Rep. Keith Ellison weighed in late last week on the controversy surrounding the firing of National Public Radio’s Juan Williams after he told Fox’s Bill O’Reilly that he gets “worried” and “nervous” when he sees people in Muslim garb get on an airplane. Williams dishonored his own legacy, especially his work on the “Eyes on the Prize” documentary on the civil rights era, Ellison said, calling Williams’ remarks “ugly” and “bigoted.”

On The O’Reilly Factor last Monday, Williams said, “Look, Bill, I’m not a bigot. You know the kind of books I’ve written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous.”

NPR terminated Williams contract, stating that his remarks on O’Reilly’s show were “inconsistent with [NPR's] editorial standards and practices, and undermined his credibility as a news analyst with NPR.”

“Sadly, Juan Williams has taken a bat to all the work he did around civil rights,” Ellison said, discussing the topic on MSNBC’s The Ed Show. “I feel like taking all that stuff off my shelf and putting it in the garbage, because I just really feel he has dishonored his legacy to that extent.”

“The people who got on that airline on 9/11, they made sure they didn’t have any so-called ‘Muslim garb’  — whatever that is,” he said. “They made sure they were as mainstream-looking as they possibly could, because they were trying to harm our country.”

Ellison added, “The people who are just practicing their faith or their culture, more likely, these people aren’t any danger to our country. These folks are just minding their own business.”

“I think it’s un-American what Juan Williams said.”

Ellison said Williams should apologize “profusely” to Americans. Williams was given a $2 million, three-year contract to host The O’Reilly Factor within 24 hours of his firing from NPR.

Here’s the video of the exchange:

“They are great theater,” Rybak said of Bachmann and Palin, comparing them to other Minneapolis greats such as Prince and Bob Dylan. “I’m so glad Sarah Palin came here to bring Gov. Pawlenty back home” from his busy campaign travels.

Here’s the full exchange with Ed Schultz:

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Meanwhile, on Chris Matthews’ show, Pat Buchanan laughed off Bachmann’s suggestion that the United States should drop nuclear weapons in response to cyber-attacks.

Bachmann said on Wednesday:

“And then earlier this week, we found out that the president said that he was going to change the United States’ strategy on dealing with nuclear weaponry. Did this shock everyone? So, if in fact there is a nation who is compliant with all the rules ahead of time and then complied with the United Nations on nuclear proliferation, if they fire against the United States, a biological weapon, a chemical weapon, or maybe a cyber-attack — well, then we weren’t going to be firing back with nuclear weapons.”

Here’s Matthews’ and Buchanan’s exchange:

Matthews: How about the cyber-attack part of this?

Buchanan: Look, to have a cyber-attack you need a nuclear weapon on the other side because a cyber-attack…

I mean… the top… you mean the east…

Matthews: She was saying that if we get hit with a cyber-attack we should strike back with nuclear…

Buchanan: Well I see, you mean just computers. Do they mean computers?

Matthews: Yeah, that’s what she means.

Buchanan: or the attack in the atmosphere which?…

Matthews: No, no, no. She’s talking about cyber-attack.

Buchanan: If they hack into your computer?

Matthews: If something is happening to our computer system, we just strike with nuclear weapons.

Buchanan: I don’t think I’d strike with nuclear weapons if they hacked into my computer, no. (laughs)

A statement at the Air America website blamed the economy for collapse. The distributor is “ceasing its live programming operations as of this afternoon,” the statement said.

The most immediate casualty that will be apparent on KTNF is ”The Ron Reagan Show,” which aired from 7–8 p.m. on weekdays. “Ring of Fire” is one several weekend Air America shows heard locally.

Robert said she was making calls to try to keep “Ring of Fire.” But that is the only Air America she is pursuing, she said, and she expressed doubt that most Air America programs would find new distributors.

AM 950′s locally- produced shows on the weekday schedule include “The Mark Heaney Show” and “Quick on the UpTake,” with others airing on weekends. The remainder of the station’s programming comes from Air America rival Dial Global, Robert said.

Robert said she was sorry to hear the news. “There are a lot of really nice people there,” she said. “We’re really grateful to them for having launched 24-hour progressive talk radio.”

