Jane Hamsher’s Elbow from the Sky on Lanny Davis is one of the best in my opinion…it brought me to this site!

that was my favorite too!

(And so glad you came…)

They’re all good, for sure. But where’s “Jane Smacks Lanny Davis? Heh.

It took a comedian to smack down the lunacy of Cramer and his “Mad” Money

I liked the Lieberman smackdown by Franken .
Why did Joe Lie tell Franken not to take it personal ? Shouldn’t it have been the other way around?

Too bad about the inclusion of Jane Mayer on this list : I think she’s one of the good guys. Much better to have included Arianna’s verbal backhand to that shrill person in the red blouse on “Morning Joe” a couple weeks ago. Speaking of mouths, I see that Lieberman got his pasty face on television again this morning. Will someone explian to me why this shape-shifting goat gets so much air-time?

I find it a little disheartening that nearly one year into what many hoped would be a transformative presidency we must draw solace from these examples of people speaking truth to power or truth about power, as the powers in question thumb their noses and sell the American people (further) into corporate servitude.

Think the list here was based on most viewed, not highest rated; the Jane v. Uncle Lanny video aired only a few weeks ago, so it’s not had as many views as some of the older clips.

By popular demand, here’s the Jane Hamsher smackdown of “Uncle Lanny” Davis.

dmnolan (6) — As for the Arianna v. Jane Mayer — again, most viewed versus highest rated. Apparently a number of viewers over the course of the last year thought the piece was worth viewing.

I disagree entirely with all these “smack downs”. They aren’t smack downs at all and if anything prove nothing in the final equation. This is fluff, plain and simple.

1. Wow, great job blowing sunshine about Arianna. Who cares? Did Obama still send the troops? Yes. Wow, we got a zinger on Jane Mayer. Who cares?

2. Rachel Maddow is a sham. She is all hype and no substance. Glad she really pursues the hard hitting issues. /yawn Really, if I have to see Kent Jones one more time, I will unsubscribe from her feed. Oh.. or maybe we can have another cocktail. Wow.

3. Death panels were just icing on the cake, a side show. Look at what we have now? Great job Congress. It needs to be put to rest, plain and simple. They all need to be voted out of office. Let me know when they represent the people.

4. Wow, let’s poke fun at the morons, who actually go out and vote. Birthers are morons, but odds are they vote more regularly than anyone else. They vote for whatever or whoever the NRA or whoever they listen to tells them. They are good soldiers. Just really stupid. Yeah, we showed them up. Who cares?

5. ..Somehow the right still calls the shots although the Democrats have all the cards. Look at what wonderful legislation that has come out since 2008… There is none. It is all crap. Plain and simple and you chuckle to yourselves about “zingers”.

6. Wow, that accounted for… nothing.

I love Krugman, but this whole article is trash. You have a blogging quota or something? Why not talk about the next fashion show? Or what people will be wearing this Spring?

We wonder why we lose.

“Shape-shifting goat,” LOL
Love that phrase. He’s just so full of bipartisany goodness. I think they cover a whole lotta bases when they have JoeLie on.

Although this year has been a let-down in many ways, people speaking truth to power has always been a draw. It transcends time and culture; it’s St. George versus the Dragon, Hercules versus the Gorgon.

That’s why we still find the work of people like Edward R. Murrow so appealing, why Walter Cronkite had the power to effect the course of a presidency, why we still find the photo of a single man standing in the path of Chinese tank so moving.

Smackdowns are a smaller piece of that deeply shared archetype, and why it’s good for us to revisit them. In a way, they help arm us for the year to come; we gave this good, we can give better, so watch the hell out, right?

Oh, we’re leaving the hot air quotient to people who bitch without actually staking any skin in the game.

Thanks for your productive and helpful comment.

I remember you! You’re the one who sits down to Thanksgiving dinner and decries the cook for serving something other that mashed yeast and brown rice, thinks that wearing cotton is an insult to hemp farmers, and truly believes that surplus pets are better used as traction compound.

Enjoy your New Year.

I”m sure we will start to win if we adopt your cheerful, enlightening point of view. Onward and upward! s/

Jane Hamsher was strong on Lanny Davis.Now we need someone to be strong to smack the 57 Democrats that signed the letter on July 30 about there pledge and the price thay will pay. Joe not important and Al Franken showed he to much of a child to be in the Senate.

You are correct, of course. Among other things it is important that people unafraid to speak the truth continue to document events as they unfold, not allowing the official version to go unchallenged.

being condescending to te freshman senator?

i can’t stay long. gotta be succinct.

Lieberman. what a prick.

Thank goodness for blogging, both micro and macro forms, and for YouTube.

People can whine all they want about Google, but they have truly done humanity a service by buying YouTube and making it readily usable and available. It makes capturing and distributing the truth so much easier.

