he thought he had done nothing wrong.

[...]

The House committee, which finished its investigation in 2002, concluded from its interviews and the documents that Mr. Holder helped bypassed the normal procedure for pardons in Mr. Rich's case. The report was approved by Republicans, led by Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, over the objections of Democrats.

"The evidence amassed by the committee indicates that Holder advised Quinn to file the Rich pardon petition with the White House and leave the Justice Department out of the process," the report said.

[...]

The House committee concluded in the March 2002 report that Mr. Holder played a significant role in facilitating the pardon, first by recommending Mr. Quinn to Mr. Rich's legal representatives, and by delivering what it called a favorable opinion of the last-minute pardon to the president from a position of authority.

Midway through Bill Clinton's first year as president, Time magazine reported that among the new president's problems was "a staff that has almost no White House or executive experience," pointing to then-political director Rahm Emanuel as a prime example.

Fast-forward 15 years: President-elect Barack Obama has chosen Emanuel to serve as his chief of staff. With years of high-level White House work under his belt, not to mention the connections and clout that come from having been one of the most powerful members of Congress, it would be quite a stretch to say that Emanuel lacks the experience to effectively serve Obama. So this time, some in the media have a different complaint. As CNN's Anderson Cooper put it, Emanuel is "probably the ultimate Washington insider. ... [T]he critics will say, well, look, if Obama is talking about change, why is he having a Washington insider?"

So: Emanuel was insufficiently experienced to serve as political director in 1993 -- and now we're to believe that he's too experienced in Washington to serve as chief of staff? What gives? Was there a brief window in 2003 in which Emanuel's level of experience was just right? Or is there something strange about the media's assessment of President-elect Obama's staffing decisions?

That Time assessment of Emanuel in 1993 was not unique. For 16 years, there has been near-universal agreement that the Clinton administration's early struggles (real and perceived) were in large part due to a lack of White House and Washington experience on the part of Clinton's staff.

Clinton hadn't even taken office before USA Today reported in December 1992 that the "limited Washington experience" of the incoming White House chief of staff, Mack McLarty, "raises the specter of Jimmy Carter's inexperienced inner circle." Six months later, Newsweek noted that McLarty's "lack of familiarity with Washington ways is now considered a political liability." The influential journalists Jack Germond and Jules Witcover later wrote that the choice of McLarty had been "a major surprise and the brunt of considerable criticism, on grounds that McLarty, like Clinton himself, was inexperienced in the Washington meat grinder."

By mid-1994, when a staff restructuring resulted in Leon Panetta's appointment as chief of staff, an Albany Times-Union editorial was typical of media reaction:

[Clinton's] sudden shuffle of White House staff is the latest evidence that he has finally grasped a central fact of Washington political life: It's not the place for the inexperienced, no matter how well-intentioned they may be.

[...]

He's also learned that the chief of staff position is no place for a neophyte. It takes someone with Mr. Panetta's credentials as an insider to fill this pivotal post. That's all the more true at a time when the White House is trying to push through key health care and welfare legislation.

During a January 2001 look back at the Clinton presidency, Nightline host Ted Koppel summed up years of conventional wisdom: "The new president had put together a staff with virtually no experience in governing from the White House" -- something Nightline made clear was a mistake.

When President George W. Bush chose Andy Card, who had served in senior White House roles in two previous administrations, as his chief of staff, the selection -- along with decisions to put other longtime Washington insiders in key positions -- was received favorably by the news media.

Three days into Bush's presidency, CNN's Bill Schneider told viewers that "Bush is now surrounded by a lot of insider Washington deal makers, who have a lot of experience; like Dick Cheney and Andrew Card, his chief of staff; Paul O'Neill at treasury, and Donald Rumsfeld at defense. I think, a hard line and a smiling face and a willingness to make deals -- that could be a formula for success." A month later, The Washington Post ran a 2,000-word profile of Card that emphasized the benefit of Card's experience and portrayed him as bringing efficiency and order to the White House.

So, the history is clear: President Clinton was lambasted by the news media for not having enough old Washington hands on his staff; President Bush was praised for choosing veterans of previous Republican administrations.

Which brings us back to the present, and to the bizarre spectacle of journalists and pundits blasting Barack Obama for choosing staff members and Cabinet secretaries who are experienced and qualified.

Here, for example, is MSNBC's Chris Matthews, noting that Hillary Clinton, Eric Holder, John Podesta, and Rahm Emanuel either have or are reported to have roles in Obama's transition or administration:

This is what you do when you don't have elections. You simply promote the people ... who had the deputy jobs. You can do this in any bureaucratic state. You could do it in the old Soviet Union, do it anywhere you have a bureaucracy. You don't need to hold elections to promote deputies to the top job when it comes time, right? You don't need elections for this crap, do you? ... You just keep promoting people from within in any old, tired bureaucracy. That's what you do.

This is nothing short of insane.

Eric Holder, reportedly Barack Obama's choice for attorney general, did indeed have one of the "deputy jobs" at the Justice Department -- in the Clinton administration, not the Bush administration. It's a pretty safe bet that if we didn't have an election a few weeks ago -- if the Bush administration were continuing indefinitely -- Eric Holder would not be the next attorney general. It's an even safer bet that Rahm Emanuel would not be chief of staff. Much of the nation may wish the Bush administration never happened, but it did. None of the people Matthews mentioned are being "promoted from within" -- not a single one.

(Matthews, by the way, was unconcerned about hiring officials from former administrations when George W. Bush was doing the hiring: In 2001, he praised Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, and Colin Powell as "real heavyweights in terms of experience.")

Matthews' MSNBC colleague Pat Buchanan is very much on the same page, repeatedly complaining that the incoming Obama administration will be filled with "retreads." Yes: Pat Buchanan, born and raised in Washington, D.C.; educated at Georgetown; a veteran of two GOP White Houses and himself twice a candidate for the presidency; a 20-year fixture on cable news -- that Pat Buchanan is complaining about too many "retreads."

That was a common theme on MSNBC, where longtime Washington insiders Chris Matthews, David Gregory, and Christopher Hitchens -- among others -- suggested that the choice of former Clinton administration officials was contrary to the idea of "change":

[BULLET] Chris Matthews: "The possibility that Barack Obama might pick Hillary Clinton to be his secretary of state has a lot of people asking, 'Whatever happened to change, the change we can believe in?' "

[BULLET] David Gregory: "Is this change you can believe in? The Obama team is going to face these questions about big-time Clinton administration people into the fold now in some of the biggest jobs in the Cabinet. Eric Holder certainly fits that bill."

[BULLET] Christopher Hitchens: "This is the woman who, if you were for change that you can believe in, whichever change it was, you were voting against. ... [I]t's Clinton redo, not just Rahm Emanuel. Whatever this is, it's not change."

