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Democratic strategist and CNN contributor Paul Begala participated in a debate with The Daily Caller's Tucker Carlson at the Conservative Political Action Conference this Thursday. He actually got in some good shots at Carlson when he called out the Republicans' hypocrisy with their carping about our debt and deficit.

BEGALA: Let me quote a conservative hero, Dick Cheney, who said Ronald Reagan taught us that deficits don't matter. As he was about everything, Dick Cheney was wrong. He was wrong then and he's wrong now. Of course deficits matter, but any one of you who supported the Bush tax cuts, the Bush war in Iraq, or the Bush prescription entitlement plan, has no business talking about debt. Now sit down, shut up and let the grown ups handle it.

You're welcome. I helped Bill Clinton balance the budget and build a surplus -- why? Because we had good economic times. In good economic times you pay down the deficit, as Clinton did, but Reagan did not and Bush did not. In bad times, you do have to stimulate in the near term, as thank God President Obama is doing.

But any of you who caused this deficit, this debt and deficit... no, no. You forgot the rule. You have to hush up if you supported creating the deficit. It's like listening to lectures on hygiene from Typhoid Mary.

For the most part, this debate of theirs was a good reminder of why Crossfire is no longer on the air and left me pining for Jon Stewart to intervene.

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From this Friday evening's Real Time with Bill Maher's online Overtime segment, The Daily Caller's S.E. Cupp is asked from one of the viewers who wrote into the show if she believes Paul Ryan's budget "meets moral criteria." Color me not shocked that Cupp skated around the question and didn't really answer it, just as Ryan did in his response to the publication she was citing.

Apparently Cupp was also unaware that Paul Ryan had just thrown his hero, Ayn Rand under the bus, but Paul Begala did a nice job of summing up just what part of her philosophy he was no longer enamored with.

Rough transcript of the clip above below the fold.

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You know the Romney campaign is worried about whether they're going to be able to break out the Etch A Sketch successfully and erase everything Mitt Romney was saying about immigration policy during the Republican primary when they're bringing out the likes of Bay Buchanan to scream to the hills that Romney's not a flip flopper.

Buchanan appeared on Wednesday evening's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN to tout the current campaign talking point that Mitt Romney really does not believe that Arizona's SB 1070 should be a model for the country. She and the campaign are claiming that what Romney was really talking about during the Republican debate last February, was E-Verify..

Never mind that Russell Pearce said this-- Man Behind Arizona Immigration Law: Romney ‘Absolutely’ Called SB-1070 A National ‘Model’:

Mitt Romney had the most conservative immigration policy of any Republican presidential candidate during most of the primary, but now that’s he trying to appeal to Hispanic voters as he pivots to general election, the presumed GOP nominee has been shifting back towards the center. Yesterday, he opened to door to a Republican alternative to the DREAM Act — a law he vowed to veto during the primary — and earlier, he said that he never called for making Arizona’s harsh immigration law a “model” for the nation.

But that’s not how one of the key people behind that law, former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, sees it. The former Republican lawmaker, who was ousted in a recall election, was the key force behind turning SB-1070, authored by Romney adviser Kris Kobach, into law. He told reporters today that he “absolutely” believed Mitt Romney had endorsed the law as a model for the country. [...]

Previously, Pearce has said that Romney’s “immigration policy is identical to mine.”

Romney has tried to distance himself from Kobach, who also helped author the controversial immigration crackdowns in Alabama, South Carolina, and other states. But Kobach quickly contradicted him, saying he regularly advises senior members of Romney’s staff.

Here's what Mitt Romney actually said during that debate on CNN in February:

KING: Governor Romney, the border security is part of the equation, what to do about whether it's 8 million or 11 million illegal immigrants in the country now is another part of the equation. And Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who's with us tonight from Maricopa County -- he's in the audience -- he told me -- he told me this week here in Mesa -- these are his words -- "it's called political garbage, if you will, to not arrest illegals already in this country."

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I tell you what, coming from a man that was part of a White House and from a party that seems to care about nothing else but playing politics, this is pretty rich. But that appears to be the line of attack the Republicans are going to use to defend Paul Ryan's draconian budget proposals. As Paul Begala rightfully points out here, Ryan's proposal is "intellectually dishonest" and just a means to dismantle our social safety nets while giving tax cuts to the rich that don't need them.