The independently owned local station began broadcasting on a different signal in 2003 but on March 31, 2004 began carrying much of Air America’s 24-hour program schedule, including Al Franken’s program. The main exception was “The Ed Schultz Show,” distributed by Dial Global.

Over the years, AM 950 got more and more of its programs from Dial Global as popular programs left Air America for its rival distributor. Along the way, Air America filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, reorganizing under new investors.

Weekday mainstays that will continue to air as usual include shows hosted by Schultz, Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, Thom Hartmann and Mike Malloy.

Chris Steller appears weekly as a guest on “Quick on the UpTake.”

Photo: Ed Schultz Show

Al Franken paved the way. Has progressive talk radio become the Democratic Party’s new farm league for the U.S. Senate? Maybe so, if the chatter about Ed Schultz running to replace North Dakota’s retiring Byron Dorgan turns out to be more than just talk.

On MSNBC, the radio host’s cable TV home, Schultz said state House Minority Leader Merle Boucher had asked him to think about a Senate bid:

I’m flattered. I’m honored. I can’t say that I’m even considering it right now,” Schultz said. “I’m in a different place right now. So we’re a long way from any kind of consideration.”

Schultz called Republican Gov. John Hoeven, another likely candidate, “vulnerable.”

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) wouldn’t comment in keeping with policy, according to Hotline On Call.

“The Ed Schultz Show” is heard on many of the stations that carried Franken’s own radio show, including AM 950 in the Twin Cities.

Schultz’s daily MSNBC show gives him a television platform that Franken didn’t have in the years leading to his 2008 Senate campaign — except for talk-show appearances and  re-runs of Saturday Night Live and other shows and movies.

But with the election just 11 months off, Schultz would have a lot less time than the two years (plus some at eithe end) that Franken’s campaign enjoyed.

North Dakota broadcasting was Schultz’s unlikely springboard to the national media scene, but it was a football scholarship to Minnesota State University Moorhead (then known as Moorhead State College) that originally brought him north from his home state of Virginia.

Here is the clip of Schultz discussing his “official ask” to run for the Senate:

“I certainly didn’t wear the uniform of this nation for 24 years plus to be equated with terrorism,” said Walz, who served in the Army National Guard.

As the Minnesota Independent first reported, Quist spoke at a Christmas party for the Wabasha County Republicans last month. “Our country is being destroyed. Every generation has had to fight the fight for freedom,” he said. “Terrorism? Yes. That’s not the big battle. The big battle is in D.C. with the radicals. They aren’t liberals. They are radicals. Obama, Pelosi, Walz: They’re not liberals, they’re radicals. They are destroying our country.”

“I don’t find it real radical, Ed, that I want to help provide affordable healthcare for all Americans,” Walz said in response.” I don’t find it radical that we want to try to make sure our economy is strong. I don’t find it radical that we want to have an energy policy dependent on America and not the Middle East. This type of rhetoric does nothing to help us move in that direction…. It poisons the dialogue. The idea of a high school teacher like myself — football coach and 24-year Guardsman –somehow being worse than people who killed people in New York and have tried to do so again is so incredibly distasteful.”

Walz also noted that Quist was a mentor to Rep. Michele Bachmann — no stranger to incendiary comments — and that Quist’s wife Julie works for Bachmann’s campaign.

Quist will be facing off with candidates Randy Demmer, James Hagedorn and retired military veteran Frank McKinzie, who are also pursuing the GOP endorsement in the race.

The full video of Walz remarks is below:

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Politico calls DumpBachmann “perhaps the most comprehensive anti-incumbent blog” in the nation and mentions co-founder Eva Young. [Via PiM]

Schultz stuffed his day-before-Thanksgiving show from Minneapolis with Bachmann talk, devoting 16 minutes (or a quarter of the show) to her. [Via DumpBachmann]

The MSNBC clip kicks off with Schultz interviewing City Pages writer Matt Snyders:

Flying under the radar so far is ECM Publications reporter T.W. Budig’s revelation that all Bachmann wanted at the 2006 State of the Union address at which she held President Bush in an extended embrace-and-smooch was an autograph.

