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From Meet the Press Rachel Maddow calls out Rep. Aaron Shock for taking credit for what the stimulus bill has done for his district while at the same time touting his vote against the stimulus bill. Schock tries to shift the argument to whether any Republicans were included in drafting the bill or not. David Gregory follows up and asks Schock if that means he won't take any federal money for his district or not and Schock responds that he thinks it is a ridiculous argument and is Rachel Maddow going to give back her Bush tax cuts she rails about and says his district deserves their share of federal spending. As Rachel points out though, that's not the problem but rather the rank hypocrisy of voting against something and then touting it.

If MSNBC actually cared about their ratings on this show, they'd get rid of Gregory and let Maddow host it.

MR. GREGORY: Congressman Schock, where are the Republicans going to be on this?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, look, I think, unfortunately, it's more of the same. I mean, all of this talk about bipartisanship, and yet the rhetoric doesn't match the reality. As David Brooks mentioned, there was some, some Republicans who worked with Democrats in the Senate to come up with a jobs bill only to have their leadership put the kibosh on it. We, we are for creating long-term economic growth. You do that by incentivizing entrepreneurialism, risk taking, and investment. You do that through creating certainty in the markets through certain tax incentives. And that's where we'll be on a jobs bill.

MR. GREGORY: So it sounds like you're--you like what the Democrats are doing here?

REP. SCHOCK: Well, I don't like all the pork that was in the bill. Seven hundred eighty-seven billion dollar stimulus bill, the largest spending bill in, in history, one of the reasons why it didn't create long-term growth is it didn't have stimulative tax cuts in it, but rather a lot of pork and spending.

MS. MADDOW: Which are the least stimulative things in the stimulus. I mean, when you assess what creates jobs, in the stimulus band it's the tax cuts that were put in in order to try to win Republican votes that didn't come anyway that are the least effective thing in the stimulus bill. So the theory doesn't match the practice here.

But, I mean, you, in your district...

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The early reviews are in and they're not pretty. From the NY Daily News:

A week after getting thrashed by Stephen Colbert as a flip-flopper, potential Senate candidate Harold Ford said he wanted to see if the comedian "wants to beat me up in person."

Ford got his answer Monday night when Colbert did exactly that on "The Colbert Report."

"Evidently, six minutes at my interview table counts as New York State residency," Colbert said to the former Tennessee congressman, who registered to vote here last fall.

It didn't get any better for Ford. Colbert began by pressing him on abortion, noting that in 2006, Ford called himself "pro-life" but now insists he has always been pro-choice.

As he has before, Ford insisted that by "pro-life" he meant he supported education, veterans benefits and other fundamental issues.

Next up? Gay marriage. Colbert pointed out that while Ford opposed the rite while running in Tennessee, he now supports it.

"Again, I think this is a great thing," Colbert said. "Because you're saying these things in the media capital of the world - New York City, gotcha-town. And you're saying come and gotcha me."

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Yeah, I just love the sound of fingernails across a chalkboard too, Harold. It's hard to feel good about these two leading the fundraising effort for Haiti knowing full well the damage they helped heap upon that country, but not for Harold Ford Jr. He's just lovin' that bipartisanship, don't you know... and the sound of George Bush's voice. Good grief.

Anyone besides me think that the only person on this panel that sounds like they have anything close to a clue about why the left is angry with President Obama was Arianna Huffington? This is from the New Years eve edition of Morning Joe.

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What's wrong with this picture when Pat Buchanan is talking more sense than Harold Ford Jr. or Lawrence O'Donnell? While Buchanan disagrees with the agenda set out by the Obama administration on getting health care reform done, at least he's got the sense to know that if someone says they're going to do something, they'd better stick with it and not worry about some poll numbers in Ohio. Harold Ford Jr. thinks maybe the Obama administration should think about some more tax cuts to stimulate the economy, and maybe hold off on reforming our health care system.

Thanks Harold. With Democrats like these.... And can these talking heads quit saying that the Obama administration's stimulus package was the first one? The first stimulus package was passed in 2008, by George Bush. With tax cuts. That didn't work and failed to stimulate the economy.

I'd also like to know why Lawrence O'Donnell or the Hardball producers think Harold Ford and Pat Buchanan should be their go-to guys on an economic debate instead someone like Paul Krugman who predicted what's happening now? Can we get some economists in the house instead of a milk toast DLC Democratic talking head and a Republican talking head, neither of whom are experts on the economy?

Transcript below the fold.

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On Hardball, Harold Ford pulls out the 24 ticking time bomb red herring and says he might have voted for torture after our country was attacked on 9/11. Matthews slams him for veering into "Cheney country" and rightfully so.

With Democrats like these, who needs Republicans? Chris Cillizza isn't much better with more of his talk of polls and how many Americans approve of torture. Apparently Joan Walsh's lecture didn't get through to him.

Matthews: You know it's interesting Congressman it seems like Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are caught trying to do two things at the same time. You see her standing there in front of a million flags sincerely trying to look as nationalistic as the Republicans. I mean patriotic...in other words tough. Anything that goes to the defense of the country we're going to be tough as nails as opposing any enemy of any kind. We're tough as the Republicans are. At the same time trying to express sympathy for prisoners, bad guys. Is that a problem? You seem to be suggesting it is. You can't be both tough as nails and at the same time look like you worry about human rights violations. Is that a problem politically or not?