This has been a sentiment expressed commonly in the media, nowhere more frequently than on MSNBC, but the suggestion that bringing on former Clinton administration officials -- even Clinton herself -- is inconsistent with a desire for change is pure bunk. Asserting such inconsistency requires some deeply flawed assumptions: that everyone who worked in the Clinton administration is alike; that the Clinton and Bush administrations pursued identical policies with identical effectiveness; or that the desire for "change" is simply a desire for change in the types of people who hold government jobs.

People want a change in policy and a change in effectiveness. They want a change from George W. Bush, of whom disapproval is near-universal. The idea that 67 million people voted for Barack Obama because they disliked the Clinton administration is ludicrous. It ignores the wide and deep disgust with the direction Bush has taken the nation and the stunning incompetence with which he has done so. And it overlooks the obvious fact that people voted for Barack Obama because they like him and they like his policy positions.

But there is no evidence -- none -- that the nation as a whole has a deep desire to shun some of the people most qualified and experienced for administration jobs simply because they worked for Bill Clinton. Hard-core Republicans and Washington journalists may have such a desire, but that's about it.

The whining from journalists about Clinton alumni in the Obama administration is even sillier when you consider that they would presumably criticize Obama if he chose people without prior White House experience, as they criticized Bill Clinton. So the only way Obama can escape criticism is if he hires a bunch of people who worked in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Perversely, after two straight elections in which the American people convincingly rejected failed Republican rule, the punditocracy would be less likely to criticize Obama for abandoning his promise of change if he retained the services of the very Bush administration officials who screwed up the country so badly in the first place.

No piece of transition news has rankled the chattering class as much as the rumored selection of Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state -- not, in most cases, because they think her unqualified, but because they just don't like her. Christopher Hitchens, for one, lashed out at the news on MSNBC, leading the cable channel to treat his comments as though they were both surprising and important. They are neither. Hitchens hates the Clintons. Maybe not as much as he hates Mother Teresa, but there is little doubt that he hates them. Christopher Hitchens criticizing a Clinton is roughly as surprising as a Boston native speaking ill of New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter.

Despite the fact that there is no indication that anyone outside of its own studios cares what Christopher Hitchens has to say about the Clintons, MSNBC has played his comments over and over again, and even invited him back on the next day to interview him about their previous interview of him. Host David Gregory explained MSNBC's obsession with Hitchens' comments by insisting -- all evidence to the contrary -- that "everybody is talking about" them.

Hitchens' bizarre comments about Hillary Clinton included his claim that he has never heard that she is respected by military leadership -- a claim that, if true, merely confirms that Hitchens knows far too little about Clinton for his assessment of her to be taken seriously. And he claimed that in 1993, Hillary Clinton instructed her husband not to intervene in the Balkans because she was afraid that it would interfere with her health-care initiative -- but the book he cited to support his claim does not do so.

As Media Matters' Eric Boehlert noted this week, the media has been essentially alone in their anguish about Clinton serving as secretary of state:

The press represents nobody but the press on this topic. Meaning, the press has no political cover on this story because there's no partisan angle to the SoS story, which means their long-running Clinton hatred is just sort of out there, exposed for all to see.

Think about. It's been virtually impossible to find any senior members of Congress--Republican or Democrat--who publicly oppose Clinton as the SoS, which in and of itself is rather astonishing.

And within the liberal blogosphere, where one might expect there to be vocal opposition to Clinton since so many within the netroots opposed her during the primaries, most A-list writers have been extremely quiet in terms of airing opposition.

[...]

So, if you're keeping score at home, that means the Obama White House is in favor of Clinton, Republicans in Congress are in favor, Democrats in Congress are in favor, and liberal activists are, essentially, in favor. (And so are most Americans.)

In the early stages of the last two administrations (both the result of "change" elections), the media made much of the importance of new presidents bringing on old hands with White House experience. Suddenly, they portray such moves as inconsistent with the idea of "change." There are really only two possible explanations for this inconsistency: They are blinded by their hatred of the Clintons, or are desperate for something -- anything -- to use as an excuse to criticize Obama.

Either way (or both), they look like fools by coming down in favor of inexperience. America is a nation at war, with stock and housing markets that are falling faster than a flock of turkeys dropped out of an airplane, a broken health-care system, and countless other problems -- and the punditocracy thinks Barack Obama should refuse to hire anyone who worked in the most successful administration of the past several decades. Incredible.

Jamison Foser is Executive Vice President at Media Matters for America.

On the November 20 broadcast of The Radio Factor, host Bill O'Reilly attacked Media Matters for America for highlighting comments he made during the November 18 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor, when he falsely claimed Sen. Norm Coleman (R) "was certified the winner" in his Minnesota Senate race against Democratic challenger Al Franken. On November 20, O'Reilly claimed: "[W]e said the other day that, in Minnesota, that the election commission had certified the election and that -- what's his name -- Coleman, the senator, had won by 215 votes." Calling Media Matters "the most dishonest website in the country," he further stated: "So, what I said was, Coleman's victory was certified by the state because it was. He had 215 more votes, which is absolutely true. Absolutely true. OK? Rock solid; in stone. That's what they did." In fact, as Media Matters noted when O'Reilly made the false claim earlier, the Minnesota State Canvassing Board did not certify "Coleman's victory"; nor did it certify "the election." Rather, the board signed a statement on November 18 declaring that "[e]xcept for the offices of U.S. senator, state senator District 16, state representative Districts 12b and 16a, the candidates who received the highest number of votes cast for each office voted on in more than one county is hereby declared 'elected.' " Moreover, contrary to O'Reilly's claim that he said "the election commission had certified the election," Minnesota election law states that "[i]f a recount is undertaken by a canvassing board" in elections including those for U.S. senator, "no certificate of election shall be prepared or delivered until after the recount is completed."

Minnesota law states in relevant part:

204C.40 CERTIFICATES OF ELECTION.

Subdivision 1.Preparation; method of delivery.

The county auditor shall prepare an election certificate for every county candidate declared elected by the county canvassing board, and the secretary of state shall prepare a certificate for every state and federal candidate declared elected by either a county canvassing board or the State Canvassing Board. Except as otherwise provided in this section, the secretary of state or county auditor, as appropriate, shall deliver an election certificate on demand to the elected candidate. In an election for United States representative, the secretary of state shall deliver the original election certificate to the chief clerk of the United States House of Representatives. In an election for United States senator, the governor shall prepare an original certificate of election, countersigned by the secretary of state, and deliver it to the secretary of the United States Senate. In an election for state representative or state senator, the secretary of state shall deliver the original election certificate to the chief clerk of the house or the secretary of the senate. The chief clerk of the house or the secretary of the senate shall give a copy of the certificate to the representative-elect or senator-elect. Upon taking the oath of office, the representative or senator shall receive the original certificate of election. If a recount is undertaken by a canvassing board pursuant to section 204C.35, no certificate of election shall be prepared or delivered until after the recount is completed. In case of a contest, the court may invalidate and revoke the certificate as provided in chapter 209.

