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Digby flagged this segment from this Sunday's Fareed Zakaria GPS, and as she noted, Zakaria seems to be singing a very different tune now on whether austerity is popular with the masses in Europe than he was four years ago. And as she noted, being wrong never seems to get anyone kicked out of the club once you've gained entry as one of the Very Serious People by our corporate media.

Fareed Zakaria four years ago in a post called The Center Holds: In Britain even pain is popular":

Three weeks ago the new chancellor, 39-year-old Tory George Osborne, presented a budget that promised to get Britain’s fiscal house in order with sharp cuts in spending, coupled with tax increases. It landed in the midst of a heated debate across the industrialized world about how to best get the economy back on track. Osborne and his boss, Prime Minister David Cameron, have come down firmly on one side of this debate, hoping that a major effort to reduce the deficit will reassure bond markets and investors that Britain is a safe and compelling place to put their money.

Leaving aside the economics of this, what struck me as I spent time in Britain last week was the politics of deficit reduction. Having announced major cuts in popular programs, plus hefty tax increases, the Cameron government might be expected to be losing popularity by the day. But in fact the budget was well received by the public—though attacked ferociously from the left—and the governing coalition has actually inched up a bit in the polls.

There are several possible reasons for this. Cameron has played the public role of prime minister exceedingly well, making a pitch-perfect apology for the British Army’s wrongful use of force in Northern Ireland in 1972, and handling himself on the global stage with grace and ease. It’s also true, of course, that the effect of the cuts and taxes have not yet been felt, and when that happens, the government’s poll ratings might plunge. But clearly the honesty of the budget has resonated with voters.

It’s heartening to see a government do something that it must have thought would be deeply unpopular, and then be rewarded by the public...

I love this description of how he reacted to the commentary from his guests. Potted plant indeed:

Zakaria still rails against "entitlements" (which his earlier guest Stephen Haas described as a "cancer" to no objection from anyone) but he hasn't exactly come clean about the disastrous effects of the austerity measures in Europe that "heartened him" so strongly, has he? No, today he sits there like a potted plant while the bill of indictment rolls right over him.

But then he's a card-carrying Very Serious Person which means never having to say you're sorry.

Ain't that the truth? I don't always get a chance to watch all of his show every week, but I don't recall seeing him doing much to rebut that flawed economic study by Reinhart and Rogoff which the right has used to justify austerity as well. Most of our corporate media has done their best to ignore that, even as many of them, as Zakaria was here, have finally been forced to admit that maybe that whole push for austerity isn't working out so well.

Full transcript below the fold.

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I guess we all knew this was coming. During what he called his "one day old, expanded coverage" of the state of the union address, Jon Stewart had a field day with Marco Rubio and his nervous, flop sweat, dehydrated response to President Obama's speech with a series of sight gags throughout the segment. He also got some knocks in on President Obama for not making a higher priority of our crumbling infrastructure and for pretending that there's been transparency over the drone program.

Stewart saved his more substantive criticism of Rubio for his following segment, where he went after him for doing what we've seen far too often from Republicans, which is attacking the fictional image of Obama that only exists in their own minds.

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As Steve Benen at The Maddow Blog rightfully noted this Wednesday, as we're seeing U.S. infrastructure crumble due to Republican intransigence, China continues to leave us in the dust: Jobs and innovation, leaving the station:

There's no reason the United States can't once again lead the world in transportation innovation, except for the political opposition that forces us further behind countries like China.

China began service Wednesday morning on the world's longest high-speed rail line, covering a distance in eight hours that is about equal to that from New York to Key West, Florida, or from London across Europe to Belgrade.

Bullet trains traveling 300 kilometers an hour, or 186 miles an hour, began regular service between Beijing and Guangzhou, the main metropolis in southeastern China. Older trains still in service on a parallel rail line take 21 hours; Amtrak trains from New York to Miami, a shorter distance, still take nearly 30 hours.

Completion of the Beijing-Guangzhou route is the latest sign that China has resumed rapid construction on one of the world's largest and most ambitious infrastructure projects, a network of four north-south routes and four east-west routes that span the country.

Keep in mind, this isn't just about bragging rights. China has invested heavily in transportation infrastructure, including this remarkable network of high-speed trains, and the result has greatly benefited the nation's economy and created "as many as 100,000" jobs.

