Dan Quayle

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MSNBC hosts appearance by Mark Williams, who again smears progressives

On the November 24 edition of MSNBC Live, anchor Norah O'Donnell hosted Mark Williams -- a New York-based radio host and spokesman for the Our Country Deserves Better Political Action Committee -- who took the opportunity to accuse President-elect Barack Obama of "buy[ing] the office of presidency" and of promising to enact "harmful, anti-American policies." This is merely the latest in a string of appearances on MSNBC in which Williams has made baseless and incendiary attacks against progressives. Williams appeared on MSNBC Live to tout a television ad produced by the PAC thanking Gov. Sarah Palin for, in Williams' words, "representing the beliefs, the views, and the values of a great number of Americans." Williams said the PAC is raising money to run the ad during football games on Thanksgiving Day. When O'Donnell asked Williams if he was "using Sarah Palin to raise money for [his] PAC," he responded, in part: "That's the way politics is done in America -- you raise money. Ask Barack Obama. He raised what, a billion, to buy the office of presidency." Williams also asserted, "[W]hat Our Country Deserves Better is all about is supporting the institution and the office of the presidency of the United States while guarding the nation against harmful, anti-American policies that this incoming president promises to enact." O'Donnell responded by saying: "All right, Mark. Well, you're definitely serving it up hot on this Thanksgiving. Thanks so much." Media Matters for America has noted comments Williams has made in a series of appearances on MSNBC in the past three years, smearing and baselessly attacking progressives and Democrats: On the August 16, 2007, edition of Hardball, Williams asserted that "every military advance we have made" in Iraq "has been ruined, one way or another, by some fat-mouthed congressman, usually a Democrat, opening his mouth on Capitol Hill." Also on the same edition of Hardball, presumably referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Iraq, Williams said, " 'Nancy Botox' is out there saying, you know, 'We're leaving! We're running! We're gonna go away!' " Host Chris Matthews responded, "You know, Mark, that doesn't help me any." Williams also asserted on that edition of Hardball: "I hope what we get is the truth from General [David] Petraeus about every step forward on the ground being made by the military since we started this being ruined, and two steps backwards being taken on Capitol Hill by the Democrats playing politics on this and plucking the pennies off the eyelids of the newly dead." On the September 26, 2006, edition of Tucker, Williams asserted that "people have made up their minds ... that if we vote Democrat, that just hastens the day we disappear in a nuclear holocaust." On the August 22, 2005, edition of Hardball, Williams referred to another guest on the program, Colleen Rowley, a former FBI whistleblower and Minnesota Democratic congressional candidate at the time, as a "pathetic creature" and asked what she had done besides "flapping her jowls on MSNBC." Additionally, Williams has made similarly charged comments in appearances on Fox News. For example, on the February 2, 2008, edition of Fox News Live, Williams said of Sen. Hillary Clinton, "I've been in upstate New York in the Albany area for the last couple of weeks, and I have yet to meet anybody who likes this woman." And on the October 5, 2007, edition of America's Newsroom, Williams claimed that Obama "took his flag pin off after 9-11, and he felt, apparently, some sort of an affinity or some sort of a connection, because at that point he felt it OK to come out of the closet as the domestic insurgent he is." From the 11 a.m. ET hour of MSNBC Live on November 24: NORAH O'DONNELL (anchor): And just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday, a conservative political action committee is raising tens of thousands of dollars to launch an ad campaign thanking Sarah Palin for her role in the 2008 election. Our Country Deserves Better is rolling out a series of four ads like this one. [begin video clip] NARRATOR: We thank you for your passionate, hopeful, and articulate advocacy of common sense conservative values. