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19
Feb 11

Lisa Edelstein of ‘House’ Makes ‘Back Alley’ Abortion Ad for MoveOn.org

Actress Lisa Edelstein plays Dr. Lisa Cuddy, the hospital administrator (and main squeeze) of Fox's "House.” But Edelstein jumped into politics this week in a MoveOn.org ad accusing the Republican Party of moving the clock back and "trying to send women back to the back alley"for abortions.

"With the economy, joblessness and eight million wars that we're fighting, it seems very odd for Republicans to take over Congress and begin attacking women's rights," Edelstein told Patrick Gavin at Politico. "I feel very passionate about this…This is is an enormous attack. The president and the first lady both need to step up and shine a light on what's happening right now.”

Edelstein has put her money where her mouth is. The Newsmeat database shows she donated $ 1,000 in 2008 to both MoveOn and the Barack Obama presidential campaign. (She also donated to a few losing candidates: $ 400 to John Kerry for President in 2004 and Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-PA) in 2010.) Later in the 2008 campaign, Edelstein gave another $ 6,300 to the party-affiliated Obama Victory Fund.

In January 2009, Politico reported that “PP advocates” Edelstein and ABC actress Kate Walsh starred at a Planned Parenthood brunch celebrating Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Edelstein also talked to The Washington Post for their Celebritology 2.0 gossip column, which also displayed the MoveOn video. In it, Edelstein proclaims passionately:

Only decades ago, women suffered through horrifying back-alley abortions. Or, they used dangerous methods when they had no other recourse. So when the Republican party launched an all-out assault on women's health, pushing bills to limit access to vital services, we had to ask: Why is the GOP trying to send women back … to the back alley?"

Every jot and tittle of legislation designed to remove taxpayer funding from abortion providers or place any obstacle in the abortion provider’s way becomes, in melodramatic Hollywood fashion, a vicious hanger attack on today’s liberated women.

"The things going on in Congress are so about the fine print," said Edelstein in a Wednesday phone interview. "There are little changes in laws [being proposed], without directly attacking Roe v. Wade, that will make it that much harder to have an abortion."

Edelstein hopes the campaign, which will run through next Wednesday on cable and the Oxygen network, will encourage women to write their members of Congress.

"There was a public outcry in South Dakota, for example," Edelstein said. "In South Dakota they were trying to make it a justifiable homicide to kill anyone that was attempting to kill your unborn child or the unborn child of anybody related to you. Which means if you killed a doctor who performs abortions it would be justifiable. The writers of the law said that wasn't what was intended. But ultimately — because of public outcry — they changed the wording of the law to include "self defense."

There's the feminist Hollywood drama again: Edelstein insists pro-life legislators wanted to make killing abortionists justifiable — and then she backed off. (As Ken Shepherd reported, it's more like the federal Unborn Victims of Violence Act.) There's a reason Edelstein wasn't claiming to be an expert: "My opinion's no more important than anyone else's," she told the Post. "It's just that I have the ability to have access to more ears when I speak because of my job."

Edelstein naturally opposes any attempt to drain taxpayer funding away from Planned Parenthood: "I believe it's [something like] one in five women that go there for their reproductive health. To take away funding from an organization that is doing so much good is truly frightening."

The MoveOn ad has a strange flub in it. Viewers are taken from Edelstein (or a female double) walking toward the closet door in a sleeveless, old-fashioned dress, and when Edelstein dramatically opens the door with moist and mourning eyes, she's dressed in a purple, sleeved shirt. Is that a continuity error, or just a clumsy attempt to "merge" two historical eras?

NewsBusters.org blogs

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18
Feb 11

Lisa Edelstein of ‘House’ Makes ‘Back Alley’ Abortion Ad for MoveOn.org

In January 2009, Politico reported that “PP advocates” Edelstein and ABC actress Kate Walsh starred at a Planned Parenthood brunch celebrating Barack Obama’s inauguration.

