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From Washington Journal Sunday Sept. 20, 2009.

Kevin Baker, Harper’s Magazine & Stephen Moore, Wall Street Journal, discussed the Obama Presidency so far, and news of the week.

After hearing from a caller that accuses Harper's Kevin Baker of being insulting to the protesters by calling them "tea baggers" and astroturf and calling him "wimpy" to boot, Baker explains that he isn't the one that came up with that term. Baker says he'd be happy to go head to head with those protesting and attend some of the protests himself- as long as none of them bring their automatic weapons.

Moore then goes on to defend the protesters by blaming President Obama for polarizing the country. Baker says nothing justifies showing up with automatic weapons and with signs saying that the Tree of Liberty needs to be watered with blood and notes how polarizing that is.

Then Moore adds this.

Moore: I was out there. I didn't see anybody with... (crosstalk) I didn't see any... with all due respect; in all the events I've been to I've never seen anybody with a swastika. I've never seen anybody with a gun and these people are not anti-American.

Moderator: We've got to wrap it up there...

Baker: I've seen them repeatedly.

Hey Stephen, just because you didn't see it personally- which I don't believe for one minute about the swastikas- doesn't mean it's didn't happen. I don't know who Moore thinks he's kidding but I wish the time hadn't run out on the segment so Baker could have had a shot at rebutting him after making that ridiculous statement. There is not a chance in hell he doesn't know full well that people brought both.

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It was a busy weekend in the political spotlight for John McCain. On Friday, the man with 13 cars announced he would oppose the wild popular "cash for clunkers" program before claiming on Sunday that President Obama had failed the test of bipartisanship.

But it was his Wall Street Journal interview with editor Stephen Moore which may have been the most fascinating part of McCain's weekend. Fascinating, that is, as a study of revisionist history and selective amnesia by both men. While Moore now praises McCain as "one of the lead critics of Obamanomics," in the past the former Club for Growth president groused his organization's members "loathe" McCain. As for the ersatz maverick, McCain blamed the economic crisis and media bias rather than his own serial flip-flopping and miserable campaign for his defeat at the polls.

For his part, Moore skipped over his past animus towards the Arizona Senator. After all, in 2004, he announced, "We don't like McCain at all." The anti-tax, laissez faire Club for Growth tried, but did not find, what Moore deemed "a true, Reagan conservative" to oppose McCain in his '04 GOP primary. As last year's presidential primaries approached, the Club blasted McCain's opposition to the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts, comparing him to "the likes of Ted Kennedy in his rhetorical attacks."

But when candidate McCain reversed course and backed making the Bush tax cuts permanent, Moore in March 2007 threw his support behind the born-again supply sider:

"I think John McCain, if he can get to the general election, he has a great chance of being president, especially if he's up against somebody like Hillary Clinton."

Of course, things didn't turn out that way. But to hear John McCain tell it, very little of what transpired was his fault.

For openers, he insisted, last fall's collapsing economy dealt him a losing hand:

He believes that he could have won the election had it not been for the market collapse in mid-September. "We were three points up on September 14. The next day the market lost 700 points and $1.2 trillion in wealth vanished, and by the end of the day we were seven points down. We lost the white college graduate voters, who became profoundly disillusioned with Republicans. And by the way, that was the way it ended up. We lost by seven points."

In reality, it was McCain's self-professed, self-evident ignorance on matters economic which undermined his credibility with voters. After all, McCain like his friend and adviser Phil Gramm called the recession "psychological" and prescribed eBay as the cure for what ailed the economy. On the very September day the market plummeted, McCain pronounced, "fundamentals of our economy are strong," the 18th time during the '08 campaign he had done so.

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This wanker was also on Washington Journal today and from the little bit I got to hear of it on my XM radio he was just as infuriating there as well. Apparently Stephen Moore got the same memo as Lou Dobbs today on this "grass roots"...cough... rather astroturf tea bag movement from the conservative lobbyists and Fox Noise as to who is driving it. That Rick Santelli is just such a populist don't you know. He represents the people!

At least Matthews, unlike Dobbs was honest enough to show the extent that Fox is promoting this thing even though he plays as though he's clueless during this interview as to where this movement is being financed. I think Matthews knows full well who's funding it but just doesn't want to come straight out and say it.

Bob Cesca summed this interview up pretty nicely here: Ass Troturfing:

The last time we saw Stephen Moore of the Wall Street Journal, he was participating in Glenn Beck's insane "War Room" episode during which he helped to game out Beck's paranoid delusions. And the next day, Colbert discredited the whole ridiculous event -- right in front of Moore's smirky face.

Somehow being a laughing stock on both FOX News and Comedy Central hasn't prevented Moore from appearing on Hardball where he lied about the tea bag parties:

This really isn't something that's being driven, a) by the Republican Party, or b) by the national conservative groups. You gotta give credit where credit is due on this Chris, it really is a genuine kind of grassroots thing that kind of just spontaneously combusted around the country.

Lies. FOX News Channel, which could be considered a national conservative group, is promoting the tea baggers. FreedomWorks, a national conservative lobby, is funding the tea baggers. Fine -- whatever floats their boat. But don't say it's grassroots when it's clearly astroturfing of the highest order.