Thursday night, as patriots gathered around their dinner tables to give thanks to the almighty job creators, many were unwittingly waging jihad against the American values they thought they were celebrating.
Despite their best intentions, those turkeys were essentially giving aid and comfort food to the enemy.
Meanwhile, earlier in the week, teahadist leaders embarked on a pilgrimage to Des Moines, Iowa to plot how to take down Willard Romney.
Apparently, Romney's new ad touting his plan to keep money out of people's pockets by raising everybody's taxes was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Morning lineup:
Meet the Press: Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY); Grover Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform); Roundtable: Presidential Historians Doris Kearns Goodwin, Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss, Georgetown University Professor Michael Eric Dyson, Author Jon Meacham and Rich Lowry (National Review).
Face the Nation: Author Kathryn Stockett; Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Author Michael Lewis; Author Walter Isaacson.
This Week: Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA); Former Secretary of State Colin Powell; Actor/Activist Matt Damon; Gary White (Water.org); Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates; Roundtable: Cokie Roberts (ABC News), Sam Donaldson (ABC News), Jonathan Karl (ABC News) and Michael Gerson (Washington Post).
Fox News Sunday: Former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman (R); Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL); Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ); Roundtable: Bill Kristol (Weekly Standard), Charles Lane (Washington Post), Sociopath Liz Cheney and Jeff Zeleny (New York Times).
State of the Union: Pizza Magnate Herman Cain (999); Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Political Scientist Ken Goldstein; Former Adviser to Hillary Clinton Kiki McLean; Republican Strategist Mark McKinnon; Reliable Sources: Jackie Kucinich (USA Today); Danielle Crittenden (Huffington Post); Eleanor Clift (Newsweek); Andrew Sullivan (Daily Beast).
The Chris Matthews Show: Andrew Sullivan (Daily Beast); Clarence Page (Chicago Tribune); Kelly O'Donnell (NBC News); Katty Kay (BBC).
Fareed Zakaria GPS: TBD.
By popular demand:
Up with Chris Hayes: TBD.
Primetime lineup:
60 Minutes will feature: a report on kids and their parents living in cars (preview); a report on real and artificial flavors that make foods and beverages so tasty (preview); and, an interview with actor/director Angelina Jolie (preview).
On Comedy Central:
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert were both off this week, so there are no new videos to share.
Instead, here's Daily Show correspondent Sarah Vowell's thoughts on what Americans should've been celebrating this Thanksgiving.
The Daily Show
Monday: Author/Screenwriter/Comedian Merrill Markoe
Tuesday: Actress Betty White
Wednesday: Musician Bono
Thursday: TBA
And Stephen Colbert exercising his pardon powers last year.
The Colbert Report
Monday: Cancer Physician/Researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee
Tuesday: Musicians Tinariwen
Wednesday: Composer/Lyricist Stephen Sondheim
Thursday: Business Magnate Sir Richard Branson
Elsewhere:
Sarah Palin, star of one of the greatest Thanksgiving videos of all time, bit the hand that feeds her.
Sarah Palin's announcement that she wouldn't run for president disappointed her legions of admirers — but it infuriated Roger Ailes. The Fox News chief wasn't angry about the decision itself. Rather, he was livid that Palin made the October 5 announcement on Mark Levin's conservative talk-radio program, robbing Fox News of an exclusive and a possible ratings bonanza. Fox was relegated to getting a follow-up interview with Palin on Greta Van Susteren's 10 p.m. show, after the news of Palin's decision had been drowned out by Steve Jobs's death.
Ailes was so mad, he considered pulling her off the air entirely until her $1 million annual contract expires in 2013.
After the announcement, he called Fox's executive vice-president Bill Shine into a meeting. Shine is the network's principal point of contact with Palin. Ailes told him she had made a big mistake. "I paid her for two years to make this announcement on my network," Ailes pointedly told Shine.
Meanwhile:
Kansas high school student Emma Sullivan managed to incur the wrath of Gov. Sam Brownback using less than 140 characters.
Sullivan, 18, sent this tweet after Gov. Brownback spoke to her and other students:
"just made mean comments at gov brownback and told him he sucked, in person #heblowsalot."
Even though the senior at Shawnee Mission East High School had just 60 followers on the social media, and didn’t actually say anything to the governor, word got out about her comment, and someone from Brownback’s office reportedly let an administrator from the school district know.
Sullivan found herself in the principal’s office the next day. She was asked to write an apology to the governor, though she has yet to decide whether she will do so.
And, finally:
Rep. Don Young (R-AK) was drilled by historian Doug Brinkley during a hearing on ANWR.
Famed biographer Doug Brinkley has written exhaustively on the history of Alaskan wilderness, but Alaskan Rep. Don Young was having none of it recently when it came to the issue of drilling for oil at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
The two men clashed bitterly last Friday as Brinkley, a professor at Rice University and the author most recently of "The Quiet World: Saving Alaska’s Wilderness Kingdom 1979-1960," testified at a House Natural Resources Committee meeting regarding the effects of drilling in the refuge. Young interrupted Brinkley’s testimony, calling him "Dr. Rice" and saying his testimony was "garbage.”
"Dr. Brinkley. Rice is a university," Brinkley shot back. "I know you went to Yuba College and you couldn't graduate."
Young, getting visibly upset, retorted: "I'll call you anything I want to call you when you sit in that chair. You just be quiet."
"You don't own me," Brinkley said. "I pay your salary."
How do you like them cranberries?
- Trix