Edelstein also talked to The Washington Post for their Celebritology 2.0 gossip column, which also displayed the MoveOn video. In it, Edelstein proclaims passionately:

Edelstein hopes the campaign, which will run through next Wednesday on cable and the Oxygen network, will encourage women to write their members of Congress.

NewsBusters.org – Exposing Liberal Media Bias

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3
Feb 11

EPA’s Lisa Jackson Backing Away From Global Warming Hoax?

If you are looking for the most extreme envirofascists on our supposedly endangered planet, the best place to start would be the Environmental Protection Agency, which Comrade Obama is counting on to impose authoritarian restrictions on the economy so pointlessly malignant that Harry Reid couldn’t get them through the Dem-controlled senate. Yet even at the EPA, the apparatchiks appear to be giving up on the disintegrating global warming hoax:

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson has again evaded answering a question about whether she agrees with one of the world’s most prominent climate scientists that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995.

On Capitol Hill [yesterday], CNSNews.com asked Jackson, “Do you agree with Phil Jones of East Anglia University that there has been no statistically significant global warming since 1995?”

In response Jackson quacked:

“I agree with the scientists who have reviewed and re-reviewed the e-mails and data and made a determination — several well-respected bodies, including the national academies, including independent groups — [and] put together that the information that came to be known as Climate Gate has not changed the fact that man-made emissions are changing and degrading our atmosphere, piling up carbon in our atmosphere, and if left unaddressed leaves us — endangers public health and welfare — and puts us, once again, behind the ball in trying to deal with, in trying to move into the clean energy economy.”

The preposterous notion that cars and light bulbs make it be too hot out is notably absent from her blather. Here’s what she quacked when CNSNews.com asked her the same question a year ago:

“I believe all the new information we have doesn’t lead to any different conclusion than what we reached in the Endangerment Finding. And that is that climate is changing and that mankind is responsible in part for that change, and that we need to move aggressively.”

When even the top commie at the EPA quietly backs away from anthropogenic global warming, it’s time for moonbats to market a new brand of snake oil.

Jackson: “Quack quack quack.”

On a tip from G. Fox.

Moonbattery

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3
Feb 11

Lisa Jackson’s EPA sandbox

Bills Introduced to take away greenhouse gas authority
American Thinker Blog

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21
Jan 11

RINO Senator Lisa Murkowski Sides with Democrats, GOP Attempt at Repealing Obamacare a Waste of Time

Once RINO, always a RINO …

What a shock RINO Alaskan US Senator echos the Democrat party that the Senate does not have the votes to repeal Obamacare. As reported in The Hill, Murkowski ”mimicked a Democratic argument against GOP repeal efforts”; Democrats say that Republicans have gone back on their calls to focus on jobs by holding a health care vote as their first major action of the 112th Congress.

Murkowski claims she would vote for the repeal of Obamacare, yet she calls it a waste of time? A note to Senator Murkowski, unlike your election in the 49th state, the rest of America elected Republicans who promised to do the will of the people and dismantle Obamacare.

Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski on Thursday cast doubt on the manner in which Republicans have attempted to repeal the healthcare law.

Murkowski (Alaska) said that she would vote to repeal the law if a vote was held in the Senate, but she said the enough votes do not exist in the upper chamber to strike the law. As a result, Republicans should focus on other issues such as unemployment, spending and the federal debt and deficit, she said.

The Alaska senator — who defeated Tea Party Republican Joe Miller as a write-in candidate in November — mimicked a Democratic argument against GOP repeal efforts; Democrats say that Republicans have gone back on their calls to focus on jobs by holding a healthcare vote as their first major action of the 112th Congress.

But GOP leaders, such as House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio), have said that the repeal vote was a crucial to uphold the Republicans’ “Pledge to America” document and is a first step toward repeal, which Murkowski said she favors.

Unbelievable, just like a typical RINO. As stated by Weasel Zippers, thank you so much Alaska for electing this Republican disgrace.

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Scared Monkeys

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21
Jan 11

Lisa Murkowski: Getting Back at Tea Party? Or Vindicating Them?

