Hell has officially frozen over. After more than a decade of hyper-partisanship and knee-jerk, reactionary opposition to the other, the entire political spectrum of Meet the Press's roundtable panel--Markos Moulitsas, Joe Scarborough, Ed Gillespie and Tavis Smiley--all agree on one thing: the health-care reform bill sucks. There's the vaunted bipartisanship Obama sought.

Laughing off Whiter House adviser David Axelrod's spin of the historic (and not-as-bad-as-it-seems) nature of the bill, Markos points out that all this bill does is expand an already broken system, a proven failed program in Massachusetts. Scarborough adds that for all the White House talk that the insurance companies hate the bill, there is no regulation that Congress didn't capitulate on after pushback from the insurance lobbies and if they hate it so much, why has the value of their stock gone up so much recently? Former RNC Chair Ed Gillespie can barely contain his glee at the thought of the seats the GOP will pick up, because of this bill, and Smiley notes that Candidate Obama's rhetoric doesn't measure up to President Obama's actions and bemoans the incrementalism mentality:

I do believe that you have to stand on your principle. With all due respect to the White House and the President, who deserves who deserves great credit for taking this issue on and pushing further down the field than any other seven Presidents have done, you still have to ask, where is the principle that we started out with, and how firm have we stood on that principle? I thnk the danger for this White House is this: that the President and his team appear to be incrementalists. I warned the last time I was on this program, quoting Dr. King, about taking “the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.”

I love that line, and it resonates as much today as it did when Dr. King tried dissuade those who wanted to take an incremental approach to civil rights and segregation.

The sad thing is how clear this is to us here outside the Beltway, and how badly calculated this was to those inside the White House. And I don't think this was some malevolent intent on their part, but just a triangulating, DLC/Centrist move that completely didn't take into account that we now inhabit the post-Clinton/Bush era. I don't think there's any question that the White House must accept responsibility for the lameness of the bill--although they'll never do it publicly and risk giving more fodder to the GOP media--Feingold and Webb are already pointing fingers.

And at this point, I don't know what can be done to make this better. Tempting as it might be to thrown in the towel, the ramifications of that politically (you throw a bone like that to the GOP and nothing will get through Congress next session) will be a nightmare, and besides which, there's no guarantee they'd be able to achieve anything, much less anything better on a second go-round. So all in all, I have to agree with Joe Scarborough, as much as it deeply pains me to do so: we've been screwed.

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George Will quotes free-trader Milton Friedman to trash the idea of "shovel-ready" projects while continuing his defense of George Bush's economic policies. I'm guessing that George Will has refused to go within fifty feet of Naomi Klein's book The Shock Doctrine since he holds Friedman in such high regard.

And Ed Gillespie, when even Murdoch's Wall Street Journal disagrees with your assertions, you're in trouble. From Jan. 2009--Bush On Jobs: The Worst Track Record On Record.

PODESTA: I want to come back to Eric Cantor, which is no cost, no jobs, no ideas. I mean, it seems to me that the Republican Party on the Hill has become the party of no.

Maybe I'd say that it looks, a little bit from his defense of no regulation that it's become the party of Bush, that we've seen how that movie played out. It ended in the in financial meltdown and the great recession. It seems that...

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is Ed Gillespie right that it's no risk?

WILL: What?

STEPHANOPOULOS: This strategy?

WILL: I think there is no risk at this point because I think the American people understand that the greatest job creation machine in the history of the world is a reasonably lightly taxed and lightly regulated economy. But one idea, John, that, happily, we're not hearing. When we began this year with...

PODESTA: George Bush had the lowest job creation since World War II, lightly taxed, lightly regulated...

GILLESPIE: Fifty-two months of uninterrupted job creation, the longest in the history of the United States of America.

PODESTA: ... major recession.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What's the one idea?

WILL: The one idea that we seem to have dropped, happily so -- remember the phrase was "shovel-ready"? We were going to create government jobs.

It put me in mind of a great story Milton Friedman used to tell. He went to Asia in the 1960s and was proudly taken by the government to see a public works project. They were building a canal. He was struck everyone was digging the canal with shovels. Friedman says, why no heavy earth-moving equipment?