Photos: bachmann.house.gov, oberstar.org

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann’s talk of stopping health care reform by fasting, praying and wrist-slitting has prompted not only lefty pundits but a top Democratic colleague to question what’s going on between her ears. Jim Oberstar, chairman of the House Transportation Committee, remarked Tuesday: “I don’t think God’s talking to her anymore. I think she’s hearing other voices.”

Bachmann said in 2006 that she was running for Congress on God’s recommendation (video), and last month said she would run for president if she “felt that’s what the Lord was calling me to do.”

It wasn’t a one-off gag line for Oberstar, who earlier called Bachmann “a sweet woman” but had this advice for elderly health care reform advocates in Duluth who were planning to visit her: ”Tell her that there are voices other than God that are informing her.” [Via Tom Elko]

It wasn’t immediately clear whether one of those voices is that of Rep. Ron Paul, who has Bachmann’s ear on financial policy and will appear with her at a town hall in her district this month.

Oberstar’s comments are of the sort more commonly heard from cable TV yakkers like Ed Schultz, whose show featured her “psycho talk” two days in a row, and Dan Savage, who linked God-inspired politics to hate rhetoric of the worst sort:

When you have a party that claims to speak for God or says God is on its side, the rhetoric heats up and the anger heats up, because it’s not just a battle about ideas and positions and what’s good for the country and bad for the country. It’s a battle about what God wants and what God doesn’t want. And it’s easier to demagogue about your enemies and to despise them and to dehumanize them in this really personal and vicious way. And the religious right is fomenting this kind of hatred in this country at our peril. I really do think that the Michele Bachmanns of the world and the Glenn Becks of the world are actively and consciously, or subconsciously, trying to get — I’m just going to say it — trying to get the president killed. This kind of rhetoric — this paranoid style on the religious right, from Birchers to birthers — doesn’t usually end well. And somebody’s got to put the brakes on it. Unfortunately in the Republican Party, there’s no adults left in the room. There are only the Michele Bachmanns and the Glenn Becks and the Rush Limbaughs running the show.

Here’s MSNBC video of Savage (via City Pages) and Schultz (via our sister site the Colorado Independent):

Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, appeared on the Ed Schultz Show on MSNBC to refute her claim.

“This is not true,” Ellison told Schultz. “I think it could even be called psycho talk.”

The segment Ellison appeared on was called “Psycho Talk.” Schultz said it was Bachmann’s second appearance since the show debuted less than two weeks ago.

Here’s the full clip:

Hat tip to Dump Bachmann.

Image via Media Matters

Al Franken returns this weekend to Air America, the politically progressive national network on which he hosted a radio program before launching his campaign for U.S. Senate, in an interview with Air America president Mark Green on the show “7 Days in America.” It won’t air locally however. It airs Sunday at 6 p.m., and he’ll also be on KSTP-TV’s “At Issue” program on Sunday.

In the Air America interview, Franken expresses confidence he’ll be a senator soon and predicts that if another Air America personality were to join that august body, it would be Rachel Maddow. American involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan “is going to be a long, long deal,” he says.

Hear the interview and read the full transcript here or after the jump.

It’s being billed as Franken’s first national media interview since November. But that doesn’t seem to be so, at least on radio: As recently as Tuesday, the first hour of the Jones Network’s widely-heard “The Ed Schultz Show” was set aside for conversation with Franken. The Voice of Minnesota, AM 950 KTNF carries “7 Days” on Sundays at 6 p.m., along with other only two Air America programs such as Ron Reagan’s and Thom Hartman’s (also carried by Jones, another politically progressive network).

INTERVIEW BY MARK GREEN OF AL FRANKEN, FEBRUARY 20, 2009

GREEN: Okay, can you now finally admit that you miss your 12–3 p.m. Air America time slot and regret leaving for a Senate bid?

FRANKEN: Well, no, I don’t. I’m really looking forward to getting into the Senate, and it looks like it’s going to happen, and I hope it happens soon. So no, I don’t. If I had lost, I might regret it, but I don’t think I did that.

GREEN: We talked before air about an election night a few years back when I spent two hours in an emotional deep freeze not knowing whether I had won or lost a close and big race. So how have you handled a three-month — and counting — emotional deep freeze?

