Something unbelievable just went down on MSNBC’s Scarborough Country. Lawrence O’Donnell screamed at John O’Neill for two segments as substitute host Pat Buchanan hopelessly tried to moderate. O’Donnell interrupted O’Neill every few seconds, repeatedly called the Vietnam veteran a “liar” and a “creep,” and sneered, scowled, and shouted at the top of his lungs about how O’Neill did nothing to stop the war.

O’Neill was his usual calm, dignified self–trying civilly to inject facts into the hate-filled O’Donnell’s tirades. I swear O’Donnell acted like he was on something. He looked and sounded absolutely crazed. The scene was eerily reminiscent of this.

By the way, I spoke with a former MSNBC employee recently who noted that Chris Matthews STILL hasn’t read Unfit for Command and has no plans to do so. O’Donnell cited the hate-filled New York Times book review of O’Neill’s book during his harangue tonight. How much you wanna bet he has never actually read the book either?

I’m paraphrasing here, but John O’Neill noted that O’Donnell demonstrated the choice we face on Nov. 2–Kerry-supporting screamers like O’Donnell or an administration that can deal with the threats we face rationally.

I wonder if MSNBC will have the guts to put up an unedited transcript. Stay tuned. And if anybody has video of the show that I can link to, let me know.

More on O’Donnell’s recent rantings against “simpleminded” people of faith at David M and Betsy’s Page.

And here’s O’Donnell on the McLaughlin Group last week sharing his thoughts on troop morale:

MR. O’DONNELL: Look, it’s not our job to lie about war to make troops feel good. And I don’t care what they feel.

MR. BLANKLEY: I don’t –

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Let me finish.

MR. O’DONNELL: I don’t care what they feel about the truth of this war. If John Kerry thinks this war is a mistake and if the United States of America elects him president, the troops are going to have to live with that. And they know better than anyone else whether it was a mistake or not.

MR. BUCHANAN: The commander-in-chief should not undermine the troops –

MR. O’DONNELL: He’s not undermining anything.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: Do you want to make a point here?

MR. BUCHANAN: He’d demoralize them.

MR. MCLAUGHLIN: All right, the human –

MR. O’DONNELL: I don’t care if they’re demoralized. They have to go to war and be prepared –

MR. BUCHANAN: The commander-in-chief does care.

MR. O’DONNELL: — to live with the debate that goes on in the United States about whether it’s right or wrong.

MR. BUCHANAN: But if you’re going to be commander-in-chief, you cannot be demoralizing the troops in wartime, even if you think the war is a mistake.

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Drive them madder: Donate to the Swift Boat Vets and POWs for Truth here.

Update: SwiftVets has the audio.

Update II: Polipundit weighs in…and has started a contest to nominate the Worst Liberal Meltdown.
(The winner, er, loser, is here.)

Update III: The indispensible Daily Recycler has a video excerpt. They also include a hilarious comment from Frank Luntz, who followed John O’Neill and said he was afraid to say anything because O’Donnell would probably call him a liar five times.

God bless John O’Neill and all the Swift Boat Vets for putting up with such desperate, disgraceful abuse.

Update IV: A commenter at SwiftVets.com tallied up O’Donnell’s raging insults. Here’s the count…

I was curious, so I did a count of how many times Lawrence O’Donnell said “lies” “liar” or “lying.”

46 total times in 10 min. 45 seconds (much of which he was not talking)

First 5:10 O’Donnell didn’t speak
5:10-9:39: 6 times
10:55-12:25: 24 times
00:01-1:38: 7 times (beginning of second MP3 after break)
1:55-3:30: 9 times
(And I may have missed some due to crosstalk)
46 TIMES

Update V: Transcript is up.

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