They said, oh, this is a jobs program. So Friedman says, why don't you give them spoons instead of shovels? I think we understand, now, the sterility of government trying to create jobs.

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From Face the Nation, FreedomWorks' Dick Armey claims that the GOP's purity resolution is not a litmus test for candidates. Sure looks like one to me Dick. I'm not sure what else you'd call it when you're using it to purge moderates from the Republican Party. Steve Singiser at DailyKOS has a post up on how this push to the right could end up being good for Democrats in the 2010--On Party Purity and Eleventh Commandments.

SMITH: The headlines out of the GOP this week, this notion, the Republican National Committee considering a list of 10 principles. Some have called them the GOP 10 commandments, which include things like support for the surge in Afghanistan or opposition, for instance, to the Obama health plan.

As a candidate, if you agree with the eight out of 10 -- with eight out of 10, you’ll get support from the national GOP, and if you don’t, you’re out of luck.

Dick Armey, is this litmus test a good idea?

ARMEY: First of all, it’s not a litmus test. Secondly, it is being offered for consideration in the party.

SMITH: Right.

ARMEY: And I think, thirdly, it is seven out of the 10. But if you -- if you read the list, at least five of the 10 are right at the center stage -- center post of the big 10 of American politics today, fiscal conservatism.

I think it’s -- if the Republican Party is going to win any future elections, it has to be presented as an alternative to the Democrat Party’s fiscal spending. And -- and in fact, it’s a very reasonable thing to say, if you want the support of the Republican Party, demonstrate some allegiance to the primary positions taken by the party.

That’s not a litmus test. That’s just saying, if you want us to give you our money, our support, our -- our troops in the field, our endorsements, then demonstrate that you’re someone like us.

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Say what you will about Bill Gates and Microsoft (and Vista victims should have plenty to say), I try to separate that out from Gates' work with his wife, Melinda, at the Gates Foundation, which is doing great work in helping to fund research and global efforts to combat AIDS. The foundation now appears to be broadening its emphasis to encompass the cause of global health care. (Watch Glenn Beck's hair catch fire at the very thought.)

Bill and Melinda will be on Meet the Press today, and what they have to say will probably be worth listening to. (No one will blame you for skipping the Rick Warren half of the show, though.) It'll also be a nice changeup from the usual menu of gasbag Beltway insiders -- although certain matchups (Dede Scozzafava and Ed Gillespie on Face the Nation, and Howard Dean vs. Mike Huckabee on CNN) will probably be worth seeing for the entertainment value ...

(All times EST)

•ABC’s “This Week,” 9:30 a.m. — Guests: Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican; Sen. Bernie Sanders, Vermont independent.

•CBS’ “Face the Nation,” 1 a.m. Monday — Guests: Sen. Carl Levin, Michigan Democrat; former House majority leader Dick Armey, Texas Republican; Dede Scozzafava, former Republican U.S. House candidate in New York; Ed Gillespie, former Bush White House counselor.

•CNN’s “State of the Union,” 8 a.m. — Guests: Sen. Richard Lugar, Indiana Republican; Sen. Jack Reed, Rhode Island Democrat; Rep. David Obey, Wisconsin Democrat; former British prime minister Tony Blair.
•“Fox News Sunday,” 9 a.m. — Guests: Sen. Jon Kyl, Arizona Republican; Sen. Evan Bayh, Indiana Democrat; former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, Republican; Howard Dean, former national Democratic Party chairman; Maj. Gen. Carla Hawley-Bowland, commanding general of Walter Reed Army Medical Center and the Army’s North Atlantic Regional Medical Command.

•NBC’s “Meet the Press,” 9 a.m. — Guests: Bill and Melinda Gates, co-chairs of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Rev. Rick Warren, pastor of Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

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George Will thinks that daring to point out the racism at these tea parties amounts to "liberals' McCarthyism. If anyone's playing the role of Joe McCarthy, it's Glenn Beck, not "liberals" who are pointing out the racist element to these protests, and all the "table pounding" on your part isn't going to change that.

CARTER: An overwhelming portion of the intensely demonstrated animosity toward President Barack Obama is based on the fact that he is a black man.

BECK: We have a former president who says, if you’re opposed to the president’s health care, you’re a racist.

