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I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed watching Joan Walsh get a chance to give Dick Armey his due after the way he treated her on Hardball back in early 2009. While discussing the mess over at FreedomWorks, which Karoli already wrote about here, Walsh called Armey and his fellow astroturfers exactly what they are -- a bunch of grifters.

Matthews took issue with the description, but I'd say Walsh is spot on. Armey and his ilk have lined their pockets, nicely extracting money from their rich backers and from those naive enough to actually believe that this so-called "tea party" is a grassroots movement, instead of what it actually is: a rebranding effort to get the Bush stink off of the label Republican.

Unlike Matthews and his producers, who seem more worried about trying to book Armey and Kibbe as guests on his show, his colleague at MSNBC, Rachel Maddow called out Armey among a host of others who are getting rich off of these con games earlier this month. Karoli wrote about that here: Rachel Maddow Slams Conservative Fox Commentators and Other Right Wing Scammers and MSNBC now has the transcript up for that show as well.

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“What kind of country do we want to have?” That was the question asked by Mitt Romney's new running mate Paul Ryan during his speech this Saturday morning aboard the USS Wisconsin. It was also the question asked by Chris Matthews when he played the clip of Ryan on Hardball this Saturday. And it was a question met with some terrible answers from one of Matthews' guests, FreedomWorks CEO Matt Kibbe.

Eugene Robinson pointed out that Ryan's budget doesn't balance anything and has draconian cuts to the poor while asking the rich to do nothing. After he stated that he didn't understand how Republicans were going to win based on a slogan of 'I've got mine, you get yours' approach, Matthews brought up Ayn Rand and the GOP mimicking her philosophy.

Kibbe responded by saying Matthews needs to spend some more time reading Ayn Rand, even though Matthews already professed to having read her books and having long outgrown them, a common trait among people who employ critical thinking skills and age-appropriate maturity levels. I guess Kibbe wants Matthews to get back in touch with his inner fifteen-year-old if he seriously thinks he should be picking Rand's novels up again for a refresher now.

If this is the right's response to just how radical Paul Ryan and his proposals have been, I'm flabbergasted. Read more Ayn Rand. Really? Karoli already posted Kibbe and his organization going nuts over the pick of Ryan just after it was announced.

The Plum Line's Greg Sargent posted on just how radical the pick of Ryan is and his post got a mention during this segment, which I was happy to see. Letting Kibbe spew his Libertarian nonsense, not so much.

With Ryan pick, Romney doubles down on economic radicalism:

In picking Ryan, Romney is confirming his commitment to full-flown economic radicalism — something that he had kept well disguised until the Tax Policy Center study unmasked it. The central idea driving the GOP ticket is not just that tax hikes on the rich must be avoided at all costs. It’s that dramatically reducing the tax burden on the wealthy — coupled with deep cuts to social programs and a quasi-voucherizing of Medicare — is the route back to prosperity.

Call it the “Ryan/Romney vision.” Not the “Romney/Ryan vision.” The “Ryan/Romney vision.” The Ryan pick was urged upon Romney by conservatives who wanted him to “go bold,” i.e., to confirm beyond doubt that he will govern from the Ryan blueprint. “We want the Ryan budget,” Grover Norquist said recently, adding that the paramount requirement in the next president is that he have “enough working digits to handle a pen” to sign it. The Ryan pick is a triumph for this wing of the party.

After all, we already know Romney has the skills to handle a pen. He is now confirming what he intends to sign with it.

The Ryan pick is also a break with Romney’s previous theory of the race. He had previously intended to make the campaign about nothing more than a referendum on the economy and Obama’s stewardship of it. Now it will be a choice between two starkly different ideological visions, one that drags the race onto the turf of tax fairness and entitlements — which is much more in line with the debate Dems wanted.

Go read the entire post, but here's a bit more on how the media is going to play into this election and how this debate is framed:

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I don't know if anyone else is as sick of the Tom Brokaw/Chris Matthews consecutive book tours that we've got going on at MSNBC along with a couple of other networks, but this bit from Tuesday's Morning Joe where Brokaw was pushing his book along with some Villager conventional wisdom about what needs to be done to cure our country's ails left me feeling even more disgusted than I was with him after his appearance on Meet the Press this past Sunday.

The amount of cognitive dissonance necessary for either Tom Brokaw to make these statements in the first place, or the viewers that he thinks should be buying into his clap-trap here is really quite astounding.

After being asked by Willie Geist about American's “incredible levels of cynicism in government” and our Congress' nine percent approval level rating, and how some faith is potentially restored in our government, Brokaw responds this way.