FRANKEN: Well, Frannie and I Iook at each other at night, usually right before we go to bed, and go like: “How long is this gonna go on?” But, it really looks now that it’s going to get resolved in my favor, and soon, and so I’m actually excited to get there. So that sort of overcomes the frustration of: “How long can this go on?”

GREEN: What’s the hold-up? Haven’t you been certified the winner by the secretary of state of Minnesota?

FRANKEN: Well, I’ve been certified as the winner of the recount. So I just want to be fair to everybody. When I was certified by the state canvassing board as the winner of the recount, Coleman, as is his right, filed a legal contest contesting the outcome of the recount. And that was January 6^th, the day that I could’ve been seated as the winner of the recount. Then we went to trial January 26^th, and this is the fourth week. At the end of this past week, the judges issued a ruling, which we think is a great ruling, which narrowed the standards and scope of the absentee ballots that have been previously rejected … then the Coleman people kind of did a 180. They had not wanted these ballots included at all, but now that they’re behind, they wanted them all included.  The narrowing of the universe of these absentee ballots that could be counted is such that we really believe we’re going to win, and we’re going to win soon.

GREEN: I can’t think of precedents for you — an over three-month counting delay in seating a senator … and also a comedian moving on to the Senate. Are there any?

FRANKEN: Comedy to the Senate? Well, there certainly hasn’t been a satirist or a political satirist who’s done that. So, that really was uncharted territory during the campaign. But I think it’s a good thing. Some people thought that it was an odd career arc, but to me it made absolute sense. I had always been obviously interested in politics; DFL politics in Minnesota was when I was a teenager. And the reason I wrote political satire was because I thought it — politics — was important … that public policy was important. Then I transitioned into books, then into radio. So it all, actually, made total sense to me, as puzzled as many people were and continue to be.

GREEN: Was there a moment where you thought — yeah, I can be the first to go from satire to Senate, I can actually run and win and serve?

FRANKEN: I don’t know about the moment when I first considered running, but I remember the moment where I pulled the trigger, where I said: “I’m gonna do this.” I was in Iraq. And I had been sort of toying with the idea. I mean, more than toying — really actively considering it.

GREEN: What year was this?

FRANKEN: This is right before I announced in December 2006. I’m weighing this, and I’m thinking, like: “Oh, what a tremendous burden on my family. This is going to be a couple years of me not having any income.” Then there’s a risk to it, and my reputation. And I’m in Iraq with all these guys and women who’re there for their third tour, and their families are half a world away and totally anxious every day. These men and women are working their butts off and are in danger. And I’m thinking, like: “What am I talking about? What am I thinking about?”  So, I said I’m going to do this. I figured that at least it would be over by Nov. 4, 2008, and I wasn’t right.  The point is that I’ve always been more of a policy wonk than people probably think a comedian would be.  Before I even decided I was going to run, I would go around and campaign for DFL’ers in Minnesota and just talk to people and hear their stories about kids not getting any health care, and the educational system not being what it used to be when I was growing up. The middle-class squeeze, all the issues that we know are salient now in this country. I felt like I could do something, so here I am.

GREEN: Who do you predict might be the next U.S. senator with an Air America pedigree? Reagan because of his somewhat recognizable last name or Bender, because he has the chops and the good looks?

FRANKEN: Yeah, Bender lost a lot of weight, huh? Is that what you’re talking about?  Well, I think Rachel. So, I think when you’re talking about the next Air America senator, it would be Rachel Maddow.

GREEN: When you were campaigning, was your association with Air America a net plus or minus?

FRANKEN: It was a net plus, there’s no doubt about it. It was a net plus for a number of reasons. One, people in Minnesota who listened to Air America could testify that I was someone who was serious, someone who cared about people, someone who got his facts right , someone who worked hard, so that was good. Secondly, I had a national audience, so that helped, frankly, in terms of fund-raising and other kinds of things. The only downside was, you know, the Republican talking point that I was a communist or a socialist or something like that on Air America, that I was the same as Rush Limbaugh. I would answer: “No, I’m the opposite of Rush Limbaugh.” I’m not the mirror image, I’m the opposite.

GREEN: Given your famous spats with Limbaugh and O’Reilly, what have they been saying about your success, or do you now tune them out?