LIMBAUGH: The left looks at everything through a racial prism. I’m just -- I’m just -- hey, they hit us, we hit back twice as hard.

PELOSI: In the late ‘70s in San Francisco, this kind of -- of rhetoric was very frightening. And it gave -- it created a climate in which we -- violence took place.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHANOPOULOS: The debate not coming down as President Obama called for. Let me bring the roundtable back in. I’m joined by George Will, Peggy Noonan, Bob Reich, Ed Gillespie, and Donna Brazile.

And, George, as we -- as we get to this, let me show two magazine covers from this week. First, Time magazine, Glenn Beck, mad man, and the angry style of American politics. And then in the New York magazine coming out tomorrow, there’s the tattooed face of Barack Obama , big headline, “Hate.”

We -- we heard President Obama say he thinks that a lot of anti- government feeling, the idea that the government can’t do anything right, is behind all this. What’s your theory?

WILL: The president’s right about that. What we’re hearing is the liberals’ McCarthyism, which is, when in doubt, blame people for racism. Litigators have an old argument: When the law’s on your side, argue the law. When the facts are on your side, argue the facts. When neither’s on your side, pound the table. This amounts to pounding the table.

I have yet to see evidence, is there -- does evidence even intrude in this conversation? Is there any evidence that these people are racists? I think not.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Donna?

BRAZILE: Well, George, there’s some evidence that -- not an overwhelming amount of evidence -- that some of -- a small fringe of this movement, clearly there’s some racism. And you don’t have to know the motives of someone’s heart to understand when you see signs, incendiary signs that basically compares him to a witch doctor, an African heathen. We know racism; we don’t have to be told or taught that. That -- that much we do know.

There’s a culture of extremism that has gained mainstream acceptance. And I think the president is absolutely right. When you see it, you have to call it. You shouldn’t duck it. But, on the other hand, you shouldn’t exaggerate it.

This is why we need responsible leaders to denounce it, but more importantly, we need to find a way to have an honest and good dialogue whenever race is a topic so that the president of the United States, which is very busy, does not have to have beer summits all the time.

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On his recent book-signing swing through the Bay Area, I was lucky enough to have David Neiwert and his daughter stay with me and my family. David and I bonded deeply over our common love of all things Python and took the opportunity to introduce my eldest to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a movie I think both David and I can recite verbatim. During this scene, David and I looked at each other and laughed because this is the exact kind of logic we see playing on Fox News every day to intimate some sort of problem with Obama. I mean, obviously, if Obama floats on water, he must be a witch, no, make that a Marxist...er, Communist....no, make that a socialist...yeah! That's it...if he weighs the same as a duck, he must be a socialist! Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the deep thinking of the average Fox News viewer.

The big news is that the Big Man himself, President Barack Obama, has decided that he needs to get in front of the cameras to talk healthcare reform rather than let everyone else do it. So he's going to be all over the Sunday shows. I mean, all of them. Well, not Fox News Sunday. And you can bet that Fox is pouting about being snubbed.

But David Gregory follows the president with two of the most prominent chuckleheads in the GOP: Boehner and Graham. And John King is giving Mitch McConnell the last word on State of the Union, while Stephanopoulos fills out his roundtable with GOP strategist Ed Gillespie and perennial George Will on This Week. So I'm hard-pressed to see how this is any different than appearing on Fox News. Just beware if they start to advocate burning at the stake as the answer.

ABC's "This Week" - President Barack Obama.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Obama.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Obama; House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio; Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Helene Cooper, Rick Stengel, David Brooks, Kathleen Parker. Topics: What is behind the recent populist outrage against the Obama agenda? Is Afghanistan becoming President Obama's Vietnam? Meter Questions: Was the anti-Obama venom unavoidable? YES: 6 NO: 6; Has Obama Got Command Back? YES: 12 No: 0.

CNN's "State of the Union" - Obama; Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - A rare and exclusive interview with the President of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev. Have the US and Russia truly hit the "reset" button? How does he respond to Vice President Biden's criticism of Russia's "withering" economy?

"Fox News Sunday" - Bertha Lewis, chief executive officer of ACORN; Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif.; Fred Smith, chairman and chief executive of FedEx Corp.; Steve Odland, chairman and chief executive of Office Depot Inc.; John Chambers, chairman and chief executive of Cisco.