China has also, incidentally, helped integrate regional economies, linking cities and provinces in new and efficient ways, which in turn is expected to strengthen China's manufacturing and exporting centers.

And then there's the U.S., where the Obama administration has repeatedly argued that high-speed rail boosts economic development, creates jobs, fosters innovation, relieves crowded roads, and even reduces emissions, and where Republicans say investing in infrastructure costs money -- and spending is, you know, bad.

Remember, GOP opposition to similar projects is so strong that in some instances, we've seen Republican governors -- including Florida's Rick Scott and Wisconsin's Scott Walker -- turn down high-speed-rail funds from Washington, just on principle, regardless of the economic benefits to their state.

What's more, while our international rivals take the lead in transportation innovation -- it's easy to win a race when your competitor stops trying -- we're still struggling to address cracks in our outdated infrastructure. Read on...

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From this Sunday's This Week on ABC, The Nation's Katrina Vanden Heuvel was the one voice of reason, pushing back against the idea that austerity and budget cuts are going to somehow solve our country's economic problems, or the notion that the debt and deficit should be our biggest concern.

VANDEN HEUVEL: I agree with Paul Gigot. Americans voted decisively for fair share taxes on the richest, for protecting Social Security and Medicare, but also for growth and investment. You cannot get growth and investment with the spending cuts as they are laid out in the grand bargain.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And certainly not the sequester.

VANDEN HEUVEL: Certainly not the sequester. So I think part of the problem we're having, George, is the fundamental assumptions overriding this entire discussion. Senator Murray said that we have a big debt and deficit problem -- no, we don't. We have a big public investment and jobs problem.

(CROSSTALK)

VANDEN HEUVEL: Last point. We're not Greece. Austerity, if you believe in evidence-based politics and economics, you look at what's going on in Europe, and austerity, which we may have American-style in this country if we proceed the way we are doing, has led to economic pain, has led to killing growth. Killing growth.

(CROSSTALK)

VANDEN HEUVEL: And debt and deficit.

Amen to that sister. This needs to be repeated as often as possible whenever we hear the fearmongering about falling off of the "fiscal cliff" and the real danger to our economy that austerity measures pose. As she pointed out, the deficit can be taken care of later, but we've got to get the unemployment numbers down first and Americans back to work.

Full transcript of the segment above below the fold.

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We've seen the Obama campaign going after Mitt Romney for his time at Bain Capital. I think with the Olympics approaching we're about to hear more about this story from them very soon. From Up With Chris Hayes: Mitt Romney and federal money for the Olympics:

Up host Chris Hayes and his guests talk to former Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson about the federal assistance Mitt Romney sought as head of the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.

I clipped the interview down to the portions with Anderson. You can watch the entire segment at the link above. Here's more from the Daily KOS on Romney's time running the Olympic games: Romney's Olympics:

Much has been made recently about Mitt Romney's involvement with Bain while he was heading the Salt Lake Olympics Organizing Committee, but what about his actual involvement with the Olympics themselves? Romney has made his "turnaround" of the Olympics that had been tainted by an international bribery scandal a point of his campaign. He regards it as proof of his amazing leadership ability and patriotism. So, how did Romney bail out the Olympics. Well, he didn't. We did.

A September 2000 report from the United States General Accounting Office tells us that tax payers paid nearly $1.3 billion for the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics. The majority of that, 80% of that, in fact, $1 billion of that, was spent not on the game themselves, but on infrastructure upgrades. With 51% going to improving highways and 28% to improve mass transit. [...]

To put that into perspective, we, the taxpayers, spent roughly $75 million on the Los Angeles Olympics and $609 million on the Atlanta Olympics.

This prompted Senator John McCain to call the Salt Lake game a "pork-barrel" project.

“I think it is a disgrace,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who, along with U.S. Rep. John Dingell, D-Mich., asked the government agency to investigate the escalating expenditures for hosting the Olympic games in American cities.“But this is a logical extension of what you get when you start pork-barrel spending.”

So, here is the question. Did any of that $1.3 billion of taxpayer's money go to benefit Romney or Bain? Read on...

As they noted, there are more questions which might be answered by Mitt Romney releasing his tax returns, which it seems more obvious day by day that he is never going to release. Romney seems to love that government "free stuff" when it benefits himself and his business buddies, but not so much for the working class and the poor.

