In an article describing MSNBC’s supposed ‘left-leaning’ programming tilt, the New York Times suggests that despite courting controversial talk show host Rosie O’Donnell to host a prime time show, business considerations could preclude General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, from moving ‘too far’ left.

Having a prime-time lineup that tilts ever more demonstrably to the left could be risky for General Electric, MSNBC’s parent company, which is subject to legislation and regulation far afield of the cable landscape.

This isn’t the first time General Electric has allowed business interests to influence programming. In February 2003, “MSNBC canceled Phil Donahue’s talkshow after an internal memo argued that he would be a “difficult public face for NBC in a time of war.”

He seems to delight in presenting guests who are anti-war, anti-Bush and skeptical of the administration’s motives.” The report warned that the Donahue show could be “a home for the liberal anti-war agenda at the same time that our competitors are waving the flag at every opportunity.”

In October 2004, Donahue revealed that MSNBC executives required the show “have two conservatives on for every liberal. I [Donahue] was counted as two liberals.”

On Wednesday, Fox News’ Sean Hannity argued that Halloween was a “liberal holiday” because “we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout.” From Media Matters:

On the October 31 edition of Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, co-host Sean Hannity claimed that “Halloween is a liberal holiday” and “is teaching our kids to be liberals.” Hannity explained that “we’re teaching kids to knock on other people’s doors and ask for a handout.” Co-host Alan Colmes responded by asking if that meant that Christmas is a “liberal holiday.” Colmes asserted that Halloween represents “the act of giving,” and asked: “Isn’t that a Christian thing, to give, to share with your community?” Hannity replied: “Not to teach your kids to beg for a handout.” [Watch the video here.]

But on the September 9, 2007 edition of Fox News’ Hannity’s America, Hannity made the opposite argument. A little more than a month ago, Hannity argued that in their quest to ’secularize America,’ liberals wanted to “get rid” of Halloween.

There’s a lot to learn from liberal Massachusetts, the bluest of blue states, in terms of it’s not working in terms of helping economic activity for poor Americans or the poor people of Massachusetts. So it’s failing in that respect. Poverty is growing there for people.

But also a lot of what happens in Massachusetts when you start with it’s no longer a Christmas tree it’s a Hollywood tree get rid of Valentine’s Day and Halloween is removed, et cetera. We wish you a Merry Christmas to we wish you a swinging holiday. I don’t know how to quite take that.

After tonight’s Democratic presidential debate in Philadelphia, MSNBC analyst and Newsweek editor Howard Fineman, who has previously claimed that American voters find male candidates “reassuring,” observed:

Hillary glaring at these other guys, I thought that was significant.

For a presidential candidate to be frustrated by political attacks is certainly not unusual. But unfortunately, rather than comment on the substantive differences between the Democratic contenders, the mainstream media remains obsessed with superficial appraisals of body language and fashion. 

Today’s New York Times editorial confronts the Bush administration’s “trash talking” of Iran.

Four years after his pointless invasion of Iraq, President Bush still confuses bullying with grand strategy. He refuses to do the hard work of diplomacy — or even acknowledge the disastrous costs of his actions…The world should not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, but there is no easy fix here, no daring surgical strike. […]

Large numbers of Iranians are fed up with their government’s corruption and repression and with being branded a pariah state. Rain down American bombs, however, and the mullahs and Iran’s Holocaust-denying president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are more likely to be turned into national heroes than hung from lampposts.

As The Body Politik has previously pointed out, Iranian reformers and International Atomic Energy Agency chairman Mohammed ElBaradei agree with this assessment. Yesterday, on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer, ElBaradei stressed that he has not seen any evidence of an active nuclear program in Iran and encouraged the administration to continue pursuing diplomacy.

I very much have concern about confrontation, building confrontation, Wolf, because that would lead absolutely to a disaster. I see no military solution. The only durable solution is through negotiations and inspections. … My fear if that we continue to escalate from both sides from both sides that we would end up into a precipice, we would end up into an abyss.

Think Progress notes that “in his weekly news conference today, Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE), a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sharply criticized” the Bush administration’s new sanctions against Iran, warning that they will bring “the United States one step closer to war.”

“Unilateral sanctions rarely, ever work,” Hagel said by phone during his weekly news conference. “I just don’t think the unilateral approach and giving war speeches helps the situation. It will just drive the Iranians closer together.” […]

“It escalates the danger of a military confrontation,” Hagel said.

“I certainly think engagement is critical … direct engagement,” said Hagel. “That’s what great powers do.”

Hagel’s criticism is echoed by reformists in Iran. According to Mohsen Mirdamadi, one of Iran’s top reform politicians, “the threat of an attack helps Ahmadinejad’s political agenda.”