So what's catching your eye this morning?

"President" Newt Gingrich on Da Ali G Show

Oh look, President Newt Gingrich is on the Sunday shows. Again. Gosh, I'm so glad that the media is around to tell us just who embodies the change for which we voted. And looking around, it's no better on any other show: former Bush attorney Ed Gillespie on This Week, former governor Mitt Romney on Fox News and every single milquetoasty DINO booked (I'm looking at you, Feinstein and Specter) is paired with a camera-hogging, sound-byte ready (if fact-negligible) Republican like John Kyl, Mitch McConnell or Lindsey Graham. Hello: reality-based community to media--it's 2009, not 2000. Catch the hell up already.

ABC's "This Week" - Sens. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas; Ed Gillespie, former Bush White House counselor.

CBS' "Face the Nation" - Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

NBC's "Meet the Press" - Pre-empted for the French Open.

NBC's "The Chris Matthews Show" - Panel: Gloria Borger, Dan Rather, John Heilemann, Katty Kay. Topics: Has President Obama solidified a lasting majority for the Democratic Party? How should Republicans respond to Obama, and who are their promising stars? Meter questions: Will Senate Republicans attack Sonia Sotomayor as a liberal or show deference to her? YES: 10 NO: 2; Is Obama winning the national security policy debate with Cheney? YES: 11 No: 1.

CNN's "State of the Union/Reliable Sources" - Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Gillespie; Sameh Shoukry, Egypt's ambassador to the U.S.

CNN's "Fareed Zakaria GPS" - In a speech in Cairo this Thursday, President Obama called for a "new beginning" for relations between the U.S. and the Muslim world. Fareed brings together a panel of experts from around the Muslim world and the region to react to and analyze the speech...and what it means for U.S./Arab relations. Plus, author Michael Lewis on the economic crisis and the future of Wall Street.

"Fox News Sunday" - Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass.

So, what's catching your eye this morning?

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It's Sunday and you know what that means. Bring on the Bobble Heads. The common theme of the day, the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor.

Fox News Sunday: "Sens. Arlen Specter, D-Pa., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; former Gov. Mitt Romney, R-Mass."

Meet the Press: "Sens. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala.; Anne Mulcahy, chairwoman and CEO of Xerox Corp.; Jim Owens, chairman and CEO of Caterpillar Inc.; Eric Schmidt, Google Inc. chairman and CEO."

This Week: "Sens. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., and John Cornyn, R-Texas; Ed Gillespie, former Bush White House counselor."

Face the Nation: "Sens. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jon Kyl, R-Ariz."

State of the Union: "Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas; Gillespie; Sameh Shoukry, Egypt's ambassador to the U.S."

Leave us your tips and comments in the thread below. We'd be lost without them.

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Poor little old Dick Cheney just can't catch a break. It seems we've now got Maureen Dowd and former President Bill Clinton taking shots at Dick Cheney after Lawrence Wilkerson's righteous smack down. Ed Gillespie is the former Bush aide du jour that gets the honors of defending Darth Cheney on The Situation Room. Gillespie doesn't want to acknowledge that Rush Limbaugh and his ilk don't want any moderates in his response to Blitzer.

And I'm sorry but the Democratic Party has not moved to the left. We've got a moderate for a President that a lot of us on the left don't agree with on many issues and a whole bunch of corporate-crats who did as Gillespie correctly noted get elected in conservative districts. How that makes the party moving to the left in anything but Republican fantasy land is beyond me. Ed needs to work on his talking points. He sounds like he's still beating that "Obama is the most liberal Senator" dead horse that failed them the last election and hoping their tired "socialist" canard sticks.

BLITZER: All right, let's talk about the former Vice President Dick Cheney for a moment.

Maureen Dowd, "The New York Times" columnist, Ed, who wrote this in the paper today: "Cheney has replaced Sarah Palin as rogue diva. Just as Jeb Bush and other Republicans are trying to get kinder and gentler, Cheney has popped out of his dungeon, scary organ music blaring, to carry on his nasty campaign of fear and loathing."