I don't care for a lot of the cuts that the Democrats have agreed to and think they're going to harm the economy and am not happy that they haven't fought harder to push back against them. I was glad to see President Obama look like he was finally willing to draw a line in the sand on some of their demands. And I was glad to see him finally use his bully pulpit to talk about the unfairness of giving tax cuts to the rich while demanding that the working class take the hit to balance our budget. It's long overdue IMO.

And I'll ultimately judge him by his actions and not by his words. When we've already been through things like getting assurances that he was fighting for a public option in the health care bill, but was privately making deals behind the scenes where it had already been negotiated away, forgive me for being skeptical to say the least about whether any of us should trust that he'll stick to his guns until we see how all of this pans out in the end.

That said, I was glad to see President Obama finally looking like he understands how fed up the public is with the redistribution of wealth in America, and it amazes me that Republicans honestly think that supporting Paul Ryan's really extreme budget proposal is somehow good for them politically. If the Democrats don't hang that budget proposal around their necks, they'd be foolish. And Andy Card and the rest of them can whine about the politics of this all they want, but they're making their bed with supporting Ryan, so they'd better learn to live with the repercussions of it now.

Card whines here that the president “didn't provide leadership” because he waited for Ryan to put this proposal out there before he came out there and laid down some markers with what he'd like to see in the budget himself. He praised Ryan for his leadership and said he's provided “a great service” to the country since President Obama didn't embrace the Simpson/Bowles deficit commission debacle that never found enough votes to get any kind of concensus. He's done a “great service” alright... a great service in leading the Republican Party right off a cliff by alienating a huge part of their base – senior citizens and those nearing retirement age once enough of them get a look at his proposals.

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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After reading this post by Digby today, I decided to crunch a few numbers to see just how badly these two were exagerating about whether anyone could ever fairly call Robert Gibbs' salary of $172,000 a year "relatively modest pay" or not.

More on that below the fold but first here's this from Digby.

Out of Touch? Nah, They're Just Better Than Everyone Else.

Begala and Matalin on Biltzer this afternoon:

Blitzer: In an interview the other day with the New York Times, the president said about his press secretary Robert Gibbs, Paul let me read it to you:

He said "We've been on this ride together since I won my Senate primary in 2004 ... He's had a six-year stretch now where basically he's been going 24/7 with relatively modest pay."

Now realtively modest pay has caused a bit of a stir out there. We've checked and he's getting 172,200 dollarsa year. The president says that's relatively modest. the bureau of labor statistics says the mean annual salary in the US is 42,000 dollars. the question is, is the president out of touch? Is he giving the impression that he's out of touch when he says someone making 172,000 a year is getting a relatively modest salary?

Begala: It that adverb, it's that modifier "relative." The president is exactly right. I'm going to defend him on this. Robert Gibbs is an astonishingly powerful man who's been serving our country. And yeah that's a good paycheck, it really is. 172 grand? But just to put it into context, the chief flack for Goldman Sachs makes over a million bucks a year, just for being a spokesman for an investment bank! Sarah Palin, some obscure pundit on some other channel, makes ten to fifteen million a year if you add in the coloring books that she publishes.

Gibbs should be in that range. It's a relatively small amount compared to what he could or should be making in the private sector.

Blitzer: What do you think Mary?

Matalin: I think the president is out of touch, but not for that statement. These jobs, if you take them apart, that salary is little more that three times, maybe four times than the average salary. But he's not working an average job, he's not working at an average government job. He really is working, and Paul did this too in the Whiter House, you really do work three shifts a day. you work 24 hours a day. You eat lunch at your desk. There's many days when you are lucky if you can get to the bathroom. And when you do that for a sustained period, your brain starts to bubble away. So I think it's a little unfair to attack the president on this, I do.

Blitzer: But does the impression, I guess ... what folks out there ... take a look at nearly 10 percent unemployment right now, and the president is saying spomebody making 172,000 dollars a year is relatively modest, the impression you get is that the president coulod be out of touch with average folks out there around the country Paul.

Begala: But, but, I do think ... again, it's that word "relatively." You know a factor in a campaign, in what was otherwise a terrific interview with pastor Rick Warren, John McCain was asked by Pastor Warren what constitutes rich, McCain said "five million dollars a year." Now he was kind of joking, to tell you the truth. It doesn't mean John McCain's out of touch. He was trying to make a point that he wasn't trying to tax anybody. The President's trying to make a point here --- he's not trying to say that 172 thousand dollars a year is not a good paycheck. But compared to what the guy could be making... And, as Mary points out, if it's a hourly wage, then Gibbs is probably making about fifty cents an hour.