Under the headline “MAYBE THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN A LITTLE NICER TO MURKOWSKI,” Steve Benen catalogs Lisa Murkowski’s spate of votes as the lone Republican siding with Democrats: gays in the military, the DREAM Act, and New START. And she’s now urging her colleagues to give up on trying to repeal ObamaCare and get on with legislation they have a chance of passing.

Says Steve, “I don’t imagine all of this will be well received by Republican leaders, but don’t forget, Murkowski not only doesn’t care, she actually has an incentive to annoy them.”

But this is exactly why she got primaried in the first place! She was never a reliable Republican vote and, as befitting someone originally handed her job by her daddy, was dismissive towards Alaska Republicans who scoffed. No wonder Joe Miller seemed so attractive.

(And I say that as someone who agrees with Murkowski on all four of the issues in the lead paragraph.)

Outside the Beltway

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6
Jan 11

Lying about tear gas deaths: Lisa Goldman and Joseph Dana

I stumbled across a tweet from self-described journalist Lisa Goldman, where she says “Amnesty Int’l documented 40 deaths in one year from the tear gas that killed Jawaher Abu Rahmah.”

Her source? The rabidly anti-Israel lobby group, Washington Report on Middle East Affairs. In 1992 they wrote:

Amnesty International has reported 40 deaths from CS tear gas inhalation alone from December 1987 to June 1988.

Notice this: Lisa did not try to look for the original Amnesty International report that supposedly says this. She linked to WRMEA; uncritically believing that they were quoting Amnesty. This is not how a journalist is supposed to act.

This piece of information of the supposed 40 deaths in a single year has now been rocketing around the Twittersphere and blogosphere and even some left wing websites. But no one has tried to find the actual report. Except for one person: Joseph Dana, of the Popular Struggle Coordination Committee – who may have started this rumor – says that Amnesty wrote it in their report “Israel and the Occupied Territories: Amnesty International’s concerns in 1988.”

Amnesty’s 1988 report is not online. But their response to Israel’s criticisms regarding that report is. And here is how they defend their methodology:

The manufacturers of CS tear-gas used by Israeli forces stress that such agent can be lethal if misused — for example, by using it in confined spaces from which vulnerable individuals cannot readily exit. It is particularly dangerous when used in massive quantities in heavily built-up and populated areas, as has been the case with the refugee camps in the Occupied Territories, or when launched directly into homes or other buildings. Infants and elderly people or others who cannot rapidly move away, as well as people with respiratory problems, are particularly vulnerable.

Amnesty International finds such background sufficient to warrant the reporting of deaths following alleged misuse of tear-gas, and to call for adequate investigation of this issue, even in the absence of conclusive medical evidence to prove or disprove the extent to which these deaths were caused by tear-gas inhalation. In June 1988 it issued a report outlining its concerns on the matter.

These paragraphs prove that Amnesty either didn’t explicitly charge that the deaths came from tear gas in the 1988 report, or they backtracked from that assertion. It also proves that Amnesty was only talking about misuse of tear gas in confined areas – which the IDF admits had happened on occasion during the first intifada. And Amnesty notes that Israel has changed its guidelines for tear gas use in 1988 to stop using it in confined spaces.

In other words, the Amnesty report repeating assertions from Arabs in 1988 – admittedly without proof – that 40 of them were killed by misuse of tear gas has absolutely no relevance to the death of a single supposedly healthy person in 2010 who died, outdoors, quite a distance from any tear gas.

To compare the two is similar to saying that Jawaher Abu Rahma had died of an overdose of saccharine because she had two packets of artificial sweetener earlier that day. After all, there are scientific studies that a huge quantity of saccharine can kill humans if ingested very quickly!

The facts are clear. No one can find a single documented case in scientific literature of anyone dying from CS tear gas outdoors, ever. (I’ve been looking.)There are very, very few documented cases of CS tear gas killing people even indoors, at concentrations and over time periods that are hundreds of times more potent than any possible outdoor scenario.