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You're a symbol of hope for America. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're thankful you taught your son about the greatness of America, and the honor and valor of serving in our nation's armed forces. UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Thank you, Sarah Palin. [end video clip] O'DONNELL: Joining me now live is Mark Williams, spokesperson for Our Country Deserves Better. Mark, thanks so much for joining us. WILLIAMS: Thank you. Good morning. O'DONNELL: What's the purpose of this ad campaign? WILLIAMS: To say exactly what it says: Thank you, Sarah Palin, for representing the beliefs, the views, and the values of a great number of Americans, us included. A very simple message. It's Thanksgiving, and we thank Sarah Palin for representing us. It's not exactly all that -- there's nothing hidden in there. O'DONNELL: Well, how much are you spending on these ads, and how widespread are they running? WILLIAMS: Well, the ads will be running nationally. In fact, they'll be running during football on Thanksgiving Day, and they're only the latest in a long series of ads. We spent well into eight figures during the final weeks of the election campaign on a 35-city, 6,000-mile speaking tour where we also spent a great deal of money in swing states like Nevada and Michigan, as well as nationally. The bottom line here is -- O'DONNELL: So, Mark? Mark, so you said they will -- WILLIAMS: -- is we're simply saying thank you, but what's been very interest -- I'm sorry. O'DONNELL: Mark, can I ask you -- I'm sorry, so you said, so they will be running. They're not currently running, is that correct? WILLIAMS: These -- these ads are the latest. These particular ads are not running. We have a whole bank of ads that have been running. These are simply the ones we made for Thanksgiving to express -- O'DONNELL: I guess -- WILLIAMS: -- that sentiment. O'DONNELL: Mark, the reason I ask that is because I was reading about this, and I saw that the director of your PAC said that you hope to raise tens of thousands of dollars with this new ad. I guess I just have to ask the question, are you using Sarah Palin to raise money for your PAC? Are you really thanking her, or are you using her image and her supporters just to raise money for your PAC? WILLIAMS: We're raising money to run the ads, because ads aren't cheap to run. That's the way politics is done in America -- you raise money. Ask Barack Obama. He raised what, a billion, to buy the office of presidency. What's been most interesting of all about this entire thing, though, has been the vitriol and the sheer fury with which a very simple "thank you" has been greeted. The people who are posting to Arianna Huffington's post, and to Daily Kos, and Democratic Underground, and a few of these other places, have been vile, they've been racist, they've attacked my good friend Lloyd Marcus -- who happens to be a black man -- with all kinds of racial epithets. They are absolutely -- their heads are exploding because we said a very simple thing: "Thank you." Since when did hope and change mean you can't say "thank you" to someone who shares your political point of view? Is it now forbidden to have an opposing political point of view? What America deserves -- what Our Country Deserves Better is all about is supporting the institution and the office of the presidency of the United States while guarding the nation against harmful, anti-American policies that this incoming president promises to enact. And, at the same time, say thank you very much to Sarah Palin and try to do something to head off the "Dan Quayle-ing" of her, which we've seen happening quite a bit. O'DONNELL: All right, Mark. Well, you're definitely serving it up hot on this Thanksgiving. Thanks so much. WILLIAMS: OurCountryDeservesBetter.com, or dot-org. Don't miss it. Thanks, Norah.