Blitzer: And we know he's working hard and deserves to take some time off because he's been working hard all these ... but, I'll, Mary, I'll let you have the final thought.Was the president correct when he said this is a relatively modest paycheck.

Matalin: Uh, uh, I'll go to your other question which is he ...

Blitzer: No no, answer that one...was he right when he said, "this is a relatively modest paycheck."

Matalin: To the average American it's a good paycheck. For those kinds of jobs, and those hours, it is minimum wage. That's how hard those jobs are.

Blitzer: We'll leave it at that guys.

Minimum wage? Fifty cents an hour? I don't think so.

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CNN can't seem to get enough of these teabaggers. Dana Loesch was on Parker/Spitzer and then Anderson Cooper brings her on to discuss the Christine O'Donnell/Chris Coons debate. I guess they didn't want to let Bill Maher be the only one to ruin a show this week by having her on.

COOPER: We begin tonight, though, as we do every night, "Keeping Them Honest" and we start tonight with a politician who claims to be guided by the Constitution and talks about it all the time on the campaign trail. Yet it turns out she might not be as familiar with it as she pretends.

We're talking about Delaware Republican and Tea Party favorite Christine O'Donnell, who is running for Senate debating opponent Chris Coons at a Delaware law school this morning. Now, the two were sparring over teaching evolution and the separation of church and state. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

O'DONNELL: Where in the Constitution is separation of church and state?

(LAUGHTER)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, my God.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COOPER: A few beats later, someone in the crowd says unbelievable. Ms. O'Donnell keeps smiling, then, a minute later, this exchange:

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

COONS: The First Amendment, the First Amendment establishes the separation, the fact that the federal government shall not establish any religion and decisional law by the Supreme Court over many, many decades...

(CROSSTALK)

COONS: ... clarifies and enshrines -- clarifies and enshrines that there is a separation of church and state that our courts and our laws must respect.

(CROSSTALK)

O'DONNELL: So, you're telling me that the separation of church and state...

(CROSSTALK)

O'DONNELL: ... the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?

(CROSSTALK)

O'DONNELL: Let me just clarify. You're telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?

COONS: The government shall make no establishment of...

O'DONNELL: That's in the First Amendment?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: Now, perhaps Ms. O'Donnell was simply trying to say that the literal phrase separation of church and state is not in the First Amendment. That's true.

Here's a relevant passage. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The very first sentence of the very first amendment. The words separation of church and state are not in there. Yet, the sentence itself makes it plain. Government can neither meddle with your faith, nor set up an official faith of its own.

Now, even before the Bill of Rights, Article 6 of the Constitution prohibited religious tests for holding public office. And as Chris Coons pointed out, numerous Supreme Court decisions over the years have fleshed out what the First and other amendments mean in practice. What Ms. O'Donnell got right was the technicality. What a lot of people think she missed was everything else. She also had a tough time today remember something of the other amendments.

When asked if she, like some other Tea Party candidates, supported changing or repealing the 14th, 16th and 17th Amendments, she said she didn't want to change the 17th Amendment, but clearly didn't know what the other amendments were. Listen.

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If these Bushies want to come on the air to attempt some turd polishing about why the Bush administration chose to invade Iraq, a country that was not a threat to us, then they should be treated the way Paul Begala treated lying propagandist Ari Fleischer on Anderson Cooper's AC360.

COOPER: Out of Iraq by the end of next year, that was the promise from President Obama. He said the combat mission's over, but America and will provide support for the Iraqi people as both a friend and a partner.

Ari, you were obviously working for George W. Bush. I'm curious to what you thought as you listened to this. And obviously, not a great speech but a historic moment.

FLEISCHER: Well, my first thought was 7 1/2 years ago I was in the Oval Office when the president gave a speech committing us to Iraq. And it's appropriate. Americans don't like to commit troop abroad. And when we do, we want to win, and we want come to come. And the president -- I think President Bush has won because of the surge.

And then, in December of 2008, remember when the shoe was thrown at him? That was actually the announcement of a security agreement with the Iraqi government to bring our troops hope at the end of 2011.

The day had to come. So I'm glad the day was able to come and that President Obama gave a speech where he could thank the troops who also made this possible who really deserve all the credit for making it possible.