Subd. 2.Time of issuance; certain offices.

No certificate of election shall be issued until seven days after the canvassing board has declared the result of the election. In case of a contest, an election certificate shall not be issued until a court of proper jurisdiction has finally determined the contest. This subdivision shall not apply to candidates elected to the office of state senator or representative.

In addition to several news outlets also reporting that the state canvassing board did not certify a winner in the Minnesota Senate race, The Associated Press reported on November 19 that "[t]he recount will be done in more than 100 sites across the state over the next 2 1/2 weeks. A month from now, the canvassing board will reconvene to rule on disputed ballots and certify the election."

From the November 20 broadcast of Westwood One's The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly:

O'REILLY: We have a mandate here where we just simply want to give you the truth and the facts straight up. I mean, that's why we've been successful.

We said the other day -- this is interesting, and you guys might learn a lesson from this -- we said the other day that, in Minnesota, that the election commission had certified the election and that -- what's his name -- Coleman, the senator, had won by 215 votes. All right?

WIEHL: Right.

O'REILLY: That's what we reported.

WIEHL: Right.

O'REILLY: Well, Media Matters, the most dishonest website in the country, because they purport to be watchdogs, but of course they only watch conservative people or people they don't like, or traditional people -- they don't watch the left -- they say, "Oh, O'Reilly lied because he said that the state of Minnesota certified Coleman's victory."

OK. So, what I said was, Coleman's victory was certified by the state because it was. He had 215 more votes --

WIEHL: Sure. So that's a win.

O'REILLY: -- which is absolutely true.

WIEHL: Right.

O'REILLY: Absolutely true. OK? Rock solid; in stone. That's what they did. But these despicable -- that's all I'm going to say. Just despicable. I could say a lot of other things, but I won't.

These people take that, all right, put it on their website that O'Reilly lied by saying they certified a victory. They didn't use, in the state of Minnesota, a victory, 'cause there's a recount. All right?

But, if you certify an election, where one guy has 215 more votes --

WIEHL: Right.

O'REILLY: -- that's a win for Coleman, as it stands now.

WIEHL: It could change.

O'REILLY: And we said, there's going to be a recount. But when you listen to me, I'm going to tell you the truth and give you the facts. Those are going to be twisted and distorted by dishonest people like NBC News.

On the November 21 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Joe Scarborough declared that Minnesota Democrat Al Franken "only needs to steal 130 more votes to win" his Senate race against incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R), which is currently undergoing a recount. Scarborough similarly asserted on November 19, "If Al Franken can steal enough votes in Minnesota, that's get -- that gets Democrats to 59" Senate seats. In neither case did Scarborough offer any evidence of any wrongdoing by Franken or any willingness on Franken's part to do anything wrong to win. As Media Matters for America noted, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) stated as recently as November 16 that "[a]s of this moment, there is no actual evidence of wrongdoing or fraud in the process." Media Matters can find no evidence that Pawlenty has since revised his assessment. According to a November 15 Minneapolis Star-Tribune article, Pawlenty also said "he had complete confidence in the integrity of the recount that will be overseen by the state Canvassing Board" and quoted him stating: "That five-person Canvassing Board ... will run a fair and appropriate process, and they will render a fair and appropriate result."

Scarborough also falsely asserted on the November 21 edition of Morning Joe, "all the votes that were mis -- miscast were all miscast for the same guy, huh?" In fact, during the recount, some votes that were originally counted for Franken have been reassigned to Coleman, and vice versa (precinct by precinct results from the recount can be found here).

Additionally, shortly after Scarborough said Franken can win by "steal[ing]" votes, MSNBC analyst Pat Buchanan replied: "Look, you've got a station wagon up in the Iron Range that's hold -- got more of them in there, I'm sure, Joe." Later in the broadcast, Scarborough similarly said, "Buchanan says Al Franken can steal 130 votes easily. He said he can usually hide 130 votes in the back of a station wagon." Buchanan and Scarborough were echoing the widely discredited rumor that 32 absentee ballots from Minneapolis were mishandled in the course of being transported by car, an allegation that has been dismissed by both the Coleman campaign and Pawlenty.

Fritz Knaak, a lawyer for Coleman, reportedly said on November 8, "We were actually told [ballots] had been riding around in [Minneapolis director of elections Cynthia Reichert's] car for several days, which raised all kinds of integrity questions." However, the Associated Press reported that same day that Knaak "said a Minneapolis attorney reassured Coleman's campaign that no one but an elected official had access to the 32 ballots and there was no tampering." On November 10, Knaak reportedly said of the purported incident, "It does not appear that there was any ballot-tampering, and that was our concern." Similarly, Pawlenty -- who also initially forwarded the car-ballot rumor -- said on the November 16 broadcast of Fox Broadcasting Co.'s Fox News Sunday that "[t]here's a news report in Minnesota that the ballot-in-the-trunk story has now been retracted, that it wasn't accurate."

From the November 21 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe:

ANDREA MITCHELL (guest co-host): And in Minnesota, Republican Senator Norm Coleman's edge over Democrat Al Franken faded somewhat in the second day of a statewide recount. According to the secretary of state in Minnesota, Franken now trails Coleman by just 129 votes out of nearly 3 million cast.

SCARBOROUGH: All right, so, Pat Buchanan, Al Franken only needs to steal 130 more votes to win that thing, and you've got to be thinking, "That's child's play."

BUCHANAN: Look, you've got a station wagon up in the Iron Range that's hold -- got more of them in there, I'm sure, Joe.

MITCHELL: These are the good government guys in Minnesota. They don't work that way, you know --

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, these are the good government guys, but they're -- that all the votes that were mis -- miscast were all miscast for the same guy, huh? And again, Buchanan's thinking, "This is child play. I can steal 130 votes" --

MITCHELL: This is Michael -- now this is -

SCARBOROUGH: -- "by the time I went to get a beer."

MITCHELL: This is Walter Mondale country. These guys are reformers.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, they are, reform -- whatever.

BUCHANAN: I can find those, easy, Joe.

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, 130's nothing. Nothing, nothing.

[...]

MITCHELL: And in Minnesota, Republican Senator Norm Coleman's edge over Democrat Al Franken faded somewhat in the second day of a statewide recount. According to Minnesota's secretary of state, Franken now trails by only 129 votes out of nearly 3 million cast.

SCARBOROUGH: All right. And Buchanan says Al Franken can steal 130 votes easily. He said he can --

MITCHELL: Out of the Iron Range.