Gallery: A Century of Presidents

: Photo: Bain News Service/Courtesy Library of CongressRepublican William Howard Taft (the portly gentleman at center) receives his ballot in November 1908. Taft won that election but lost his re-election bid in 1912. He is widely remembered (or remembered widely) today as the heaviest president (peaking near 350 pounds ? girth of a nation, some have called it). He was also the first president to throw out the ceremonial first ball of the baseball season, in 1910. From 1921 to 1930, Taft served as chief justice of the United States, the only president ever to do so. For that reason alone, he must be counted among the nation's most successful ex-presidents. : Photo: Courtesy Library of CongressDemocrat Thomas Woodrow Wilson (yes, that was his name) poses in the seat of power in the Oval Office in 1913, the year he was sworn in. Wilson had been president of Princeton University before moving on (but not necessarily up) to governor of New Jersey. Although he had two full terms as president of the United States, he really didn't serve the end of the second term, having suffered a debilitating stroke in 1919. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution (covering presidential disability) wasn't ratified until 1967, so Wilson's wife and doctors effectively ran the White House for many months. : Photo: National Photo Company/Courtesy Library of CongressPresident Wilson (left) rides with the incoming Republican president, Warren G. Harding, in the back seat at Harding's inauguration, March 4, 1921. Sen. Philander Knox (now, there's a name) and Rep. Joseph Cannon, both Republicans, ride in front. Harding was the first sitting U.S. senator elected to the presidency. He has a reputation as a White House philanderer. His death in San Francisco in 1923, supposedly by accidental food poisoning, is now thought by some to be no accident at all. : Photo: National Photo Company/Courtesy Library of CongressRepublican John Calvin Coolidge (yep, his name) tips a ceremonial Smoki Indian hat on the grounds of the White House, Oct. 22, 1924. When Harding died, Coolidge succeeded to the presidency and was sworn in by his father, a notary public, in the middle of the night at their family home in Vermont. Coolidge was elected in his own right to a second term in November 1924. Notoriously taciturn, he earned the nickname "Silent Cal." It's said that he once learned that a guest at a banquet had bet a friend that the president wouldn't say three words all night. Coolidge learned of the bet and kept his mouth zipped until he was leaving the dinner. He then walked up to the gent who'd scoffed at tales of the president's laconic habits, leaned over and said, "You lose." : Photo: National Photo Company/Courtesy Library of CongressRepublican Herbert Hoover (center, just to the right of first lady Lou Henry Hoover) and the presidential party stand for the national anthem on baseball's opening day, April 17, 1929. It was a few weeks after Hoover's inauguration and six months before the stock market crash that led to the Great Depression. Hoover, like Taft, had an extraordinary career following his presidency. He organized post-World War II food relief in Europe (as he had done after World War I), and heading the "Hoover Commission" on the reorganization of the executive branch. Hoover was the last Republican president elected on a ticket that did not include a Nixon or a Bush. : Photo: Courtesy Franklin D. Roosevelt Library and MuseumDemocrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, a distant cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, campaigns for vice president of the United States, in his hometown of Hyde Park, New York, Aug. 9, 1920. FDR lost that race and was stricken by polio the following year, but recovered sufficiently to win election to the governorship of New York in 1928. Roosevelt is the only person elected to the presidency more than twice, winning the elections of 1932, '36, '40 and '44. He died in office April 12, 1945, just before the successful conclusion of World War II. : Photo: Sammie FeebackFormer President Harry S. Truman comes out of the voting booth after casting his ballot in Independence, Missouri, April 10, 1956. Democratic Vice President Truman had succeeded FDR in 1945. He was elected in his own right in 1948, overcoming defections by both the left (Progressive) and right (Dixiecrat) wings of his own party and defying expectations of victory by Republican Thomas E. Dewey.: Photo: U.S. Army/Courtesy ?Library of CongressSupreme Allied Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower talks to American paratroopers in England just before D-Day in 1944. Republican Eisenhower was a popular war hero who swept into office in the GOP landslide of 1952, and he was re-elected in 1956. Ike followed Generals Washington, Jackson, W.H. Harrison, Taylor, Pierce, A. Johnson, Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur and B. Harrison in the presidency. Nonetheless, he warned in a farewell address to the nation in 1961: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." : Photograph: Cecil Stoughton, White House/Courtesy John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and MuseumA young girl is lifted above the crowd to shake hands with Democratic President John F. Kennedy, Sept. 25, 1963, in Billings, Montana, during the president's "conservation tour" of Western states. JFK would be shot and killed two months later while riding in a motorcade in Dallas. Kennedy thus became the eighth U.S. president to die in office, the seventh consecutive president who'd been elected in a year ending in zero to die in office, and the fourth U.S. president to be assassinated. Kennedy was the last sitting U.S. senator to be elected president. With Sen. John McCain running against Sen. Barack Obama, that 48-year losing streak is likely to end today. : Photograph: Cecil Stoughton, White House/Courtesy Library of CongressU.