Anyone bringing studies of isolated tear gas-related deaths of people were stuck indoors with high concentrations for long time periods as some type of proof that Abu Rahma was killed by tear gas in fresh air is, knowingly, lying.

Elder of Ziyon

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30
Dec 10

Lisa Murkowski Certified Winner In Alaska

It took almost two months, but Lisa Murkowski’s historic write-in victory is now official:

Sen. Lisa Murkowski was officially named the winner of Alaska’s U.S. Senate race Thursday, following a period of legal fights and limbo that lasted longer than the write-in campaign she waged to keep her job.

Gov. Sean Parnell and Lt. Gov. Mead Treadwell, who oversees elections, signed the paperwork certifying her win in the hotly contested race.

“It’s done,” Treadwell said after penning his last signature in front of cameras in Parnell’s office.

The paperwork was expected to be hand-delivered to Washington, D.C., by state Division of Elections Director Gail Fenumiai to guard against delays that could keep Murkowski from being sworn in with her colleagues on Wednesday.

With certification, Murkowski becomes the first U.S. Senate candidate since Strom Thurmond in 1954 to win a write-in campaign.

Joe Miller, meanwhile, has scheduled a press conference for tomorrow at 2:00pm Alaska time, 6:00pm Eastern. My guess is that he’s going to announce that he’s abandoning his efforts and will not be appealing the dismissal of his Federal lawsuit. Why else schedule the presser for 6pm Washington time on New Years Eve?

And thus, dear readers, we come to the official end of the 2010 Election. Murkowski’s race was the last Congressional race in the country to be officially certified.

Outside the Beltway

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23
Dec 10

Lisa Murkowski: The new ‘Arlen Specter’ of the GOP

Might as well have a “D” after her name.
American Thinker Blog

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22
Dec 10

Alaska Supreme Court Rules That State May Certify Lisa Murkowski as Winner of Senatorial Election

(Eugene Volokh)

Here is the opinion, in Miller v. Treadwell. Among other things, the court rejected challenger Joe Miller’s claims that only those write-in ballots that accurately spelled Lisa Murkowski’s name could be counted in her favor (see pp. 4–8). Prof. Rick Hasen (Election Law) has more.

The Volokh Conspiracy

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8
Dec 10

Lisa Murkowski Endorses DADT Repeal, Ultimate Fate Still In Doubt

Theoretically there are now enough votes to invoke cloture on the Defense Authorization Bill and proceed to debate and a final vote on the measure, which includes the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Proponents of repeal needed four votes to overcome the defeat that was suffered in September and, this week they got Susan Collins and Scott Brown, Mark Pryor, and now Lisa Murkowski:

“After reviewing the DOD report and the testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee by Defense Secretary Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mullen, I have concluded that it is time to repeal the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law. We expect all who serve to serve with integrity, but under current law gay and lesbian service members may speak about their sexual orientation only at the risk of being discharged from performing the duties they have trained hard to carry out. America is the loser when it denies those who are willing to make the great sacrifices demanded of our men and women in uniform the opportunity do so on grounds of sexual orientation. I agree with Defense Secretary Gates’ view that the military can successfully implement a repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ law provided that proper preparations are implemented.

(…)

“However, my support for moving the Defense Authorization bill forward, which includes a repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy, will depend on whether the majority allows for an open and fair amendment process. This is a weighty, policy-laden bill that normally takes several weeks to debate and amend. If the majority attempts to push it through allowing little or no debate or votes on amendments, I will be inclined to oppose those efforts.”

That last part is important because even though Democrats have the votes, the entire process could be scuttled on procedural grounds:

Senior Senate Democratic aides are in a panic this morning about the prospects for repeal of don’t ask don’t tell, because talks with Senator Susan Collins over her procedural demands have hit a wall, with the Democratic leadership dismissing her requests as unreasonable and counterproductive, a senior Dem aide close to the talks tells me.

The talks are continuing as we speak, so all is not lost yet. Indeed, the logjam in the discussions comes as Dem leaders have stepped up their efforts to get moderate Republicans to agree to vote for cloture on repeal, with President Obama personally calling Senators on both sides, the aide says.