And the Rs still haven’t figured out that almost everything they say is on YouTube and they deny having said it. It’s hilarious.

agree and sorta disagree.

agree about the signers of the letter.

i dunno about FRanken. the excuse was Reid wanted to keep things moving so he was just dong what the boss wanted. But I saw Franken a few days later run out of time and ask for unanimous consent to extend. . why should he have been given more time? So, I thought this incident was childish, but on the whole I don’t agree that he’s too childish to be in the Senate.

Ditto.Bunch of kids with no discipline.Look what I did.Hope I don’t see Jane waffle.

much—or at least some – of what you say is true. but you strike me [edited by mod].

There’s something to be said for having the sack to do what your colleagues won’t, and RGJoe is a worth target for smack.

I’ll bet a few Senators in the Dem conference smiled secretly at Franken’s ‘affront’… but not enough of them.

Excelsior!!!!

Oh, and let’s not forget the brutal slapdown Zbig gave to Joe “dead intern” Scarborough.

Somehow you missed this one…
Big time slap down on a an opponent of choice and reproductive health.

In a year where our congress and president has sacrificed the right of woman to basic reproductive health care this is an important message, and I have not seen this message stated more forcefully or more consistently by anyone else!

Or Obama saying he didn’t promote a public option during his campaign.

I loved that. To be fair I haven’t seen much to suggest Mika is better informed than Joe.

I’m with comments 1, 2 & 3: Where’s Jane’s smackdown of Lannie?

Or is that in a category by itself, since it could so easily beat any competition?

[Providing an "out" for Rayne's error of omission.]

All the Bullet points are true except for the bizare “i love krugman” thing at the end. huh? Maddow needs to ditch the Kent Jones segments. Its gone from being goofy, to being really grating, be being genuinely offensive,given the issues at hand she covers (or not).

Especially that one.

And al showed the a week child that the real al happen to be.Thay have his # He will always be bullied to do the shit jobs.

yup. never liked them. they just don’t work. the on;y one i liked at all was “They Don’t Want Pizza”

I think they’ve hired some new trolls.

I actually like Kent Jones, but I take your point.

I find Keith Olbermann’s slobbering over Michael Mustow much more offensive. And the other ass-clowns KO allows to piss away precious tv time for an entire segment. [I think KO's final segment is a lot longer than Rachel's.]

And al showed the a week child that the real al happen to be

Wha???

You’re incomprehensible.

Pols have come to rely on the public having a short attention span and a short memory. One of the nicest things about the internet is being able to bolster one’s memory by quickly retrieving pertinent public records.

It is unfortunate that pols have no conscience and cannot be shamed into telling the truth.

Been kind of quiet the past couple days. Apparently they are sufficiently recovered from their hangovers.

Visit the Big time slap down on a an opponent of choice and reproductive health

I love this one by Senator Franken against the KBR mandatory binding arbitration lawyer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3LQnuOxcLM

Also, against the Hudson Institute’s Diana Furchtgott-Roth:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgqqSHr0wVA

Now this one isn’t from 2009, but it was still an awesome smackdown by Rep. Ellison:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZTudlibMfQ

Woohoo!

- Tom

telling the truth is hard work, doncha know.

between Al and Joe thay went unknown for there sell out to corpate insurance

Doesn’t pay as much as lying, anyway.

Please indulge another of my infrequent delurks, but having been a silent FDL fan for quite some time, I feel it is incumbent on me to express my support and admiration for Jane Hamsher and her dilgent efforts to educate those of us who would otherwise remain uninformed on issues here. Keep up the good work, my friend, I am indebted to you for your paitence and longsuffering. My gratitude extends to the rest of you pups who keep me sane. Hope this is not too far OT…

Not too OT. I hope you will have more frequent sudden urges to delurk in the future. :-)

Disappointed as you/we may be in the Senate’s pathetic attempts at a HC bill, if you can’t distinguish between Franken and Lieberman, you have some history to read.

Here are a couple easy methods.

1. Franken DOES wear glasses.

2. Franken will NOT be found checking John McCain’s bearings (I hope).

Thanks for delurking and welcome to the lake. Jane always looks and sounds so magnificent because she has this fabulous braintrust here at the lake. Note how she never uses the personal pronoun, I or me. It is always we and us. I note these things. Some think she is seeking meteoric fame and fortune. They would be wrong. She, like most at the lake, care deeply for our country and are engaged in making it a better place.

methinks he has a 12 oz problem.

If it wasn’t Joe it would have been the next Senitor in line all the way down to Al.

The Al Franken smackdown of Lieberman was so sweet; much
deserving of a shout-out to Al’s alter ego (Stuart Smalley)
for some, ‘daily affirmation’ and ‘stinkin’ thinkin:
“…I’m Good Enough, I’m Smart Enough, and Doggone It,
People Like Me!…”

one of them is whiney and the other is hilarious.

and yes, rush limbaugh is a big fat idiot. (apologies to all non-skinny, non-geniuses).

Thank you for that link!

No apology necessary, like Garfield I am merely undertall (by about 3 feet).