SCARBOROUGH: -- usually hide 130 votes in the back of a station wagon.

Contemplating the possible nomination of Sen. Hillary Clinton to be secretary of state, commentator and author Christopher Hitchens, a frequent and harsh Clinton critic, revived the unsubstantiated claim that Hillary Clinton blocked any action by the Clinton administration in war-torn Bosnia in 1993 because she didn't want it to interfere with passage of her health-care plan. In reviving the claim on MSNBC's Hardball, MSNBC's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and CNN's Larry King Live between November 17 and November 19, Hitchens purported to quote Hillary Clinton demanding of Bill Clinton that he not intervene in Bosnia, lest, in Hitchens' words on the November 17 Hardball, it "spoil my wonderful health-care plan, which should be front and center." In a March 31 article for Slate.com, Hitchens cited Sally Bedell Smith's For Love of Politics: Bill and Hillary Clinton: The White House Years for the claim that Hillary Clinton blocked Clinton administration intervention in Bosnia, but the book does not support Hitchens' claim; it does not mention Hitchens' purported quote or otherwise assert that Hillary Clinton directed Bill Clinton not to take action in Bosnia.

On all three shows, Hitchens also revived his claim that then-Defense Secretary Les Aspin was a strong proponent of U.S. intervention in Bosnia but was thwarted by Hillary Clinton. In his Slate article, as purported further support for his claim that Hillary Clinton blocked action in Bosnia to protect her domestic priority, Hitchens cited an exchange he said he had with Aspin that does not, in fact, prove his broader claim about Hillary Clinton. Moreover, in her book, On the Edge: The Clinton Presidency (Simon & Schuster, 1994), author Elizabeth Drew, a former Washington correspondent with The New Yorker, writes that, contrary to media reports at the time, Aspin was not a proponent of U.S. intervention in Bosnia.

In his Slate article, Hitchens quoted at length from Bedell Smith's book, which includes numerous other errors and flaws, to advance the claim that Hillary Clinton deterred President Clinton from intervening in Bosnia because it would "distract attention from the first lady's health care 'initiative.' " However, neither the quote Hitchens cited from Bedell Smith -- nor the Newsweek article that she referenced -- supports Hitchens' claims.

In For Love of Politics, Bedell Smith wrote:

Taking the advice of [then-Vice President] Al Gore and National Security Advisor Tony Lake, Bill agreed to a proposal to bomb Serbian military positions while helping the Muslims acquire weapons to defend themselves -- the fulfillment of a pledge he had made during the 1992 campaign. But instead of pushing European leaders to sign on, he directed Secretary of State Warren Christopher merely to consult with them. When they balked at the plan, Bill quickly retreated, creating a "perception of drift." The key factor in Bill's policy reversal was Hillary, who was said to have "deep misgivings," and viewed the situation as "a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform." The United States took no further action in Bosnia, and the "ethnic cleansing" by the Serbs was to continue for two more years, resulting in the deaths of more than 250,000 people.

In asserting that Hillary Clinton "was said to have 'deep misgivings,' and viewed the situation as 'a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform,' " Bedell Smith did not purport to quote Hillary Clinton directly and did not assert that she directed her husband to do or not do anything with respect to Bosnia, as Hitchens has repeatedly claimed.

Moreover, Bedell Smith cites a 1993 Newsweek article by Tom Post for her claim that Hillary Clinton "was said to have 'deep misgivings,' and viewed the situation as 'a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform.' " But Post did not report that as fact; rather, in the article Bedell Smith cited, he reported that sources gave differing accounts of the influences on Bill Clinton's Bosnia policy, providing one point of view offered by adviser Mandy Grunwald, but then citing "other sources" saying that Hillary Clinton had "deep misgivings" about Bosnia, and quoting a "friend" saying: "She regards this as a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform." Moreover, the Newsweek article does not support Bedell Smith's flat assertion that Hillary was "[t]he key factor in Bill's policy reversal" on Bosnia, and Bedell Smith provides no other support for the assertion.

From the Newsweek article:

By the time Christopher returned to Washington, the mood was grim. His aides had warned him of a weakening of resolve in the White House. Could it be that political consultants had gotten to the president and warned him to back off Bosnia? "We don't mess around with foreign-policy decisions," insists Mandy Grunwald, an informal adviser. "Nobody is saying, 'You've got an economic program to worry about, don't do this'." But other sources say the most important adviser of all-Hillary Rodham Clinton-has deep misgivings. "She regards this as a Vietnam that would compromise health-care reform," says a friend.

After quoting from Bedell Smith's book, Hitchens wrote in his Slate article:

I can personally witness to the truth of this, too. I can remember, first, one of the Clintons' closest personal advisers -- Sidney Blumenthal -- referring with acid contempt to Warren Christopher as "a blend of Pontius Pilate with Ichabod Crane." I can remember, second, a meeting with Clinton's then-Secretary of Defense Les Aspin at the British Embassy. When I challenged him on the sellout of the Bosnians, he drew me aside and told me that he had asked the White House for permission to land his own plane at Sarajevo airport, if only as a gesture of reassurance that the United States had not forgotten its commitments. The response from the happy couple was unambiguous: He was to do no such thing, lest it distract attention from the first lady's health care "initiative."

Hitchens did not explain how the anecdote he attributes to Aspin about being told not to land his plane in Sarajevo "lest it distract attention from the first lady's health care 'initiative' " proves the truth of Bedell Smith's claim that it was Hillary's purported "misgivings" that served as "[t]he key factor" in the delay of U.S. intervention in Bosnia.

Moreover, in his three television appearances on November 17, 18, and 19, Hitchens presented Aspin as a strong proponent of U.S. intervention in Bosnia, up against Hillary Clinton. For example, on November 18, Hitchens said:

HITCHENS: We all remember, or we should, that when Les Aspin had then got the Clinton administration very nearly to do something about the horror in the Balkans that belatedly the Clinton administration did decide to stop -- the Clinton-Gore administration -- they delayed it because Hillary said, "No, no, don't do it, it will take away attention from my brilliant, wonderful health care program" that we all remember so well.

But in her book, Drew reported the opposite -- that Aspin "was for doing as little as possible in Bosnia." From Drew's book:

Contrary to many published reports at the time, Aspin (who was said to favor bombing) was for doing as little as possible in Bosnia. He thought it was "a loser from the start," that there was no way to deal with the problem effectively without enormous military force, and that neither the United States nor Europe was willing to pay that price. He argued that the best they could end up with was a divided Bosnia -- Serb, Croat, and Muslim -- with the Serbs maintaining control over most of the land they had already won in the war. When the question of bombing Bosnian Serb artillery sites arose in the spring of 1993, Aspin favored a cease-fire in place. [Page 142]

From the November 17 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews:

CHRIS MATTHEWS (host): Well, I probably disagree with Hitchens on this, but I am very suspicious when [Sen.] Jon Kyl [R-AZ], a major supporter of the war in Iraq, a complete hawk, a neocon in many ways, complete hawk, supports her for this. Henry Kissinger's come out of the woodwork. He supports her for this.