FRANKEN: Well, you know what? I’ve already been doing that. I don’t know what they’ve been saying. I really don’t. I haven’t been paying any attention. That is the great thing about doing this. You really stop paying attention to that. On Air America, part of the three hours a day is debunking the right and that kind of thing. But, when you’re faced with actually trying to help folks, you know, the past couple of days I’ve been going around talking to mayors in Duluth and Two Harbors, Minn., the mayor of Champlain, the mayor of St. Paul, the mayor of Rochester, county commissioners, etc., trying to figure out how they can get access to the stimulus package and what they need. That seems much more productive than trying to listen to Rush Limbaugh or Bill O’Reilly and hear what they think about me. Actually, that was one of the nicest things that happened to me once I left the radio show — I stopped paying attention to them.

GREEN: Now that you’re paying more attention to Obama than Limbaugh, what do you think about the stimulus law and the proposed new bailout proposal?

FRANKEN:  Well, the stimulus and the bailout are apples and oranges to me. You do hear some Republicans now say: “We’ll favor a stimulus package, but not this one.” That is, I have to admit, something I said about the bailout. I really didn’t like the [original] bailout because it didn’t have oversight, it didn’t have transparency, and also it didn’t seem to do anything about the foreclosure crisis. There were just all kinds of different reasons why I didn’t like it. I think I was kind of right about all of that. But, nevertheless, the stimulus package is something that I definitely would’ve supported and voted for. We need this. We need to jump-start the economy. We’re in a classic, deep recession where the government, in a very Keynsesian way, has to be the spender of last resort. I think that if I had been there, there would’ve been a different dynamic [because he would have been another Democratic vote for it].

GREEN: Should Obama in your view be playing the bipartisan card as hard as he is — or should he be more partisan and legislate based on his Democratic majority?

FRANKEN: Well, I think there are two things going on. One, obviously, the votes were very partisan. But I think, at least, the rancor isn’t  as bad as I’ve seen. And I think that as long as this president continues to reach out – I think the American public pays attention – maybe there wasn’t bipartisanship in the Congress, I think there is in the American people. I think there’s some bipartisanship among Republican governors. I don’t know how long these Republicans in Congress can continue to do this. I think the president is right to do this. I mean, I think that there are going to be bills that are harder to pass than this one, and we may need to work across party lines to get their votes. Now, if every Republican in the House is going to vote against everything and then throw a party afterwards, then I don’t know what to do about that. Certainly the Senate is a different thing, a different kind of body. My intention when I go there, and Mark, you know, I’m in this recount because I only got 42 percent of the vote. So did Norm Coleman, and then there was an independent who got 15 percent of the vote. I’m going to have to work on behalf of everybody in Minnesota. My plan is to try to solve problems and help the people of Minnesota, so I’m going to be working across party lines.

GREEN: The president this week said that he’s sending another 17,000 troops to Afghanistan. Is that something that you would  favor? You were an early supporter of the invasion of Iraq, but then became a vociferous, eloquent critic of the war. What about Afghanistan?

FRANKEN: Well, first of all, as far as an early supporter of the Iraq war, I was really on the fence in a way where I neither spoke out for or against it, which I regret. I wish I had been one of the wise people who had spoken out fiercely against it. But as soon as it became evident that there were no [weapons of mass destruction] and then as we were conducting the war and the boneheaded way we were doing it, I was, as you say, a daily fierce critic on Air America of the way the war was being done, that it was a horrible mistake, and that we were essentially lied into this war. As far as Afghanistan is concerned, part of the damage from Iraq was that we took the focus off Afghanistan, and obviously, that is where the attacks on 9/11 came from. Afghanistan-Pakistan is now an incredibly difficult problem. We’re changing our policy there. It looks like we’re putting less stock in [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and taking a different approach there which has to do with paying more attention to the tribes and hopefully doing some kind of Afghan version of counterinsurgency doctrine that we adopted during the surge in Iraq. I support putting more troops in there, but this is not going to be solved very soon, and this is very difficult. I’m glad we have [the State Department's special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard C.] Holbrooke there. We obviously have to combine Afghanistan with Pakistan. This is going to be a long, long deal.