Collins has said she supports repeal, but won’t agree to vote for cloture on the Defense Authorization Bill containing repeal if Harry Reid doesn’t allow ample time for open debate and amendments on the bill.

In private discussions between Collins and Reid this morning, and between their staffs over the weekend, Collins has demanded that Reid allow what’s known as “unlimited debate” on the bill in order for her to vote for repeal, the aide close to the talks says.

Reid has rejected this demand, the aide continues.

(…)
Reid has offered Collins a total of 15 amendments in order to get her to vote Yes — 10 for Repubicans and five for Democrats, the aide continues. Reid views this as a reasonable offer, because previous debates on defense authorization bills have had roughly this number of amendments offered, the aide adds.

But as of now, Collins has indicated this offer is “unsatisafctory,” the aide says. A Collins spokesperson denied this account in an email, but declined to elaborate.

Talks are apparently still ongoing, and I would suspect that a vote would only take place if they know they’ll be able to go forward on cloture simply because suffering a second defeat would be disastrous for the Democratic leadership. I also suspect that, given the uproar over the tax cut deal, Harry Reid will do whatever he can to make sure the bill gets past a cloture vote.

Stay tuned.

Outside the Beltway

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4
Dec 10

Weekend News Update: Rise in Canadian flood claims tied to climate change; Lisa Jackson vows to maintain ‘aggressive environmental agenda’

Prokaryotes and others can post links here to interesting weekend news/links.

Rise in flood claims tied to climate change

Canadian insurance companies are facing unprecedented growth in claims and payouts for water-related home damage, and industry experts lay the blame squarely on climate change.

In 2009, insurance payouts nationwide totalled $ 5.3-billion, with more than half of claims being paid for extreme weather events.

Heavy rainfall causing flooded basements was the main culprit, costing the insurance industry $ 1.3-billion in 2009.

For many years, fire damage was the most expensive cost for companies, according to the Insurance Bureau of Canada.

But 10 years ago, water damage claims started to increase, until 2005 when they surpassed fire costs.

Today, the bureau reports that water damages account for more than half of all insurance claims.

“Now that comes from, of course, the washing machine that break down, but it’s also the fact that the municipal infrastructure has not been designed to withstand what we are experiencing, and the fact that the climate has changed,” says Robert Tremblay, research director at the bureau.

While world leaders and UN bureaucrats discuss strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Canadians are already feeling the effects of climate change, including flooded basements after heavy rain.

That means cities and citizens need to adapt, says the Federation of Canadian Municipalities (FCM).

“For most of the country, the infrastructure is not built for the climate that we are now starting to see,” argued Brock Carlton, the federation’s CEO….

New reality means heavy rain, extreme weather

As for the science of climate change, the increase in the severity of extreme rain events is undeniable, environment experts say.

Climate modelling research has found that on a global scale there is a steady upward trend in heavy precipitation, according to Dr. Francis Zwiers, director of the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium, and former director of Environment Canada’s climate research branch.

“That means, you know, additional flooding [and] more frequent events when people will have to mop out their basements,” says Zwiers.

Related Post: Study finds global warming is driving increased frequency of extreme wet or dry summer weather in southeast, so droughts and deluges are likely to get worse.

Jackson vows to maintain ‘aggressive environmental agenda’

BOSTON — The Obama administration is committed to an “aggressive environmental agenda” that goes beyond what was achieved during the past four decades, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said today during a speech at Harvard University.

Jackson spoke during a conference that featured appearances by several leading lights of the environmental movement, including EPA’s first administrator, Bill Ruckelshaus, and former Vice President Al Gore, who spoke to agency officials during an invitation-only luncheon.

The event capped a week of events celebrating EPA’s 40th birthday and also previewed the case the agency will make when the balance of power on Capitol Hill shifts toward the Republicans next year.

High-ranking Republicans have vowed to keep Jackson and other top officials tethered to the witness stand, pushing Congress to block regulations that they feel would harm the economy.