COOPER: Do you think he should have said more about President Bush?

FLEISCHER: You know, I think it would have been gracious of him if he'd mentioned the surge, but the problem he has, for President Obama to put the words "President Bush," "Iraq" and anything good in the same sentence, the Democrat base, which already doesn't want to show up in November -- what will Nancy Pelosi see if he starts talking like that?

So I understand -- I wish he was more gracious about it, but he has his own Democratic political imperatives, and he has -- he followed those tonight.

COOPER: Paul, what did you think of the speech? We haven't heard from you tonight.

BEGALA: Well, I think it was -- first, he was trying to do three different things, right? Say we're going to withdraw from Iraq, but we're going to surge into Afghanistan, but we're going to withdraw from there, too. But then, we're going to take care of folks here at home. I want to pick up, though, on this point that Ari makes about the surge, because it is staggering to me. First off, the surge was only necessary because President Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld went to war with too few troops, because they wanted to prove General Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, wrong. That's why we needed it in the first place.

Second, it could have never succeeded without the preceding Sunni awakening. Iraqis themselves had to decide. It wasn't the American surge and then -- that cured it. It was the Sunni awakening.

But I'll make a deal with President Bush. We'll give you all the credit for the surge if you take half of the blame for the lies that got us into the war, by which I mean Iraq -- excuse me, Ari, by which I mean...

FLEISCHER: No, Paul, it's not right.

BEGALA: ... by which I mean Ari himself saying Iraq was an imminent threat to America, by which the president of the United States saying it was a mushroom cloud that could become a smoking gun, by which I mean the threat of unmanned aerial drones that Saddam supposedly had that would gas America, the connections that they allege which were false between al Qaeda and -- and Saddam's regime.

So, you know, there was so much they got wrong about this. Some of it just was botched, and some of it was deeply dishonest. And the notion that somehow George Bush is owed any moment of grace here is appalling to the history.

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We've got an economy that's a mess, people who have been unemployed forever that need jobs, massive flooding in Pakistan, millions of gallons of oil and dispersants still floating in the water in the Gulf of Mexico and what is the media spending hours upon hours covering? That ginned up non-controversy over the Islamic center near ground zero and now a new poll that shows about one in five Americans think that President Obama is a Muslim. I wonder where they got that idea?

I hate that they're spending this much time on this nonsense that most people don't care about but if they're going to do it, we need to be pushing back against the lies and point out who's helping to spread them and hold the corporate media accountable when they help to push the latest right wing meme of the day and give it legitimacy.

During John King's show on CNN, Paul Begala says it's not CNN that is attributing to those poll numbers.

BEGALA: Mostly, no. You're right to just observe that as contrasted with Bill Clinton or Jimmy Carter for that matter or certainly George W. Bush, this Christian president talks about his Christianity less. That perhaps makes him more like say George Bush's father, a devout Christian, a fine man who just didn't like to wear it on his sleeve as much as maybe some others.

No, in that survey, the Pew poll, most, the vast majority of people who think he's a Muslim. When you ask them why do you think that they say because of the media. And not to put too fine a point on it, they don't mean CNN, John. They mean the kook right wing media that has been attacking this president. It's fine to attack him on issues. But they're trying to attack him with any kind of crazy conspiracy theory they can.

I'd beg to differ.

A little later in the show John King brings on evangelical leader Franklin Graham who suggests that the "confusion" is being caused because President Obama was "born a Muslim" and of course if he says he's a Christian now (wink... wink) we'll just have to take him at his word that he is (but he might really be a dirty Kenyan Muslim usurper... you never know).

There are plenty of places where these rumors are being spread such as email chains, on right wing talk radio and on Fox News, but interviews like this aren't helping matters any. We got zero push back from John King against Graham's nonsense. He's really good at the false equivalency "you decide" game where he lets his viewers figure out for themselves who's telling the truth and who's spouting nonsense that should have been stopped in their tracks for telling lies but wasn't. Heaven forbid that might not make for a polite interview and we couldn't have that sort of incivility now could we?

Does anyone think John King didn't know exactly what he was going to get from Franklin Graham before he came on the air? Here's some of what happened during his encounter with then presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. Barack Obama back in 2008.