HITCHENS: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Why do these establishment conservatives want her? What are they up to? Why do they want her? I don't know what they want.

HITCHENS: Don't compare Kissinger -- don't compare Kissinger to Kyl. I mean, Kissinger is a critic of the war and a so-called realist, and someone who likes leaving dictators like Saddam Hussein in place --

MATTHEWS: Well, why do they both want her? They're both Republicans. Why do they want her?

HITCHENS: Because she's a status-quo type, and they know they can, so to speak, trust her. She's a member of their club. Just to comment on what Peter said a moment ago: If you remember -- and I'll drag you back to this Bosnia farce that she inflicted on us during the campaign. Actually, when there was pressure on the Clinton administration -- Les Aspin was secretary of defense, you remember -- to do something about Sarajevo, to stop the killing, to prevent the ethnic cleansing, Hillary Clinton moved in hard on her husband and said, "Don't you do a thing about Bosnia. It'll spoil my wonderful health-care plan, which should be front and center." And remember how beautifully that worked out, too.

PETER BEINART (The New Republic editor-at-large and Time contributor): I'm not sure I think that's an entirely accurate accounting of --

HITCHENS: Yes, it is.

BEINART: -- her role in Bosnia. And the reality is that the Clintons, albeit very late, the Clinton administration acted very well --

MATTHEWS: OK.

BEINART: -- in Bosnia in 1995.

HITCHENS: Over her objections.

MATTHEWS: OK.

BEINART: I'm not sure it was over her objections.

HITCHENS: Yes, it was.

From the November 18 edition of MSNBC's 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue with David Gregory:

GREGORY: And what's the impact on a Secretary of State Clinton because of those associations? Can they not put up a firewall between them?

HITCHENS: Well, as I say, if it hadn't involved her, too, the campaign finance scandals -- we're not talking about the ongoing stuff -- Mr. Clinton's huge speaking fees in the Gulf and elsewhere -- we're talking about previous convictions in the Clinton fundraising scandal. If it wasn't for the fact that she couldn't refuse her brothers everything -- or sorry, anything -- couldn't refuse them anything; anything they wanted they seem to have got, including some kind of deal for Marc Rich -- all of this might be forgivable or it might assume a different proportion, David, if it wasn't for the fact that this woman doesn't really have any foreign policy experience worth mentioning.

And what is memorable about it is pretty bad. We all remember, or we should, that when Les Aspin had then got the Clinton administration very nearly to do something about the horror in the Balkans that belatedly the Clinton administration did decide to stop -- the Clinton-Gore administration -- they delayed it because Hillary said, "No, no, don't do it, it will take away attention from my brilliant, wonderful health care program" that we all remember so well. At least on health care, she knows enough about the subject to have really changed American health care for the worse in her time. But foreign policy, she --

GREGORY: And yet --

HITCHENS: About foreign policy, she doesn't even know that much.

From the November 19 edition of CNN's Larry King Live:

LARRY KING (host): Christopher, if she takes the job, does that end her presidential ambitions?

HITCHENS: No. I mean, I actually agree with what Tom Friedman said. It must be very nerve-racking if you're a president to have a secretary of state who you know is thinking about four years ahead or maybe eight all the time. She never thinks about anything else, never has thought about anything else, except the possibility that she might one day be president of the United States. Wasn't even a team player in her own husband's administration.

Remember, when Les Aspin wanted to do something finally about Sarajevo and the rape of Bosnia, Hillary Clinton said, "No, I don't want you intervening. You'll get in the way of my health-care plan," which you remember worked out so brilliantly. Someone who simply cannot think about anything but her own ego, or sometimes, her husband's, but who -- if Barack Obama does this to himself, he'll never have a minute's peace in foreign policy --

KING: Paul [Begala] --

HITCHENS: -- and neither will we. And every lobbyist and foreign policy interest group from China to Indonesia will be laughing --

KING: Paul, what do you make of that?

HITCHENS: -- because they've got exactly the person they know listens to them.

In a November 21 Washington Times article about President-elect Barack Obama's plan to lift the ban on gays and lesbians serving in the military, Robert Knight, director of the Media Research Center's Culture and Media Institute, was quoted as saying that the efforts of activists to lift the ban will lead to "a Pearl Harbor moment." Knight is also a columnist for Townhall.com and Human Events.

According to the Times, Knight said: "Homosexual activists are overconfident because they have not yet seen a counterforce emerge as occurred in 1993. ... But as the threat grows stronger, we will see groups forming and the resistance building." Knight was then quoted as saying: "Americans go about their business and are not activists until they have a Pearl Harbor moment. That has yet to happen, but it will." The Times also reported that Knight said most Americans "are unaware that gay activists have the military in their gun sights."

Knight previously compared the legalization of same-sex marriage to the attack on Pearl Harbor. In his June 17 Townhall.com column, Knight wrote that former Human Rights Campaign executive director Elizabeth Birch "not[ed] that the natural elements had remained intact in the Bay State [Massachusetts] following the beginning of 'gay marriage.' She assured the young audience, which soaked up her utterly illogical argument, that the 'sun still came out, the birds still chirped and the flowers still bloomed,' or something to that effect." Knight continued: "Well, the birds chirped and the flowers bloomed in Pearl Harbor on December 8, 1941, as the American fleet lay smoldering."

Knight has also previously stated that "the endgame of the gay rights activists, and I've said this before, is the criminalization of Christianity," and claimed that "gay rights advocates are laying the foundation for the criminalization of Christianity, Judaism and every other religion that preaches God's view of sexual morality."

From The Washington Times November 21 article:

"Homosexual activists are overconfident because they have not yet seen a counterforce emerge as occurred in 1993," said Robert Knight, director of the Culture and Media Institute at the Media Research Center, an organization that seeks to balance perceived liberal bias in mainstream news coverage.

"But as the threat grows stronger, we will see groups forming and the resistance building," he said. "Americans go about their business and are not activists until they have a Pearl Harbor moment. That has yet to happen, but it will."

He added that most Americans "are unaware that gay activists have the military in their gun sights."

On the November 19 broadcast of The War Room with Quinn & Rose, co-host Rose Tennent said of the nationwide protests that have followed the passage of a California ballot initiative to amend the state constitution to ban same-sex marriage: "[T]here are so many people at the events that aren't gay." Co-host Jim Quinn replied, "Yeah, they're guilty straights," to which Tennent responded, "Guilty straights -- there we go." Earlier in the broadcast, Quinn stated: "[G]ays never wanted to get married until what -- about five years ago, we started to hear about this? ... [T]his is all -- this is a purely political act." In fact, same-sex couples have brought court cases to overturn bans on same-sex marriage for decades.

