My 99 Cents

According to R.C. at Media Matters:

“During a segment on the August 6 broadcast of NBC’s Today, NBC senior
foreign correspondent Andrea Mitchell uncritically aired Republican
presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s claim
during an August 5 debate aired on ABC’s This Week that Sen. Barack Obama
“went from going to sit down to tea with our enemies, but then he’s going to
bomb our allies. I mean, he’s gone from Jane Fonda to Dr. Strangelove in one week.”
[end quote]

So, Gov. Mitt Romney tagged Sen. Obama with the “Strangelove” label,
one most associated in popular culture with
gleeful, pre-emptive nuclear attack. He did this
despite the fact that last week Obama also said he wouldn’t
use nukes “in any circumstance.”

Say what you will about Obama’s recent foreign policy forays, but
calling him”Dr. Strangelove” is like something out of Dr. Strangelove.

But Governor Romney is not the first in recent days to
refer to Obama as “Dr. Strangelove.”

That weird distinction goes to reporter Mike Barnicle.

On Friday, August 3rd, Barnicle was substituting for
host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball. At one point during the
show Barnicle was joined by a panel consisting of Jay Carney from
Time Magazine, Craig Crawford from Congressional Quarterly,
and Julie Mason of The Houston Chronicle.

I’ve posted a partial transcript. you can skip to the
end of the chitchat to see Barnicle drop the bomb just
in time for a commercial break.

Harball link:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20146238/

BARNICLE: Jay, let me ask you something; you know, I
go into a couple different states and have a cup of
coffee and bump into people—you‘re out there in
Chicago. You‘re out there in the middle of the
country. Whenever Barack Obama‘s name comes up,
there is a gleam in a lot of people‘s eyes, because I think a
lot of people, my instinct is, want something new, something
different this time out.

And yet national security, being what it is, people‘s
fear of another terrorists attack, the balance between
the two, experience and something new; how do you
think that‘s playing out for Barack Obama?

CARNEY: Well, you know, in some ways very well. He has

done well raising money. He has shown a lot of
grass roots support. But I think experience is an
issue. It‘s one that Senator Clinton clearly wants to
exploit, and other candidates like Chris Dodd and Bill
Richardson want to exploit, because there is no
question, at least on national security matters, that
Barack Obama has less experience than some of his
opponents.

One thing that is refreshing about this, you
know—while it‘s a feud and a name-calling episode
between Senator Clinton and Senator Obama, it‘s
substantive. I think what we saw here revealed a lot
about both candidates and where they stand on the
issues and their relative level of experience.

And while—on the Senator Obama issue, while it‘s
certainly true that no president of either party would
truly look at the idea of using nuclear weapons to
bomb Osama bin Laden in Waziristan, it‘s also true
that it‘s very rare that a president would take that
off the table ever, because it is simply not done in
foreign policy, where you remove options from the
table when you are trying to exert leverage. I think
Senator Obama expressed a truth, but he also, I think,
showed his inexperience.

(CROSS TALK)

CRAWFORD: Any loose talk about nukes by a
presidential candidate is trouble, particularly a new
comer already trying to fend of the naive —

MASON: Rookie mistake.

BARNICLE: Doctor Strangelove. We are going to be
right back with the panel. You are watching HARDBALL, only on MSNBC.