BROKAW: Well again, it really requires the citizenry from the ground up to get involved in reclaiming their government. I've used this almost everywhere I go as an example. However you feel about the tea party, they got angry. Then they got organized. Then they got to Washington and they stayed disciplined and they were having an affect, out of proportion to their numbers, frankly, in the Republican debate.

But that's a demonstration of organization and power. And the other things is that I think both parties have to look at the enormous impact of big money on politics. K Street and the lobbyists and they're in there all day, every day.

Brokaw is apparently either completely detached from the reality, or just doesn't mind lying to the viewers since he's willing to ignore the fact that the “tea party” AstroTurf movement has been organized and co-opted by... lobbyists. Dick Armey... lobbyist. Matt Kibbe... lobbyist. Tim Phillips... lobbyist. And there are a lot more there where I could go on and on with who's pumping money into this “tea party”, another of which is one we've covered here extensively, the Koch brothers.

If Tom Brokaw honestly thinks that lobbyists have too much influence on our government, then the last thing he should be doing is trying to paint the “tea party” as grass roots and a cure for getting the influence of money out of politics.

After poo-pooing agriculture subsidies as one of the problems we have with lobbying groups having too much influence, which I do not disagree with by the way, Brokaw went on to champion our government having more “public/private partnerships” and used examples such as privatizing our schools, roads and water districts.

So Brokaw thinks we need to get rid of the influence of lobbyists in our government, but doesn't seem to mind so much the commons and institutions that should belong to the taxpayers being sold off to private industry so they can make a profit off of them.

This was followed by him talking to billionaire Mort Zuckerman who was touting his usual lines about how Washington is broken and complaints that there's not enough upward mobility in the United States any more, of course ignoring the fact that trickle-down economics, a race to the bottom on wages and labor protections due to globalization, lack of regulation of the financial industry among a host of other issues are what brought us to where we are now.

Nothing like MSNBC getting the opinion of one of the “little guys” like Zuckerman to let everyone know what the opinion of the one percent is so they can have a “fair and balanced” discussion on Morning Joe. So much for that "liberal" MSNBC. A lot of MSNBC's programming is really horrid but if there was ever one show anyone could consider pre-packaged for Fox and ready to move directly over there, Morning Joe definitely qualifies.

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I think Chris Matthews has finally had a belly-full of these TeaBirchers who've been taking the government hostage trying to get their balanced budget jammed through the legislature or at least force all of them to vote on it. They've been claiming -- as FreedomWorks' Matt Kibbe did here -- that it would be acceptable to take us past the August 3rd deadline on default.

Matthews railed on Kibbe for pretending that would be in any way a responsible way for members of Congress to act and blasted Kibbe and the so-called "tea party" House members that are beholden to his group and others as incapable of governing. After watching the last few interviews Matthews has had with tea partiers, I think Matthews (like a lot of us) is genuinely angry and tired of these people's games. Tried of them threatening to burn the whole place down if they don't get their way.

Sadly unlike his cohort Rachel Maddow, he still paints them as being remotely grass roots instead of pointing out who's funding them as Rachel has. He also still allows his viewers the impression that this is some genuine third party movement instead of a Republican re-branding effort to try to distance themselves from George W. Bush.

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After Newt Gingrich came on Meet the Press last week and had the unfortunate circumstance of finding out what happens to any Republican who dares to tell the truth about Paul Ryan's budget plan, Ryan got a chance to respond this week. Apparently Ryan hasn't figured out yet that his plan to turn Medicare into a voucher system or going after Social Security isn't going to be popular with the voters, ever. Ryan is delusional enough to believe that somehow the Republicans are going to be able to "move the polls" on the issue.

He also agrees with Freedom Works Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe that "entitlement reform" or a.k.a. dismantling our social safety nets should be a litmus test for any Republican running for office in 2012. I find it astounding that they actually think jumping off that cliff together is a good idea.

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Apparently Fox's Greta Van Susteren and Griff Jenkins find no irony in trying to paint the "Tea Party" movement, a.k.a. the Republican astroturf rebranding effort, as some "leaderless" group during a segment which features all of those corporate funded Republicans who are running the show. Van Susteren and Jenkins have been some of the biggest cheerleaders on Fox with endless promotion of this "movement" and this segment was no exception.

For a reminder of who's funding the "Tea Party", here's Karoli's post from yesterday -- Tea Party, Inc: The Illustrated Guide

VAN SUSTEREN: Who is the Tea Party? Why was it formed? And what does it want to do? Well, FOX News's Griff Jenkins has been hitting the road to bring you a comprehensive look at the powerful national political movement that's been the talk of the town.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARAH PALIN (R-AK), FMR. GOV., FOX CONTRIBUTOR: And it's the Tea Party Americans have been bold enough, courageous enough to start telling the truth.