Any U.S. military action against Iran will only boost radicals within Iran … Military action will set back democracy in Iran for a decade or two.

According to Norman Podhoretz, a senior adviser on Rudy Giuliani’s foreign policy team and a strong advocate of military action against Iran, the former mayor from New York City has privately conceded that a military campaign against Iran is the only way to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.

Podhoretz has previously advised President Bush “that anything short of military action to prevent Iran from getting nuclear capabilities would fail, and that American needs to strike to prevent another Holocaust.” After his meeting with Giuliani, Podhoretz observed that “my view has been, and I very much doubt that Giuliani would disagree with what I am about to say, what we are doing is to try and clear the ground that has been covered over at least since WWI.”

Draining the swamps is the beginning of the process of clearing the ground, and planting the seeds from which institutions can grow the foundations of a free society.

Publicly, Giuliani has adopted a more moderate stance on Iran. During Sunday’s GOP Debate in Florida, Giuliani argued that “there’s no question that the idea of going to war with Iran, or even taking military action against Iran would be very dangerous. It would be something you would not want to do. It would be a last resort.”

Today, the Bush administration announced new sanctions against Iran and accused “the entire Revolutionary Guard Corps, a part of Iran’s military, of proliferating weapons of mass destruction.” Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put it succinctly:

Iran also funnels hundreds of millions of dollars each year through the international financial system to terrorists…It is plain and simple: reputable institutions do not want to be bankers to this dangerous regime.

But ironically, Halliburton, the company headed by Vice President Dick Cheney between 1995 and 2000, along with General Electric and Conoco-Phillips, has acted in such a manner. CBS News reported in 2004 that Halliburton Products and Services exploited a loophole in American law and established offshore subsidiaries to do business with Iran. Since setting up shop in Iran during Cheney’s tenure, the company has sold “about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government,” earning “most of their revenues through their oil industry.”

In 2005, Halliburton “opened an unmarked office on the 10th floor of a Tehran office building” and is expected “to remain in Iran through 2009.”

In light of the administration’s stepped-up rhetorical attacks against Iran, “Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told France’s Le Monde newspaper there was plenty of time for diplomacy, sanctions, dialogue and incentives to bear fruit.”

“I cannot judge their intentions, but supposing that Iran does intend to acquire a nuclear bomb, it would need between another three and eight years to succeed,” ElBaradei told Le Monde. “All the intelligence services agree on that.” “I want to get people away from the idea that Iran will be a threat from tomorrow, and that we are faced right now with the issue of whether Iran should be bombed or allowed to have the bomb,” the Nobel peace prize winner said. “We are not at all in that situation. Iraq is a glaring example of how, in many cases, the use of force exacerbates the problem rather than solving it.”

Rudy Giuliani’s ridicule of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) recent claim that the country can’t afford her ideas was the highlight of tonight’s GOP Presidential Debate in Florida. Giuliani quoted Clinton as saying, “I have a million ideas. America cannot afford them all” and proclaimed “No kidding, Hillary. America can’t afford you!”

This isn’t the first time Giuliani misrepresented Clinton’s statements. This time, he got the quote (mostly) right but he stripped her comments out of context and falsely suggested that Clinton’s domestic programs would increase the national deficit. Ironically, according to the Boston Globe, Clinton made the comments in the context of fiscal restraint.

Clinton recently floated the idea of issuing a $5,000 bond to each baby born in the United States to help pay for college and a first home, but it immediately inspired Republican ridicule and she quickly said she would not implement the proposal.

She defended that decision yesterday, saying she is focusing on proposals with more political support and she is not formally proposing anything she can’t fund without increasing the deficit: “I have a million ideas. The country can’t afford them all.”

No word yet on whether Rudy Giuliani believes that the $1.2 trillion the Bush administration has spent on the war in Iraq is something Americans can afford.

During tonight’s GOP presidential debate in Florida, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney argued that Hillary Clinton does not have the experience to be president because she never ran a business. Romney said that he could not understand how someone without business experience could be president of the United States.

But ironically, Romney’s new mentor, former President Ronald Reagan, never ran a business. While Reagan studied economics in college, upon graduation, he became a radio sports announcer, an actor, and later President of the Screen Writer’s Guild.

Does Romney believe that Reagan should not have been elected President?

UPDATE: In his post debate interview with Fox News’ Hannity & Colmes, Romney praised Reagan.

The older I get the smarter Ronald Reagan becomes...Ronald Reagan is one of my political heroes…He is one of the great presidents of all time…he is one of the great conservative leaders.