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After discussing the pick of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney's running mate and whether or not the columns at either the Wall Street Journal or the National Review might have pushed Romney into choosing Ryan or not, host John Roberts asks Bill Kristol about the likely attacks coming against Ryan from Democrats. And even Bill Kristol had to wonder if Republicans are going to be able to defend the tax cuts for the wealthy.

KRISTOL: I think taxes are the tougher attack ads. They combined, obviously, they're cutting Medicare. Why do they have to cut Medicare and gut education and do all these other horrible things when they insist on giving those tax cuts to the wealthy. But actually, if you look at polling, it's a pretty close call. People do know that entitlements have to be reformed. Even President Obama has said so. Hasn't done much about it. I think Republicans can pretty easily, honestly hold their own on that.

It's the tax cuts for the wealthy where Republicans have not done a particularly good job of defending it and I think you'll see the Democratic attacks really focus on that side of the equation.

ROBERTS: Steve Moore?

MOORE: Well, Bill is right. We know, we've known this for two years that the Democratic attack line would be we're going to cut entitlements and give tax cuts to the rich, because that's what the Democrats always do. Bill what I think is really exciting about having Paul on the ticket now is, who's better to defend those policies than Paul is and he knows this stuff better than anyone.

As the Think Progress post linked above noted:

Paul Ryan’s infamous budget — which Romney embraced — replaces “the current tax structure with two brackets — 25 percent and 10 percent — and cut the top rate from 35 percent.” Federal tax collections would fall “by about $4.5 trillion over the next decade” as a result. To avoid increasing the national debt, the budget proposes massive cuts in social programs and “special-interest loopholes and tax shelters that litter the code.”

But 62 percent of the savings would come from programs that benefit the lower- and middle-classes, who would also experience a tax increase. That’s because while Ryan “would extend the Bush tax cuts, which are due to expire at the end of this year, he would not extend President Obama’s tax cuts for those with the lowest incomes, which will expire at the same time.” Households “earning more than $1 million a year, meanwhile, could see a net tax cut of about $300,000 annually.”

Later in the segment Moore called anyone who dares to point out that Republicans want to do exactly that, gut our social safety nets while giving tax cuts to their rich friends, running on the politics of fear and envy. You hear that all you lazy moochers out there? You're just jealous of those job-creating achievers.... yeah, that's the ticket.

Here's to hoping things work out for Mitt Romney as they did for the last person who took Bloody Bill Kristol's advice as to who to choose for a running mate.

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On this Sunday's Meet the Press, host David Gregory allowed Romney adviser Ed Gillespie to make the exact same distortion on George W. Bush's record on job creation that he made on his show almost two years ago. And just like two years ago, Gregory failed to call out Gillespie for intentionally misleading the viewers.

I had not seen this site before and just happened to come across it today, but it seems they quit updating the site back in September of 2010, which is a shame, because as they note at the top of the page, Meet the Press does not fact check its guests. Here's their entry on Gillespie from July of 2010 -- FACT-CHECK: Ed Gillespie – After the Bush tax cuts, there were 52 months of continuous job creation, the largest such period in American history:

The following is a fact-check from the July 11, 2010 episode of Meet the Press:

ED GILLESPIE (Republican Strategist)

1) After the Bush administration tax cuts, there were 52 months of continuous job creation – TRUE

2) 52 months of job creation is the largest such period in American history - TRUE

MR. GILLESPIE: Well, my point was not wanting to go back to the math because the fact is, under the Bush tax cuts, we did have 52 months of–in uninterrupted job creation, longest in the history of the country…

According to both CBS News and FactCheck.org, jobs were created for an uninterrupted period of 52 months from August 2003 to December 2007, which was indeed a record for consecutive job growth in the U.S. But as FactCheck.org points out, looking only at this record could be misleading, for while it is indeed the longest consecutive period of job creation, the number of jobs created during that period was not especially large. 8.3 million jobs were added between August 2003 and December 2007, but over the course of the Clinton administration, for instance, 22.7 million jobs were added during a period when there were also seven months which included declines (thus making that growth non-continuous). Therefore it would be difficult to argue that this was either a period of particularly substantial job creation or that the record continuity of that creation was ultimately more significant. It’s also not clear what role the Bush tax cuts had to play with regards to the job creation rate.

1) Because Mr. Gillespie’s statement that there were 52 months of continuous job creation is technically true, we must rate it TRUE - but believe that the overall context is somewhat misleading. 2) We rate Mr. Gillespie’s statement that the 52 month growth period was the largest in American history TRUE.

I take issue with their characterization that Gillespie's statement "could be" only "somewhat misleading." It's intentionally misleading to try to distort George W. Bush's record on job creation, which even The Wall Street Journal correctly noted was "the worst track record on record."