MATT KIBBE, FREEDOM WORKS: When this started fomenting, you saw this energy that we had never seen before. You saw this uprising of citizens who had never been involved before.

JENNY BETH MARTIN, TEA PARTY PATRIOTS: I am one of thousands, if not millions, of Tea Party leaders. There's not one single person. Anyone can be a Tea Party leader.

KARL ROVE, FMR. BUSH SR. ADVISER, FOX CONTRIBUTOR: Four years ago, 82 million people voted in races for the U.S. House of Representatives. I think this Tea Party sentiment that is driving all this activity is likely to drive that turn-out above 86 -- 85, 86, 87 million. I would not be shocked if it didn't make it all the way to 80 -- to 90 million people.

GRIFF JENKINS, FOX CORRESPONDENT: Regardless of the outcome of the mid-term elections, history will note that this was the year of the Tea Party. They've had an undeniable impact in this year's election cycle, most notably winning major victories in Republican primaries in places like Alaska, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Nevada and Utah.

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Countdown's Worst Persons with two teabaggers as runners up, both playing concern troll for BP. Rand Paul ran back to the loving arms of Fox News. You know he's never going to go on Rachel's show again since the evil "libruls" are calling him names.

Rand Paul Is Back On TV Talking About Civil Rights And BP (VIDEO):

He's ba-a-ck. After shunning the national media spotlight for a couple weeks, Kentucky Republican Senate nominee Rand Paul made his triumphant return to national TV yesterday. And right away, he was back to talking about the 1964 Civil Rights Act (he says would have voted for it but claims he was "vilified" by the liberal press for having the "audacity" to bring up his issues with the law) and BP ("sometimes people are well-intentioned and bad things happen"). Read on...

And then there's Dick Armey's buddy from FreedomWorks Matt Kibbe who thinks that the largest industrial "accident" and I'll use that word lightly, is a "natural disaster". Sorry pal but there wasn't anything "natural" about it. As Think Progress noted, given where fake grassroots astroturf FreedomWorks gets their money, this should not be a big surprise to anyone.

FreedomWorks CEO Goes To Bat For BP, Calls Oil Spill ‘A Natural Disaster’:

During an interview today with FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe on ABC’s Top Line, host Karen Travers noted that the cover of his upcoming book — Give Us Liberty: A Tea Party Manifesto — says “lower taxes plus less government equals more freedom.” Travers then asked, “How does that less government sentiment square with this massive government effort down there in the Gulf to contain the spill?”

In response, Kibbe was able to kill two birds with one stone: deflect criticism from BP and his own personal philosophy by saying that he expects government to act “when there is a natural disaster”:

KIBBE: Well I think if you look at what’s happened down there, it’s a sad story of government incompetence as well as negligence on the part of BP. And I think what you have to look at is when there is a natural disaster like this we do expect our government to do some things and to do them well. And the whole point of limited government is you want the government to be competent at those few things that we need it to do and this is an example where the government was asleep at the switch and there’s a series of regulations that led to deep drilling as opposed to more economical and safer options.

Rupert Murdoch took the honors for Keith's Worst Person for this.

"Ground Zero Mosque" protest ends up, predictably, with racially-motivated hatred:

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Oh lookie here. Chris Matthews decided to have himself a little astroturf tea party with FreedomWorks' Matt Kibbe and Americans for Prosperity's Tim Phillips. Never during the interview did Matthews talk about or ask either of these guys who funds their groups. I'm sure Dick Armey is grateful Chris. Maybe he was just trying to make up to Tim for the pummeling he received on Rachel Maddow's show.

I will give Matthews credit for this at least pointing this out about Ronald Reagan to Matt Kibbe:

MATTHEWS: Has there ever been a strong conservative president, for example, in your lifetime or anybody -- your grandfather`s lifetime? Who do you look to as a good role model for the tea party people?

KIBBE: Well, obviously, Ronald Reagan is the closest thing we have.

MATTHEWS: What did he do in terms of fiscal policy?

KIBBE: Oh, he -- he said that we shouldn`t spend money we don`t have, and he said that the government shouldn`t get involved in things that it`s not very good at doing.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: Yes. Have you ever checked the numbers with Reagan?

KIBBE: Well, I understand. I understand...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTHEWS: The national debt went from under $1 trillion to $3 trillion. He did more to increase exponentially the size of the debt of any president in history. And he`s your role model.

Here's the treatment Tim Phillips got on Rachel's show--Maddow Blasts AFP's Tim Phillips as "Parasite", "Bad for the Country" Quite a difference from the warm and fuzzy interview Matthews did with him today.

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Full transcript below the fold via.

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