Ditto.

My last 12 oz was 29 years ago.I have watched good jobs with good benifits Health Care and Retirement go away while being told you should be glad I’m watching out for you.Thank God this progressive movement wasn’t trying to get Civil Rights in the 1950 thru 1970.there would not be a middle class to throw your smaks to.TO newtonusr 46 you need to live a little history.

See my comment at (8).

Sometimes it pays to read the entire comment thread.

oh come on, lil miss sorry I’m not a cancer victim is gonna feel left out

So are you protesting out in the streets? And if you are, is the media following you?

The period 1950-1970 possessed something we don’t have: a real media which understood its role as the Fourth Estate and a government which understood the airwaves belonged not to the highest bidder, but to the people and should therefore serve the greater good.

We haven’t had either since media consolidation began and the government was purchased by the same entities who bought out the press.

We’ve had huge marches like they did 1950-1970 to demand civil rights and demand an end to the war. But the media no longer covers protests unless the protests serve the owners of the media. Marches by and for immigrants numbering in the hundreds of thousands? anti-war marches, pro-same-sex marriage, ignored. But teabaggers, whose efforts were launched by media and corporate figures gets lots of air time.

The tactics of nearly two and three generations ago no longer work. And the last person you should be scolding is newtonusr, who I suspect understands the issue of generational change very, very well.

Let’s see:

Leiberman of the “short ride” commentary about women who are coping with a potential pregnancy from rape-trauma.

Leiberman of the “As chair of the Senate Homeland Security committee, I’ll make sure we get the response to Hurricane Katrina properly investigated…” promise.

Leiberman of the McCain for President campaign.

Leiberman of “It’s worth considering…” when asked if then candidiate Obama was a Socialist.

Leiberman of precisely zero efforts towards a fair, useful, constructive health care regime.

You have no idea what you are talking about when you soften criticism about Joe Lieberman, and comparisons to Al Franken aren’t silly distractions, they are just silly.

Question of the Decade: Who’s paying you?

Jane’s smackdown is Numero Uno.

I’d give Number Two to anyone and everyone who calls out the Cheney beast (Dick and/or Liz) for what they’re about.

Number three to Jon Stewart’s workover of CNBC.

You’re very welcome!

you said it better than I could.We do have the internet.this is the imformation age.I’m a dinosar.With experance of working people.If you tell people what it will take to keep there job thay will fine the way.one job we did we had 140 men for 2 years told each man what was expected of them the day they went to work.Had to fire 2 men in 2 years.1st my best frined caught him steeling.2nd told the forman he was to good to do his assined job.he had to go.Job came in above expected profit.Braggeing on someone for baby stepts that all your going to get.let the 57 Democrats know where door at and if thay don’t keep there pledge we will replace them.don’t jump on the scout(Joe) and blame the scout (Joe)for lack of liveing up to there pledge.letter July 30signed by 57 Democrats.Are you going to let them game you.There always going to blame some else.

All the Senators should have jumped on that bill Al introduced.Thank thay gave Al a bone for cover where he would vote the way he was told.Just another club member.

Lieberman and Nelson are Obamas “blockers”. A Democratic President with majorities must always have their blockers. Both parties ARE the same. This isn’t (or shouldn’t be) about Lieberman, Nelson, Lincoln, etc.
This IS ALL about OBAMA. This fact will become clearer to the masses as time passes.

The bulk of the news are calculated very well planned distractions.

http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/

Ditto.wish I could be so kind.

I don’t know why this classic from Dennis Kucinich did not make the top ten as he pummels a K Street healthcare crybaby during Congressional hearings:

http://crooksandliars.com/logan-murphy/dennis-kucinich-pummels-doctor

Oh! Oh! Oh!

I knew I was forgetting someone.

Alan Grayson.
Alan Grayson v. Alex Castanellos in the Situation Room
Alan Grayson v. Wolf Blitzer in the Situation Room
Alan Grayson v. what’s his name on Bills of Attainder.

good stuff.

I had not seen that. That was awesome!

Thanks—and good on you to remember Alan Grayson too. More classic stuff.

For all time smackdown, here is my #1 and #2: #2, Rachel Maddow on David From:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjzzVz8-m4Y

Imo, this is second to the all time greatest smackdown, Frank Zappa’s appearance on ‘Crossfire’ ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ISil7IHzxc

Need to watch Grason close talks loud with a jelly spine.you’ll see

Hard to pick a best; they all were remarkable in their own way.
Lawrence Wilkinson comparing Cheney’s 5 Deferments to Colin Powell’s 30+ years of military service deserves to be in a time capsule.
As does Maria Bartelomo’s frankness up against Mort Zuckerman’s cluelessness (what?! You mean not everyone makes at least $20,000,000 per year?! good thing his head didn’t explode).

I have to go with #2, Rachel Maddow calling Bart Stupak and the other christian zealots out as the cowards that they are.