Ford: No. I think Eric Holder said this best when referring to the Ted Stevens case in the aftermath and when he stepped forward and said we would not, the Justice Department would not move forward. He said the most important thing in the Justice Department is not winning, it's justice. So in this sense I think having the conversation about what happened and whether or not at Guantanamo Bay, and I'm not as outraged as some are about it because as much as I think some of those techniques were enhanced and might have risen to a level of torture you have to remember when this was occurring.

This is 2002, 2003. The country was in a different place, in a different space. And if you were to say to me, as an American, put aside my partisanship, that we have an opportunity to gain information that would prevent the destruction of an American city, to prevent killings in American cities, and we have to use certain techniques, I’m one of those Americans that would have voted a certain way, Chris. And that polling said it might have been torture, but I’m not as outraged.

Matthews: You are veering into Cheney country here. The destruction of an American city. What evidence did you ever have that the enemy had a nuclear weapon that could blow up an American city? Where'd that..that's Cheney talk. That is..that's what he uses to justify torture. We have no evidence that any enemy of ours had a nuclear weapon.

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I guess MSNBC thinks that Joe Scarborough doesn't get enough face time on their network since they just had bring him on the panel on today's Meet the Press. And who would think that Harold Ford Jr. and Juan Williams would be the two voices of reason in this week's Sunday lineup? Scarborough tried to compare Bush's spending to what's in Obama's budget.

MR. GREGORY: Welcome, all of you. Well, here it is. It's not a, a big document for $3.6 trillion, but it is a significant document. "A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America's Promise." And this is no ordinary budget. This is how David Leonhardt described it in The New York Times this week: "The budget that President Obama proposed is nothing less than an attempt to end a three-decade era of economic policy dominated by the ideas of Ronald Reagan and his supporters. ... More than anything else, the proposals seek to reverse the rapid increase in economic inequality over the last 30 years."

Joe Scarborough, tax increases and a real focus on, if you like, wealth transfer from the wealthy to the middle class.

MR. JOE SCARBOROUGH: If you like wealth transfer, this could be great.

MR. GREGORY: Yeah.

MR. SCARBOROUGH: The, the thing though is I keep hearing people saying that this is a bold step forward, it is a new direction. I think, as a fiscal conservative, it's more of the same. For people to say that George Bush didn't engage in stimulus spending over the past eight years--I would say reckless spending--when you had two wars, tax cuts, a $7 trillion Medicare drug benefit plan and, and the biggest increase in domestic spending since LBJ, they--the Bush administration was about as reckless as it got. So to say that we're turning the page and we're actually going to double what George Bush did or triple what George Bush did doesn't seem like a new direction to me.

Yeah Joe. It's just the same. Why didn't I think of that? Ripping off tax payers to profit the drug companies. Starting endless wars with billions unaccounted for. No bid contracts for hurricane recovery and military occupations. Tax cuts for the rich like you voted for before you left office. It was stimulus! Yeah... that's the ticket.

And it gets worse from there. Gregory sounded like Brit Hume was not the only one to get the GOP talking points memo for the day. Harold Ford Jr. actually did a pretty good job of going after Scarborough for once. And Mike Murphy really, really wants someone else besides the very rich in this country to pay more taxes as well if we're going to raise taxes on those making above $250,000. What a guy.

Read the rest of the transcript below the fold.

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Hayward: No, I'll tell you what was bad. The sneak attack on our economy, the dress rehearsal of Indy bank, when Chick Schumer helped get that started and the guy in the background George Soros manipulating all the currency.

Matthews: What?

Hayward: You want to keep that going?

Matthews: You mean the economic situation we faced right now...JD you can talk fast but I don't know what you're talking about.

Chris Matthews brings on J.D. Hayworth and Harold Ford Jr. to talk about the stimulus bill. When Matthews pins down Hayworth on whether we want another eight years like what we had under Bush. Hayworth goes after him for potentially wanting to run for the Senate. Apparently even Matthews who routinely talks over his guests wasn't quite prepared for the thuggishness of J.D. Hayworth.

Apparently Mr. Hayworth's idea of bipartisanship is corporate Democrats voting with Republicans.

John Amato:
C&Ler JC emailed me after he saw this yesterday and said that Hayward must be on a straight diet of FOX News as he went off the rails trying to debate the stimulus plan.

I just watch former Republican Congressman JD Hayworth of Arizona blame the current economic mess on Sen. Chuck Schumer and George Soros. Chris Matthews tried to get him to admit that the Republican policies of the last eight years were responsible. It was like the crazy Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann moment on Hardball. There is a reason that JD is a former congressman losing in a red state.

Hayworth, the EX-Congressman from AZ. is the perfect example of what the Republican party is. They're a party of insane people parading around with the American flag draped around their shoulders while James Dobson whispers in their ears that gays are trying to destroy the world. Let them obstruct and perform like the sideshow---circus acts that they've become. Bring it on JD, you are the perfect messenger for a message-less and dangerous ideology.

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Joe Scarborough during part of his daily freak out on Morning Joe. He looks like he's slowly coming more and more unhinged on there by the day from the little I can stand to watch of the show. Where was Joe Scarborough's concern over deficits when George Bush was throwing billions down the toilet with his invasion of Iraq? And he has an utter lack of concern over what high unemployment rates mean to average Americans or anyone else for that matter.