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes administers the oath of office to Lyndon B. Johnson aboard Air Force One at Love Field, Dallas, Nov. 22, 1963. Former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, widowed just two hours before, stands at the new president's side. Johnson won election in his own right in 1964, but was forced out of the Democratic nomination race in 1968 by challengers to his conduct of the unpopular war in Southeast Asia. : Photo: Courtesy Architect of the Capitol and Library of CongressRepublican Richard M. Nixon delivers his inaugural address on the east portico of the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 20, 1969. Nixon served as Eisenhower's vice president from 1953 to 1961. He was defeated for president in 1960 and for governor of California in 1962, but rose from the political ashes to be elected president in 1968 and re-elected in 1972. His conduct in the Watergate scandal forced him to resign in disgrace and under threat of impeachment in August 1974. He is the only president of the United States to resign. Ashes to ashes. : Photo: David Hume Kennerly/White House/Courtesy Gerald R. Ford LibraryMusicians Billy Preston and George Harrison pose with President Gerald Ford in the Oval Office, Dec. 13, 1974. Republican Ford reached the presidency through an extraordinary double fault. Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned in October 1973 in a bribery and tax scandal. Ford became the first person appointed to the vice presidency under the 25th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified in 1967. When Nixon resigned the presidency less than a year later, Ford became the first U.S. president who had not been elected to the presidency or vice presidency. He ran for election to a second term in 1976 and lost. : Photo: Courtesy the Carter CenterEgyptian President Anwar Sadat (left), U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin make a three-way handshake during the White House signing of the Middle East peace accord in March 1979. Democrat Carter was elected in 1976, but his re-election bid in 1980 was derailed by an energy crisis, the Iranian hostage crisis and the campaigning ability of Ronald Reagan. Nonetheless, he followed in the footsteps of Presidents Taft and Hoover ? and John Quincy Adams before them ? in remaining a major political force after leaving the White House. : Photo: Courtesy Ronald Reagan Presidential FoundationProfessional golfer Raymond Floyd gives President Ronald Reagan putting lessons in the Oval Office, June 24, 1986. Republican Reagan was a Hollywood actor of some repute who was elected governor of California in 1966 and 1970. He won the presidency in 1980 and 1984. His acting skills, which were considerable for a politician, and his ability to sell an idea, led his admirers to dub him, "The Great Communicator." : Photo: Courtesy Architect of the Capitol and Library of CongressChief Justice William Rehnquist (back to camera) administers the oath of office to George Herbert Walker Bush on the west front of the U.S. Capitol, Jan. 20, 1989. First lady Barbara Bush is holding the Bible, and Vice President Dan Quayle stands just behind her. Republican Bush, Reagan's vice president for two terms, was elected in 1988 but defeated for re-election in 1992. : Photo: White HousePresident Bill Clinton and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton dance at the inaugural ball, Jan. 20, 1993. Democrat Clinton was elected in 1992 and 1996, but impeached by the House of Representatives in 1998 over his testimony regarding a sexual relationship with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. The Senate acquitted Clinton, and he completed his term in office, only the second president in U.S. history to be impeached. : Photo: White HousePresident George W. Bush stands on the ashes of the destroyed World Trade Center towers, Sept. 14, 2001. Republican Bush was elected in narrow, disputed contests in both 2000 and 2004. Bush is the son of George H.W. Bush. Presidents William Henry Harrison and Benjamin Harrison were related, as were Theodore Roosevelt and Franklin D. Roosevelt. But not since John Adams and John Quincy Adams, near the dawn of the republic, had a father and son both occupied the highest office in the land. Bush is slated to complete his second term Jan. 20. With President Clinton before him, it will be the first time since 1825 that two consecutive presidents (James Madison and James Monroe) have served two complete terms in office.