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Lawrence O'Donnell, Krystal Ball and John Heilemann take a look at the latest hack job by team Romney in the political ad wars for the presidential election.

Ed Schultz went after Romney and Fox Wednesday evening for distorting President Obama's comments about small businesses. This Thursday, it was more of the same on Fox, with Neil Cavuto even bringing on one of the people featured in Romney's latest attack ad, small business owner Jack Gilchrist.

The trouble for Mitt Romney is that even Jack Gilchrist actually agreed with the points President Obama was making in during his speech. And the Obama campaign has released a new ad of their own showing that Mitt Romney does as well. As I said in the post on Ed's show and as the panel members agreed on O'Donnell's show, it's pretty pathetic when the Romney campaign has to resort to making things up and taking words out of context, but that's all they've done from day one, so it's nothing new for them to lie continually.

I have to wonder when the public is going to finally start punishing him for it in the polls.

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MSNBC's Ed Schultz and E.J. Dionne highlighted some of Media Matters reporting this Wednesday evening on Fox News running 42 segments taking President Obama's words out of context during a campaign stop in Virginia. And now we've got the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Mitt Romney repeating the distortions as well.

As both Schultz and Dionne pointed out, the Romney campaign is desperate to change the subject from his time at Bain Capital and his refusal to release his tax returns and they're getting desperate. Anyone with an ounce of common sense realizes what the President was talking about during his speech and as Schultz and Dionne noted, he was making the same points as we heard from Elizabeth Warren when she said this on a speaking tour last year: There's Nobody in This Country Who Got Rich on His Own, Says Elizabeth Warren.

Romney knows he's lying and distorting Obama's words, but he's been lying so much on the campaign trail, he's not going to stop now. And at a campaign stop in Ohio, Romney let the audience there know he actually agreed with President Obama's underlying point: Romney Doubles Down On ‘You Didn’t Build That’ — Then Affirms Obama’s Point. As Ed Schultz pointed out, they can't run against the President's actual record or what he's been saying on the campaign trail, so they've got to resort to making things up.

Here's more from Media Matters: REPORT: Fox News Spends Two-Plus Hours Distorting Obama's Small Business Comments:

Over two days, Fox News spent 42 segments and more than two hours of airtime manufacturing a scandal by deceptively editing comments President Obama made at a campaign appearance in Virginia.

On July 13, Obama made the unremarkable observation that business owners do not achieve success in a vacuum, but that public infrastructure - such as roads, schools, and fire departments - create a community that supports businesses:

OBAMA: If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.

Media conservatives have distorted those comments to accuse the president of expressing hostility toward business.

In discussing the speech relentlessly in the past 2 days, Fox has fixated on the passage where Obama said, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that." But Fox ignores what Obama was talking about before saying "you didn't build that," when he touted "this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive," and said: "Somebody invested in those roads and bridges."

Fox's manufactured controversy has now become the focus of an official Mitt Romney campaign ad. Read on...

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Ezra Klein was filling in for Rachel Maddow this Tuesday night and after running down a list of recent stories on water main breaks across the country and the fact that our country's infrastructure is rated at a D or lower right now, Klein spoke to Sen. Bernie Sanders about the Republicans' continued obstruction on passing the transportation bill and their reason for it. And he's absolutely right with his conclusion. If something is going to make President Obama look good, they're not going to pass it.

Here's the latest from The Hill on the transportation bill: Reid 'not ready' yet to give up on passing a long-term transportation bill

How pathetic is it that you've got Barbara Boxer and James Inhofe managing to come to an agreement and John Boehner won't bring this thing up for a vote in the House? Their behavior ought to be criminal because it's going to continue to cost lives when you literally allow our roads and our sewers to crumble because you'd rather play politics than do what's right for the economy and for the country.

And as Klein and Sanders pointed out, these short term extensions are just as destructive as passing nothing at all because contractors have to be able to budget and plan for these projects, which you make impossible to do when you refuse to pass any long term funding. And as Sanders pointed out, in states like his, you've got weather considerations as well and if you're messing around like they are this far into the year, you're making sure projects are stalled and might not be completed in a timely or efficient manner, because by the time they plan them, the weather is too cold for all of the work to be done.

