Guest: Professor Eric Alterman

This Just In! Michelle Bachmann is bat-shit crazy. (Though most of us already knew that.)

It always seems that the response to the State of the Union address is more interesting than the address itself and this year we get two! One from Paul “Guess who’s not going to be “president” Ryan and the other from Michelle “Makes most of the Tea Partiers look sane” Bachmann.

Besides Michelle Bachmann’s camera/teleprompter problems, goth eye make-up, and pronunciation problems, you had the speech itself:

And I believe that America is the indispensable nation of the world. Just the creation of this nation itself was a miracle. Who can say that we won’t see a miracle again? The perilous battle that was fought during World War II in the Pacific at Iwo Jima was a battle against all odds, and yet this picture immortalizes the victory of young GIs over the incursion against the Japanese. These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor.

<Cuckoo-cuckoo>

Professor Eric Alterman joins the show to talk about his new book Kabuki Democracy: The System vs. Barack Obama.  In the book Professor Alterman makes the case that many of the concessions that President Obama has made are largely due to a political system that is rigged against progressive change. Sam makes the case that some of this is Obama’s doing by surrounding himself with enemies of the progressive agenda.

Sam then reads from an email by journalist Kevin Baker rebutting President Obama’s State of the Union address around the topic of “American Prosperity.” Some seem to discount the roles that Unions have played in building the middle class. The email is not online so please listen to today’s podcast to hear Sam read and comment.

You still have a chance to name The Majority Report Post Show! Hop over to this thread to nominate what you want this part of the show to be called or just vote for your favorite!

Today’s Post Show was a little shorter than usual since Sam has to hop on a train to DC for the Families USA Health Action Conference but he certainly had time to take listener IMs. Not sure how to IM Sam? We put together a quick How To on setting up Instant Messenger with the AIM Express app.

Tomorrow Sam will have Jame Hamsher on to talk about the incident at Quantico over the weekend.

Parting thought: Did john McCain have any idea where he was last night?

Is he asking Joe to smell his finger?

Listen to clips of the show via Official.FM