According to the website glbtq.com, the first court case challenging a ban on same-sex marriage was brought in Minnesota in 1970. Two men applied for a marriage license and sued the state when their application was rejected "on the sole ground," in the words of the Minnesota Supreme Court, "that petitioners were of the same sex, it being undisputed that there were otherwise no statutory impediments to a heterosexual marriage by either petitioner." The court upheld the ban on same-sex marriage in its 1971 decision. Numerous court cases challenging same-sex marriage bans have been brought since then, including cases in the 1970s, the 1990s, and the current decade.

As Media Matters for America documented, Quinn previously said: "The only thing that -- the only thing that gay marriage produce -- well, gay marriage doesn't produce anything that the state has an interest in. Gay sex produces AIDS, which the state doesn't have -- or should have an interest in. They should charge homosexuals more for their -- for their health insurance than they charge the rest of us." Quinn later added: "So why don't they charge gay men, especially, higher premiums? Because they're engaged in an activity that will have an impact on that -- on the health care system."

Talkers Magazine lists Quinn & Rose on its "Heavy Hundred" list, which it describes as a list of the "100 most important radio talk show hosts in America." According to the show's website, it airs on 18 radio stations and XM Satellite Radio.

From the November 19 broadcast of Clear Channel's The War Room with Quinn & Rose:

TENNENT: You know, Elton John weighed in on all of this, and I thought it was interesting what he said. He said that -- he said, "I don't want to be married. I'm very happy with a civil partnership. If gay people want to get married, or get together, they should have a civil partnership." Hey, that's what we've been saying all along, isn't it?

QUINN: Good grief, the voice of reason.

TENNENT: He said, "The word 'marriage,' I think, puts a lot of people off. You get the same equal rights that we do when we have a civil partnership. Heterosexual people get married. We can have civil partnerships." Now, see, this is interesting, because if that is -- you know, and this has been my argument all along. If there are the same rights -- equal rights within a civil partnership -- why are they going after marriage?

QUINN: Because it -- that's one of the basic underpinnings, one of the basic legs of Western civilization --

TENNENT: Right.

QUINN: -- and Judeo-Christian civilization.

TENNENT: They break that down --

QUINN: Right. Break it down, deconstruct it --

TENNENT: And you've broken down society.

QUINN: Exactly. Exactly. This is a purely -- the whole marriage issue is -- gays never wanted to get married until what -- about five years ago, we started to hear about this?

TENNENT: Yeah.

QUINN: No, this is all -- this is a purely political act.

TENNENT: See, he, actually, John -- Elton John distanced himself from the protesters and all the protests that are taking place in all the cities across the United States. He said, "What is wrong with Proposition 8 is they went for marriage."

[...]

TENNENT: This fringe that is out there -- and they're mobilizing, although they're seemingly bigger than a fringe, but they are still a fringe.

QUINN: Oh, yeah.

TENNENT: They are a fringe.

QUINN: They're very visible; loud.

TENNENT: And they're embarrassing to even other homosexuals in this country. They are. Their behavior, I think it's --

QUINN: Well, they've managed --

TENNENT: -- reprehensible. I really do. What?

QUINN: They've managed to fill the streets, though, with angry people. They get people all worked up about this stuff.

TENNENT: Yeah. And some of the people that are joining them aren't even necessarily gay, either -- you know --

QUINN: Oh, no. They're --

TENNENT: -- there are so many people at the events that aren't gay.

QUINN: Yeah, they're guilty straights.

TENNENT: Guilty straights -- there we go. So, Jim, I got a question for you. All of this -- like, later today, I hope, or possibly Friday, I wanted to go over some of the appointments.

During the November 19 edition of Fox News' Studio B, Fox News senior judicial analyst Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge, baselessly claimed that Minnesota Secretary of State Mark Ritchie (D) is a "former member of the Communist Party." Discussing the members appointed to the Minnesota State Canvassing Board, which oversees the recount in the Minnesota Senate race, Napolitano stated: "The fifth member of the committee by statute, is the secretary of state, who is a Democrat and a former communist -- former member of the Communist Party." Napolitano provided no evidence to support his claim that Ritchie is "a former communist" or a "former member of the Communist Party."

Napolitano was taking further a smear advanced by the National Republican Senatorial Committee, which, as Media Matters for America noted, put out a "background document" suggesting a link between Ritchie and the Communist Party. In that document, the NRSC reprinted an assertion in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that "The Communist Party USA wrote encouragingly of [Ritchie's] candidacy."

The Star Tribune article making the original claim that the "Communist Party USA wrote encouragingly of his candidacy" did not provide any evidence for this claim. According to a search of the Communist Party USA's website, in a June 24, 2006, report, CPUSA political action committee chair Joelle Fishman wrote: "In Minnesota the DFL [Democratic-Farmer-Labor, the state's version of the Democratic Party] candidate for Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, of the League of Rural Voters could play a valuable national role."

Moreover, Napolitano falsely claimed that "the governor appoints a committee of four people" to serve on the canvassing board. In fact, Ritchie named the board members on November 12. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty (R) has stated that he approves of the composition of the canvassing board, but did not pick the board. Additionally, The Associated Press reported on November 13 that "Fritz Knaak, [Republican Sen. Norm] Coleman's lead lawyer, said he was comfortable with the board's makeup." The AP quoted Knaak as saying, "The people of this state should feel good about who's on the panel."

From the November 19 edition of Fox News' Studio B with Shepherd Smith:

SMITH: The Republican incumbent, Norm Coleman, holds the slightest of leads -- 215 votes over the Democratic challenger, Al Franken. And election workers are now beginning the laborious task of hand counting -- like that's more accurate than the machines -- all 2.9 million ballots cast. Hand counting -- you go, Minnesota.

But what's a recount without a lawsuit? Al Franken, who's on Capitol Hill today, filed one to determine what to do about some rejected absentee ballots. Our senior judicial analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, is here. What's going on?

NAPOLITANO: Well, the governor appoints a committee of four people: two Republican judges, two Democratic judges. The fifth member of the committee, by statute, is the secretary of state, who is a Democrat and a former communist -- former member of the Communist Party.

Five people will rule on all contested issues. They don't physically do the counting. They hear arguments from one side or another about whether a ballot should be counted. There are many, many permutations here, because some counties use the old-fashioned mechanical vote, some use electronic, and some use paper ballots. I just finished reading the rules, and there's all kinds of ways.