Republicans keep carping about "uncertainty" being the cause of businesses not spending and fear of new regulations causing them not to hire. Here's your uncertainty for you. Right here, and it's intentional. These Republicans literally would rather see our nation crumble than allow President Obama to be reelected. I've watched a lot of cynical things with these politicians in my lifetime, but this has to be right up there with some of the worst.

Anyone who is as sick of this stuff as I am can go find your elected Representative in the House here if you'd like to let them know how you feel as well: Find Your Representative. You can contact Speaker Boehner here. Or you can leave him a note on Twitter here: @johnboehner.

Rachel Maddow's staff has got a list of links to the recent news articles Ezra Klein went through before Sen. Sanders joined him on the air. You can check them out below the fold.

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From this year's Netroots Nation, here's Elizabeth Warren from this Friday evening: Elizabeth Warren On Why Corporations Are Not People: ‘People Have Hearts’:

But she sounded a confident — though raspy — note during her address to thousands of Netroots Nation progressives here Friday. “It was not the convention that did it to me, it was the parties,” Warren said of her hoarse voice. Warren on June 2 avoided a Democratic primary at the state party convention, winning a historic 96 percent of the delegates.

Progressives who have any doubt where Mitt Romney, Brown and their supporters stand, Warren said at Netroots, should consider: Romney wants to repeal financial reform, says that people who are concerned about income inequality are envious and claims that corporations are people.

“No, Mitt, corporations are not people,” Warren said, to applause. “People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they love, they cry, they dance, they live and they die. Learn the difference.”

Warren, who helped conceive and establish the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said financial markets need one set of rules to ensure a level playing field. “Progressives understand that markets are like football,” she said. “Every game needs rules, a referee with a whistle to enforce those rules. Without rules and a ref, it isn’t football, it’s a mugging.”

Warren later rejected the notion that the climate in Washington can prevent any actual reform — and jabbed her Republican opponent for reportedly shielding banks after voting for a Wall Street overhaul in 2010.

“That has now come to light, and it’s time for the American people to re-engage on this and say, ‘No more,’” Warren told TPM. “I don’t see this as a climate in Washington. I see this as a climate in the whole country.”

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For the first time in four years, the Detroit Grand Prix is being run this weekend in Detroit, Michigan. It's a 2.1 mile race on Detroit city streets, and was just red-flagged by race officials because chunks of the asphault were flying out of cracks in the streets, putting drivers, teams and spectators in danger as a result of flying debris and brand-new potholes in the pavement.

City workers are working frantically as I write to patch the holes with epoxy and cure them with oversize hair dryers so they can restart the race.

I was recently in Detroit and loved the city. I found myself rooting for it to overcome all of the current economic challenges and be the phoenix rising from the ashes of the 2008 meltdown. Perhaps it could have been if Governor Rick Snyder had paid attention to infrastructure issues before he spent so much time union-busting and hitting hard on poor people and teachers. He might have a track worthy of this race instead of the possibility of being made a laughingstock.

In early 2011, Governor Snyder took hard aim at unions and unemployed people in his state. In classic conservative style, he took aim at seniors' pensions while sneaking in tax cuts for rich folks and corporations. And let's not forget that Detroit was one of his prime targets for takeover by the state in order to break the unions.

In late October, 2011, he rolled out a proposal for infrastructure improvements, a welcome change from his usual focus at hammering poor and elderly people. Of course, it's all in the name of promoting business interests in Michigan, but Governor Snyder hasn't been able to get to first base with his teabagger legislature on appropriations to improve infrastructure. I suppose it goes without saying that Congress is no help at all either, given their fetish with holding infrastructure bills hostage to bills attacking women's health.

So today, Indy Car returns to Detroit for the first time in four years. Whether you're a racing fan or not, these events promote tourism, bring revenues to the city, and build goodwill. That is, unless your streets fall apart mid-race. Then they serve to humiliate city governments, citizens, and make the United States look worse than the streets of Bahrain.

Way to go there, Republicans. True patriots you are. Not.

Update: The race will restart at 3:45 pm for 15 more laps, cutting it down from the 30 which were remaining. This is a tough track to race as it is, because it's very narrow and passing is difficult. Between the road problems and the passing issues, I expect drivers to err on the side of caution for the last few laps, which means it won't be much of a race.

The more I think about this the angrier I get.