So despite the fact that George W. Bush actually had a terrible record on job creation, left the United States' economy falling off of a cliff and that we already know their failed policies of trickle-down economics don't work, we've got Gillespie pretending they did and calling for more of the same; tax cuts and deregulation.

Transcript via NBC below the fold.

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Given the fact that most of the Republican establishment would probably rather pretend they'd never heard of the name George W. Bush, I'm sure Mitt Romney can't be too thrilled about this appearance on the same day Rick Santorum finally dropped out of the Republican primary race.

Bush Tax Cuts: George W. Wishes They Didn’t Bear His Name:

Making a rare post-presidential policy address, former President George W. Bush said he wishes the “Bush tax cuts” had someone else’s name attached to them because “if they were called somebody else’s tax cuts, they’d probably be less likely to be raised.”

The so-called Bush tax cuts, enacted during Bush’s first term between 2001 and 2003, are set to expire at the end of the year and are sure to be a campaign issue in November.

The former president was speaking in New York at an event that also bears his name, the George W. Bush Presidential Center’s conference on “Tax Policies For 4% Growth,” at the New York Historical Society.

He said he rarely comments publicly on policy because, “I don’t think it’s good for our country to undermine our president and I don’t intend to do so,” Bush said, according to Forbes.

But Bush had a pointed message about tax policy: “If you raise taxes on the so-called rich,” he said, “you’re really raising taxes on the job creators.”

Steve Benen had the appropriate response to Bush deciding to go out and lecture anyone else on economic policies -- Bush claims credibility on taxes, economic policy:

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It seems the fetishism for deficit reduction and pushing Republican talking points on what will help our economy recover never gets old with Karl Rove's favorite dancing partner, David Gregory. White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew should really not have to be explaining to Gregory that austerity measures when the economy has not recovered would do nothing but take us backwards when there are still so many people hurting out there.

Our number one priority should be getting people back to work. And we need to do something about the horrible income disparity in the United States, but that subject never seems to be one of concern for Gregory when he dismisses calls to raise taxes on the rich as purely a political matter with Republicans continued obstruction on the matter.

If Gregory thinks austerity measures are so wonderful, he might want to consider that they're not working out so well for our counterparts over in Europe right now. Republicans keep fear mongering about not wanting to turn us into Greece, but they seem determined to do everything in their power to tank the economy on purpose to take us down that road themselves.

The entire interview with Lew was pretty infuriating to watch because Gregory seemed a lot more determined to get one line sound bytes out of him for some headline than having any kind of a meaningful discussion on why our economy is in a mess to begin with, or acknowledging that Republicans are completely unwilling partners in any type of meaningful compromises. They're determined to undermine every social safety net we've got as extortion to allow anything at all, even bills that were originally Republican ideas, to be passed.

And week after week, the talking heads in the media like Gregory not only fail to call them out for it, but repeat their talking points about how they're supposedly trying to work with the Democrats instead as he did here. If it's Sunday, it's Meet the Republican Talking Points.

Transcript VIA:

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James Clyburn smells elephant dung in the South Carolina Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate and heaven forbid Mrs. Greenspan has her Villager sensibilities taken to their limit by Rep. Clyburn using the word dung in polite company as he did on CNN's State of the Union. Sadly she did not appear nearly as concerned about someone stealing an election in South Carolina and potentially rigged voting machines with no paper trail. Get over it Andrea. He should have just called it what it is, bullshit, but if he'd said that they might have needed the smelling salts for Andrea.

CROWLEY: Before we go back to the '60s, I don't think we're going to settle this tax cut argument. But, Congressman, I need to turn you to something a little more local. And that is your nominee for the U.S. Senate, Alvin Greene, came out of nowhere. You think he's a Republican plant. He is calling now for the Democratic establishment to get behind him. That he, in fact, has been elected to be the nominee. Do you foresee yourself getting behind Mr. Greene?

CLYBURN: No, I don't see myself getting behind Mr. Greene. The fact of the matter is, of course, Candy, I never said he was a Republican plant. I said he was someone's plant. And it turned up after the elections, we found out, as I said earlier, something untoward was going on.

Now all of a sudden, we see that Congressman Joe Wilson -- his campaign manager, was, in fact, managing the campaign of my primary opponent. I saw the patterns in this. I know a Democratic pattern, I know a Republican pattern, and I saw in the Democratic primary elephant dung all over the place.

And so I knew something was wrong in that primary. And this result tells us that. People intentionally circumvented the law, the rules and regulations, did not file any disclosures, did not file any of their campaign finances, yet they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars running this campaign and broke every law.