Is this whole debate among Republicans right now, who's more beneficial to the party, Colin Powell or Rush Limbaugh, is this really helpful to the Republicans? And I ask you as a former chairman of the RNC.

GILLESPIE: No, it's a false debate, Wolf.

The fact is that, if you're going to be a majority party in a country of 300 million people, you're a party that would include people who have a view of -- like Rush Limbaugh, very pure in terms of the philosophical approach, and a view that accommodates people like Colin Powell as well, a little bit more pragmatic in terms of their approach.

I -- you know, I am someone who is, you know, a conservative in terms of my philosophy and my -- my political outlook, but I also am someone who understands that the Democrats have done a very good job of getting candidates in districts where maybe the -- the candidate doesn't agree, the Democratic candidate doesn't agree with the Democratic Party platform on gun control or on abortion.

But, at the same time, they have been able to elect enough candidates to get a majority. I would say, in the -- that process, by the way, the Democratic Party hasn't moved to the right. If anything, it's moved left.

BLITZER: All right.

GILLESPIE: And, so, I think that we should take a page from their playbook.

BLITZER: The former President Bill Clinton was out campaigning for the Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe, his good friend. He was out in Herndon, Virginia.

And we caught up with him, Bill Clinton.

Donna, listen to this little reaction we got from him on the whole Dick Cheney business.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CLINTON: I wish him well. It's over.

I wish him well. It's over. But I do hope he gets some more target practice before he goes out again.

(LAUGHTER)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: "I do hope he gets some more target practice before he goes out again."

All right, what do you make of that, given the -- I guess it's the implication of the -- the shooting incident when he went out hunting a few years ago, shot a friend in the face.

BRAZILE: Well, I also think the former president was referring to the fact that the former vice president this past weekend made, I thought, an incredible mistake in saying that he would pick one over the other, pick Limbaugh over Colin Powell.

Ed knows this very well. In order for a major political party to survive in the kind of country we live in, you need to have, you know, diversity within your party, a more inclusive party.

I think Dick Cheney is a distraction for the Republican Party as they try to rebrand themselves, reinvent themselves, and to connect with the American people on the values that most Americans care about.

So, it's not always left vs. right. It's right vs. wrong. And the American people have judged the Republicans to be wrong on the issues.

BLITZER: All right, guys, we will leave it there.

Donna and Ed, thanks very much. We will continue, though. Both of you will be back.

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From CNN's new State of the Union, Ed Gillespie suddenly loves him some bi-partisanship and is against nasty partisan attacks. Coming from one of the nastiest, most partisan administrations which subscribed to the Karl Rove/Lee Atwater school of politics, this is pretty rich. Now it's not good for the country to act that way. Gee Ed, thanks for coming around to that way of thinking now that the Democrats are in charge. Mighty kind of you.

KING: You mentioned you're a former RNC chairman. Gloria and I have talked about this quite a bit since the election, whither the Republican Party? Obama comes in with a clear majority. He comes in with the good will of American people, even those who didn't vote for him.

And it's a "Who's on first?" moment for the Republican Party. Who is the leader of the Republican Party, former chairman Ed Gillespie?

Who is the leader, right now?

And what is the strategy when it comes to dealing with this new president?

GILLESPIE: Well, I think the foremost leaders will be the leaders in the House and the Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader there, and John Boehner in the House.

And I think they pursued an appropriate strategy, which is there are areas where we can agree, we will agree and we'll work with the president-elect, soon to be the president. Where there are areas where there are principle disagreements, we'll disagree.

I do think, and I encourage my fellow Republicans and people who share my more conservative philosophy that we not fall prey to trying to retaliate from the kind of viciousness and the kind of bitter attacks, personal attacks against President Bush that we saw from the left in the past eight years.

We can make a stand on principle. And we can oppose on policy without -- you know, engaging in that kind of harsh, personal, nasty rhetoric. It's not good for the process. It's not good for the country.

And, look, I, obviously, was hoping for a different outcome in the election. I'm excited, as an American, that we're going to make history with the first African-American to be elected president.

And if I'm invited back or in a position to comment, I will be careful to make clear that, you know, I want the president to succeed. He will be my president on Tuesday. I am an American; I may disagree with his policies, and I hope that my friends on the right will adopt that tone.