For example, if a voter circles the name on a paper ballot instead of filling out the block, does that count? Yes. Every benefit is given for every conceivable way to find a vote to count.

During the November 13 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Mark Levin cited a recent study (subscription required) predicting that an ice age will occur in the next 10,000 to 100,000 years as purported evidence that humans should not "try and control carbon dioxide" emissions that contribute to global climate change. But Levin did not mention that the study's co-author reportedly warned against using the study to argue that "we should stop fighting warming" and stated: "There's no excuse for saying 'we've got to keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.' "

During the segment, Levin read portions of a November 13 London Daily Mail article about the study, which appeared in the weekly journal Nature. In particular, Levin read the following sentence from the Daily Mail article: "Lead author Thomas Crowley from the University of Edinburgh and Canadian colleague William Hyde say that currently vilified greenhouse gases -- such as carbon dioxide -- could actually be the key to averting the chill." Levin then stated: "So, according to these two scientists, we're heading into a global chill, maybe an age of an ice age, and we're gonna try and control carbon dioxide, which is the answer to global cooling. Why the hell don't we just try and leave it alone?" Earlier, after reading the portion of the Daily Mail article that reported "the experts blame the global change on falling -- rather than climbing -- levels of greenhouse gases," Levin asserted: "Well, ladies and gentlemen, without carbon dioxide, we croak. There can be no plant life, and if there's no plant life, there's no oxygen. ... On top of that, without greenhouse gases, the Earth freezes. We should be on our knees every day praying to God, 'Thank you for carbon dioxide.' "

However, Levin did not read the following portions of the Daily Mail article in which study co-author Professor Thomas Crowley explicitly warned against using his study to dismiss the threat posed by global warming:

Professor Crowley said the stark findings do not mean we should stop fighting warming.

But he urged: "Don't push the panic button."

"There's no excuse for saying 'we've got to keep pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere,' " he told Reuters.

"Geologically it's tomorrow, but we have lots of time to argue about the appropriate level of greenhouse gases."

Indeed, several other media outlets have also reported that Crowley cautioned against using the study to argue against taking action to stop global climate change. For example, a November 12 post on the Wired Science blog reported that Crowley said that by continuing to emit greenhouse gases at the current levels, "[w]e're creating a situation at least as dangerous, only going in the opposite direction":

However, Crowley's model, published today in Nature, is not likely to come true. Along came humanity and, to be more precise, the Industrial Age. Our greenhouse gas emissions, he said, are more than enough to alter the Earth's once-frigid destiny.

What's so bad about that?

We're putting so much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, said Crowley, that the planet's climate isn't simply veering from a curve: it's departing at right angles.

Flooding coastal regions and risking drought across much of Earth's surface "does not seem like the normal thing a society would do for self-preservation," he said. "We're creating a situation at least as dangerous, only going in the opposite direction."

A November 12 Agence France-Presse article on the study also reported:

Crowley cautioned those who would seize on the new study to say " 'carbon dioxide is now good, it prevents us from walking the plank into this deep glaciation'."

"We don't want to give people that impression," he said."(...) You can't use this argument to justify [man-made] global warming" [ellipsis in original].

And a November 12 article for National Geographic News reported:

Though this extreme ice age would be unusual, so is the climate that people are creating by emitting huge amounts of greenhouse gases, Crowley said.

"It's hard to say what's going to happen," Crowley said. "The very fact that you have this nonglacial [warming] atmosphere with polar ice caps [still present], presents a bizarre scenario."

Media Matters for America has previously documented other instances of conservative media figures using scientific studies to draw or advance conclusions about global climate change that contradict the conclusions of the researchers who conducted the studies. For instance:

• During the August 21, 2007, edition of Fox News' Special Report, host Brit Hume cited "new research by University of Washington mathematicians [that] shows a correlation between high solar activity and periods of global warming," and asserted that "[global warming] skeptics are increasingly certain that the scare is vastly overblown." But an August 9, 2007, New Scientist article (subscription required) on the mathematicians' research warned that "[c]limate-change skeptics may seize on the findings as evidence that the sun's variability can explain global warming -- but [the report's co-author] mathematician Ka-Kit Tung says quite the contrary is true." According to the article, Tung, who is a University of Washington professor of applied mathematics and an adjunct professor in atmospheric science, says his finding, in New Scientist's words, "adds to the evidence that mainstream climate models are right about the likely extent of future human-generated warming."

• On the January 21, 2006, edition of Fox News' The Journal Editorial Report, Wall Street Journal editorial page editor Paul A. Gigot falsely claimed that a study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, which found that live plants produce 10 to 30 percent of atmospheric methane, "is turning conventional wisdom about global warming on its head." Editorial page deputy editor Daniel Henninger then claimed that "this is causing big problems for the tree-huggers," telling viewers that methane "is a greenhouse gas, the sort of stuff the Kyoto Treaty is meant to suppress." In fact, in a press release published three days before the Editorial Report aired, the study's authors pointed out that human-caused emissions -- not natural emissions -- "are responsible for the well-documented increasing atmospheric concentrations of methane since pre-industrial times." The authors added that plant emissions do not contribute to "the recent temperature increase known as 'global warming.' "

• On the September 21, 2005, broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh selectively read from a year-old article to falsely suggest that a 2004 study by the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research found that an increase in solar brightness is the sole cause of global warming. In fact, the article, which appeared in the London Telegraph on July 18, 2004, specifically noted that the study's lead author did not believe increased solar brightness was responsible for the dramatic rise in global temperatures over the past 20 years. According to the parent organization of the group that conducted the study, solar brightness "plays only a minor role in the current global warming."

From the November 13 broadcast of ABC Radio Networks' The Mark Levin Show:

LEVIN: All right, let me hit another issue here. I was talking about global warming, right? Well, there's global cooling now. This from The Daily Mail. All this will be on MarkLevinShow.com, all of these stories. "It has plagued scientists and politicians for decades, but scientists now say global warming is not the problem. We are actually heading for the next Ice Age, they claim. British and Canadian experts warned the big freeze could bury the east of Berlin [sic: Britain] to 6,000 feet of ice. And what's more, the experts blame global change on falling -- rather than climbing -- levels of greenhouse gases."

Please listen to this. This is important. "Lead authors Thomas Crowley from the University of Edinburgh and Canadian colleague William Hyde say that currently vilified greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide." Remember that idiot legislator from Westchester County? What the hell was that fool's name? "Oh, carbon di- --." He doesn't know what it is, but he knows we have to control it. Well, ladies and gentlemen, without carbon dioxide, we croak. There can be no plant life, and if there's no plant life, there's no oxygen. On top of that -- yeah, Thomas Abinanti. Thomas is an idiot. On top of that, without greenhouse gases, the Earth freezes. We should be on our knees every day praying to God, "Thank you for carbon dioxide."

