The Daily Background

Congressman Jack Kingston (R-Georgia) made the following claim on Real Time Friday night:

REP KINGSTON: We have not had a domestic attack since 9/11… I know as a member of the Defense Committee who sits in many many hours of bipartisan hearings with lots of tough questions to lots of members of the military prior to the counter-attack in Afghanistan in October 2001, we were absolutely sure that when we took the war over to the Middle East, that we would be attacked again. That’s what all the consensus was from all the intelligence agencies, so I think credit should be given to president Bush for keeping that from happening.

Not a single instance of domestic terrorism since 9/11? Apparently Congressman Kingston has forgotten about the still-unsolved 2001 anthrax attacks on Democratic senate offices and several reporters which resulted in the injury or death of about two dozen people.

Kingston also claimed that Michelle Obama had said she wasn’t proud of her country until her husband ran for president (this was taken grossly out of context by the media and she clarified her statements a few days ago), that Obama hadn’t introduced a single bill in the Senate (also blatantly false), that Obama wanted to “embrace” Raul Castro (Obama has only said that he’d meet with foreign leaders the US doesn’t agree with– not embrace them), that Obama had “absolutely” no bipartisan credentials (Obama has worked with plenty of Republicans, such as with the very conservative Tom Coburn on their “Google for government” Coburn-Obama Transparency Act), that Obama refused to say the pledge of allegiance (false; in fact he leads the Senate in the pledge sometimes), and referred to the Senator from Illinois using his middle name, Hussein.

Update: Ryan J. Davis watched Real Time as well the other night and has some complaints of his own.

Update 2: Josh Marshall has a little more, with some video. If you’re interested in watching the full episode, here it is on YouTube:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

Filed under: Z-TDB Blog