But while voters may have been concerned about federal bureaucracy when they cast their ballots last month, polls still show that they want the government to protect public health and the environment, Jackson said. In the past, Democrats and Republicans have worked together to put those programs in place, she said.

The agency will move forward with rules such as the “toughest smog standards in history,” Jackson said, as well as the agency’s first-ever limits on mercury from cement kilns.

“Some think it’s time to roll back the clock on those advances, but we know that is not what the American people want,” she said. “This is the time to use this agency, built and shaped through bipartisan and nonpartisan actions, to serve this country. We can do that. As easy as it is to tear down, or to roll back, it’s actually only what we build, and what we advance, that lasts beyond elections and politics.”

Climate Progress

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29
Nov 10

Shut Up And Sing: Lisa Marie Presley

A reader writes:

The single tear at 1:16 seals it.

The original version is genuinely moving though, and a song that simply explores the pain of others is not what makes a Shut Up And Sing nomination. It's a performance that is really about the singer's moral preening that qualifies. And so Lisa Marie gets it, while her father doesn't. The best rendition, of course, is Cartman's (and Dina's).

The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan

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18
Nov 10

Sen. Lisa Murkowski Tells Local TV She Will Vote For Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell Repeal

Last night during an appearance on MSNBC, Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) refused to say if she would vote for a National Defense Authorization Act that included a repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, but this afternoon, during an interview with KTV’s Matt Felling in Alaska, Murkowski said that she would “not vote against a bill that had that repeal in it.”

Felling appeared on CNN this afternoon to preview the interview:

FELLING: And then I pursued the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell vote because that’s something that she’s been very reluctant to talk about because she wanted to hear from the troops and kick the can down the road. And then today she said, listen there have been leaks out of this poll inside the Pentagon, saying the troops are fine with it being repealed and you know, we are a different sort of warfare there aren’t trenches there aren’t fox holes anymore, I would not vote against a bill that had that repeal in it. And that’s honestly the first time she came swinging on that topic too.

Watch it:

Earlier today at a press conference with 13 other Democratic Senators, Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) — the sponsor of DADT repeal in the Senate — predicted that the measure would garner more than 60 votes. “I am confident that we have more than 60 votes prepared to take up the Defense authorization with the repeal of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ if only there will be a guarantee of a fair and open amendment process, in other words, whether we’ll take enough time to do it,’ Lieberman said, naming GOP Sens. Susan Collins and Richard Lugar as ‘Yes’ votes. “Time is an inexcusable reason not to get this done.”

Felling’s interview with Murkowski airs tonight on KTVA. Requests for comment from Murkowski’s office were not returned.

Wonk Room

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18
Nov 10

Lauer to Lisa Murkowski: Will You Stand Up to Republicans Who Want Obama to Fail?

NBC's Matt Lauer, on Thursday's Today show, invited on Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski to applaud her presumptive write-in ballot win over Republican candidate Joe Miller and asked if she would now "stand up against" Republicans "who may feel that the only way for them to succeed" is for Barack Obama to fail. After Lauer went through the perfunctory congratulations, he asked the candidate who failed to win her party's own primary, if she would, essentially, become a thorn in the side of Republicans as seen in the following question:

MATT LAUER: You, you talk about governance based on anger or fear. You're a moderate Republican. You've said that you do not pass the purity test that the Tea Party has set out. You said something else. You said, said "I will tell you I'm not one of those who wants Obama to fail." Will you stand up against other Republicans who may feel that the only way for them to succeed is for the President not to succeed?

Lauer also made sure to note that since Sarah Palin endorsed Joe Miller, Murkowski's victory could also be seen as a diminishment of the former Alaskan Governor's "prestige" and "power," as queried: "There are a lot of other people who are saying you defeated Sarah Palin. She backed Mr. Miller in her home state, put the prestige of her power behind that, that endorsement. How much does this say about her power and impact going forward, in your opinion?"

(video after the break)

NewsBusters.org blogs