But I digress. "And what's more, the experts blame the global change on falling -- rather than climbing -- levels of greenhouse gases," such as carbon dioxide, "the currently vilified greenhouse gases -- such as carbon dioxide -- could actually be the key to averting the chill."

So, according to these two scientists, we're heading into a global chill, maybe an age of an ice age, and we're gonna try and control carbon dioxide, which is the answer to global cooling. Why the hell don't we just try and leave it alone? What do you think of that -- no, they're not going to do that. It doesn't matter. Remember that idiot who called the first hour, those of you who were listening?

The libs don't care. They don't care about science, they don't care about evidence, they don't care about truth. They are pushing this global warming thing. They're gonna push this global warming thing all the way. They don't care how much damage they do to American industry. Look at them now -- they don't care. They don't care how much damage they'll do to the environment, as a matter of fact.

"The Earth has seen dramatic climate fluctuations -- veering between cold and warm extremes -- over the past 3 million years, the researchers say. And char- -- changes in the Earth's orbit and slowly falling levels of carbon dioxide are the cause." These scientists are saying, rather than increases in carbon dioxide, we are losing carbon dioxide. And I tried to explain before -- I tried to explain before that man has minimal impact on all of this, if any.

"The team says we are approaching a turning point, in the next 10,000 to 100,000 years, which will lead to the new ice sheets smothering much of Europe, Asia and South America." Well, we won't be here for that. But, I'm just pointing out how massive this is and how absurd it is to destroy our economy, to lose our liberties and private property, because Obama is going to, by executive fiat, order the EPA to define carbon dioxide as a pollutant. As a pollutant to be controlled. And I've said it before. Carbon dioxide is a minuscule amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. It's critical amount, but it's minuscule.

The vast majority of greenhouse gases is water vapor. Water vapor. Problem is they can't regulate water vapor. There's no way to regulate water vapor. Because you can't really regulate plants; you can't really regulate condensation. And so they go after carbon dioxide, which is crucial to our survival on the face of the Earth. We'll be right back.

In a November 19 blog post on ABCNews.com, reporter Matt Jaffe uncritically reported that in a November 13 speech at Catholic University of America, Cardinal J. Francis Stafford "railed against a speech [President-elect Barack] Obama gave July 17, 2007, to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America when the Illinois lawmaker reiterated his support of Roe v. Wade, saying he didn't want his two daughters, Malia and Sasha, to be 'punished by a pregnancy.' " But Stafford's assertion contains several falsehoods, none of which Jaffe corrected or otherwise noted. Obama did not say the word "punished" - or refer to being "punished" with "a pregnancy" or otherwise -- at any point during his July 17, 2007, Planned Parenthood speech. Obama did use the phrase "punished with a baby" during a March 29, 2008, campaign event in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, but as Media Matters for America has previously documented, Obama was referring to sex education -- not Roe v. Wade or abortion generally -- when he said during that event: "I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

According to audio posted by Catholic University of America's The Tower, during the November 13 speech, Stafford claimed of Obama:

His clenched jaw was seen at his talk before the Planned Parenthood supporters July 17, 2007. There he asserted, quote, and I'm quoting, somewhat out of context but not out of his meaning, "We are not only going to win this election, but also we are going to transform this nation. The first thing I will do as president is to sign the Freedom of Choice Act -- FOCA. I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught constitutional law. I don't want my daughters punished -- punished by a pregnancy." "On this issue," he continued, "I will not yield on the issues that we're going to [inaudible]." End of quote. Note the way the president-elect wished to describe the killing of his unborn grandchild. His daughters must not be quote, "punished - punished," by pregnancy.

But contrary to Stafford's claim, Obama did not use the phrase "punished by a pregnancy" or even the word "punished" at any point during the July 17, 2007, Planned Parenthood speech.

During the March 29, 2008, campaign event in Pennsylvania, while discussing sex education - not abortion -- Obama said:

So, when it comes to -- when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence only -- should include abstinence education and teaching that children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16. You know, so, it doesn't make sense to not give them information. You still want to teach them the morals and the values to make good decisions.

From the March 29 edition of CNN's Ballot Bowl 2008:

MARY SNOW (CNN correspondent): Welcome back to CNN's edition of Ballot Bowl. This is a chance for you to hear directly from the candidates. I'm Mary Snow in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, where Senator Barack Obama is holding a town hall meeting right now, taking questions from the audience. Let's go straight to Senator Barack Obama; he just was asked a question about how his administration, if he's elected, would deal with the issue of HIV and AIDS and also sexually transmitted diseases with young girls. Here's Senator Barack Obama.

OBAMA: -- or we give them really expensive surgery and we don't spend money on the front end keeping people healthy in the first place. So, when it comes to -- when it comes specifically to HIV/AIDS, the most important prevention is education, which should include -- which should include abstinence only -- should include abstinence education and teaching that children -- teaching children, you know, that sex is not something casual. But it should also include -- it should also include other, you know, information about contraception because, look, I've got two daughters -- 9 years old and 6 years old. I'm going to teach them first of all about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby. I don't want them punished with an STD at the age of 16.

You know, so, it doesn't make sense to not give them information. You still want to teach them the morals and the values to make good decisions. That will be important, number one. Then we're still going to have to provide better treatment for those who do have -- who do contract HIV/AIDS, because it's no longer a death sentence, if, in fact, you get the proper cocktails. It's expensive. That's why we want to prevent as much as possible.

But we should also provide better treatment. And we should focus on those sectors where it's prevalent and we've got to get over the stigma because understand that the fastest growth in HIV/AIDS is in heterosexuals, not gays. And so, we've got to get out of that stigma that we still have around it. It's connected also to drug use. So, one of the things we have to do is to start thinking about better substance abuse treatment programs around drugs and not just treat it as a criminal justice issue. Treat it as a public health issue as well.

From Jaffe's November 19 ABCNews.com post:

Stafford, who has worked at the Vatican for 12 years and heads the Apostolic Penitentiary, said that, on Nov. 4, "a cultural earthquake hit America" when Obama was elected, after campaigning on an "extremist anti-life platform.

"He appears to be a relaxed, smiling man. His rhetorical skills, as I mentioned, are very highly developed," Stafford noted.

"But under all of that grace and charm, there is a tautness of will, a clenched jaw, a state of constant alertness, to attack and resist any external influence that might affect his will."

Specifically, Stafford railed against a speech Obama gave July 17, 2007, to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America when the Illinois lawmaker reiterated his support of Roe v. Wade, saying he didn't want his two daughters, Malia and Sasha, to be "punished by a pregnancy."

Also last week, as reported here, a South Carolina priest was repudiated for saying Catholic Obama supporters need penance before taking communion, "lest they eat and drink their own condemnation."