Franklin Graham to Obama: Are You A Muslim? (And How Obama Courted Hagee's Publisher):

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Paul Begala's right, the one race that probably was a game changer tonight was the special election for Jack Murtha's old seat. Not because another Blue Dog Democrat got elected, but because had Mark Critz not defeated Tim Burns in that election, all we'd be hearing from now until November is how the Republicans are going to retake the House. That media narrative got turned on its head tonight. As Begala said, primaries define the party but they don't always mean that much for the mood of the voters in the regular elections and Blue Dog or not, and Critz ran against things like privatizing Social Security, had President Obama and Nancy Pelosi continually attacked during the election and still won. So maybe we're not looking at the Democrats losing control of the House this fall. However, it won't break my heart to see some more incumbents go down in primary races.

That said, nothing's going to stop Castellanos from trying to spin this thing as Democrats need to be more conservative to win elections, blah, blah, blah. Digby caught him spinning the Kentucky primary elections in a similar manner. Sending Messages:

Alex Castellanos just said that Kentucky proves that Republicans want Republicans to be more conservative and the Democrats want Democrats to be more conservative.

That is utter bullshit. They are talking about Rand Paul as if he's the second coming of morning in America, true, but the fact is that Jack Conway has won the Democratic primary against a far more conservative opponent --- and Dem turnout was way higher that GOP turnout, Paul-mania notwithstanding. The November narrative is turned on its axis.

Teabaggers may be sending their party a message, but progressives are sending one to theirs as well and it isn't to be more conservative. (And both of them are saying one thing in unison: would you mind if we pick our own representatives please?)

I'd like to know how the loser in the Democratic primary having more votes than the winner in the Republican primary bodes well for Republicans in Kentucky as well. Errol Lewis pointed out a little earlier in the show that Rand Paul came out in favor of repealing the Americans With Disabilities Act and said he had calls pouring into his radio talk show from older Americans and disabled Americans asking what the hell he was talking about. Mitch McConnell's got egg on his face now with his hand chosen candidate being defeated by Paul. Now they get to deal with the consequences of the Paul win and defending a far right Libertarian for the United States Senate.

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Lady McCheney really lives in upside down land. In her world it's "nutty" to imply that deregulation, Wall Street run amok and Goldman Sachs might have anything to do with Greece's problems. Paul Begala needs to do his homework so we don't get the type of lame responses we got from him here, but whatever could have given him the idea that Goldman Sachs might have something to do with Greece's problems? Maybe he read this...

Wall St. Helped to Mask Debt Fueling Europe’s Crisis

or this...

Goldman Goes Rogue – Special European Audit To Follow.

Mary Matalin of course repeats the Republican talking point du jour, Greece's problems are all due to their being a "welfare state", thus the United States must eliminate all of our social safety nets to avoid going down that same road. Never, ever, ever think about raising taxes on the rich or reigning in our military industrial complex. The least among us must suck it up and be happy to live in squalor. Paid into Social Security your whole life and thought the government made an agreement with you in good faith to honor that contract... too bad. We spent it throwing away billions of dollars for them to play football with and blow things up in Iraq and Afghanistan and to bail out these financial institutions that weren't regulated. Suck it up losers!

She also threw this backwards land nonsense out there.

BEGALA: I know right here in America, Mary's right, the president who I worked for, Bill Clinton, handed off to the president that Mary worked for, a surplus, and a pathway to zero national debt by this year, we should have zero national debt but for Republican economic policies. I know what caused it here. It was cutting taxes for the rich. Deregulating Wall Street. The Russian roulette with the American people's money that the Wall Street guys were playing and that's what caused this crash in America. I suspect that's probably what's behind the thing overseas, but I don't know.

BLITZER: Mary, I'll give you the final word.

MATALIN: That economy that President Clinton enjoyed was the result of Reaganomics and when we get back to Reaganomics, we will get out of the recession that we're in, and when we got -- when we picked up from the Clinton administration we had a recession, so we can keep going back all the way to the beginning of time, but every president has to deal with what he gets and President Clinton was very lucky to have followed Reaganomics.

Good grief. This woman is just as shameless a liar as her old boss. Hey Begala... go read a little so you can call her out the next time they put you on with her, would you? We all know Blitzer's not going to do it. And if you're going to praise your old boss on deficits, that's fine but you also need to own up to his part in deregulating these markets if we're going to have any honest discussion on it. That was a bipartisan screw up of massive proportions and there are still too few willing to really fix the mess now on all sides.