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On The Situation Room, former McCain staffer Nancy Pfotenhauer was brought on to pull out the fear card on any meaningful sort of health care reform. As always the tactics were typical. Be afraid of "government takeover" of health care and be afraid Democrats because if you dare to persue this it's going to be Hillary-care and 1994 all over again. I'm not sure why CNN thinks bringing on two political hacks, one in the form of a former energy lobbyist, is going to get us any closer to some meaningful debate on this issue, but that's never stopped them before and I'm sure it won't in the future.

Note to CNN...can you make this woman along with Dana Perino, Ed Gillespie and Ari Fleischer go away please? You can take James Carville and his Cheney-loving wife too while you're at it. I know you won't listen but I thought I'd ask anyway...lol.

Transcript below the fold.

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Joan Walsh and Peter Beinart do a pretty good job here of tag teaming Nancy Pfotenhauer on her punishing the rich talking point. It was nice to watch a panel where they didn't let her talk over everyone the entire time as she likes to do if they let her.

HUGHLEY: Nancy, what do you think? Is he a communist?

PFOTENHAUER: I heard communist and socialist thrown around, and they are two different things. If you want to talk about communism, that's more "From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs." So it would be more the redistribution of wealth aspect.

I do think his tax the rich thing is punishing prosperity, which is an antithetical to the American dream, and completely ignores the fact that the top five percent of the earners in this country, they do earn about 36 percent of the income. They pay about 60 percent of the income tax, and the bottom 40 percent pay zero. So I'm not sure that's the way he should be going. So that would speak to the redistribution act.

WALSH: But why is it --

PFOTENHAUER: Excuse me?

BEINART: Sorry, go ahead.

HUGHLEY: We just turned into Jerry Springer. Who is going to say -- Joan, what were you saying? You were about to say something.

WALSH: I think that we have had a situation. We are not punishing the rich. Let's be honest. In this country, we have a game that is rigged. If you're born wealthy, you stay wealthy. It's very hard to climb out of the middle class into wealth.

It's still possible. It's a great country. We provide a lot of opportunity. But the rich are finally about to pay their fair share, and Obama, finally a president did what he promised to do. He gave a tax cut to 95 percent of the country. And if you're lucky enough to be in the top five percent who will pay a little bit more, well, you're a lucky person to start with and you should be paying more.

(CROSSTALK)

BEINART: What happens is Republicans always play this game, Republicans always play this game when they start talking about taxes. They start talking about taxes, and then they add the word "income taxes."

PFOTENHAUER: I will talk about payroll.

BEINART: Payroll taxes are much more regressive. They fall much more aggressively on poor people. So do sales tax. So Republicans always talk about income taxes are so weighted against the rich. That is actually the most progressive part of our taxes.

PFOTENHAUER: Let me talk then, particularly, to payroll taxes. When you include payroll taxes with income taxes, the numbers do drop, but not demonstrably.

So you can look at it. You still see the top earners paying the lion's share of both the income and the payroll taxes, and you see the prime earners -- I'm not arguing for anybody to pay more taxes. In a recession, no one's taxes should be raised.

Since President Obama is not talking about raising anyone's taxes other than the upper earners I don't think Nancy is really too worried about everyone's taxes. Just the types she used to lobby for. Just a hunch.

Full transcript to follow.

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Part of the panel discussion on Larry King Live March 3, 2009. I was really hoping I'd seen the last of former Koch Energy lobbyist and McCain campaign spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer when he lost the election, but sadly not. The discussion starts out with the topic du jour of whether it is effective or not for the Democrats to be tagging Rush Limbaugh as the leader of the Republican party and Arianna Huffington says the important thing to remember is how we got to where we are rather than focusing on Rush Limbaugh.

Pfotenhauer and Larson have their GOP talking points down as usual but this particular statement hit me as one our side needs to be challenging whenever they say it and that didn't happen here.

Pfotenhauer: Clearly we can debate and I would love to how we got to where we are and actually let me answer one of Arianna's earlier points and say that the thing that George Bush did wrong and that Republicans as well as Democrats did wrong is they spent the taxpayers' money carelessly. They were, they were, it was a taxpayer funded party for eight years.

Now my problem is that President Obama is George Bush on steroids when it comes to spending. He has met him and raised him and he's added like I said tax increases into the mix. If he were advocating economic policies that were good for this country I would support him. I supported him when he's talked about things like entitlement reform. But when he advocates things that are bad for Americans it's people's duty to challenge him. That's patriotic.

When any of these talking heads says something like this they need to immediately be called out and asked what Social Security would look like right now if the GOP had had their way and privatized it. How's that stock market looking to you right now Nancy? And they need to be told that NO, the GOP does not want to support anything that the Democrats are trying to do right now whether they think it is good for the country or not. They want Democrats to adopt Republican ideas or they're going to obstruct. And the only new ideas they have are the same ones they've had for thirty years or more.

Stephanie Miller reminds Pfotenhauer just who the tax cuts under Obama's plan will be going to.

Miller: Nancy, Barack Obama's doing the exact same thing he said during the campaign. 95% of Americans are getting a tax cut under this plan. It is the top 1% that's finally paying their fair share. You Larry.

Pfotenhauer: How can they pay more than the 70% they already pay?

It sure sounds like she's trying to leave the impression that there is someone out there in a 70% tax bracket while leaving herself some wiggle room if she's challenged on it later.

Update: Nicole Belle adds:

Chris Matthews talks to Obama spokesperson Bill Burton and McCain spokesperson Nancy Pfotenhauer about the final days of the campaign. Pfotenhauer has a great tell: whenever she gets flustered and is desperately trying to spin the unspinnable, her smile gets wider and she laughs nervously. Matthews had her beaming like a high intensity flare over whose choice it was to spend the $150,000 on Palin's clothing, something the RNC has thrown back in the lap of the McCain campaign and how pathetic it is that Palin doesn't know what the role of the Vice President is.

MATTHEWS: We talked about the superficial, now let's talk the reality here. And I want to talk about this: the role of the Vice President. I want to give you a shot at it, Nancy, you're a pro. You're not somebody in from out of town. You know how politics works. What is the role of the Vice President under the Constitution? Simply put, you know it or you don't. Either a person understands the role of the Vice President or they don't. What—as you understand it from the Constitution – as a professional, is the role of a Vice President. It's very important you know this answer. We're filling the part in two weeks.

PFOTENHAUER: That's right. That's right. Well, I mean, obviously the role of the Vice President is to support the President, but to also to preside when necessary over the US Senate. And I think that this is also a tempest in a teapot…

MATTHEWS: No, that's not the role of the Vice President. I gave you a shot, Nancy, I want you to try again. What is the Constitutional role of the Vice President? In the Constitution? What's written in the Constitution? You're…look, you're all strict constructionists…

PFOTENHAUER: I'm not a Constitutional scholar but I do know …

MATTHEWS: Have you ever read it?

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Due to the ongoing hatred and vile nature of the McCarthy McCain/Palin campaign and Republican politicians and pundits, Keith Olbermann is moved yet again to another Special Comment. This time, Olbermann castigates the entire notion 'Us vs. Them' notion that the Republican Party mouthpieces have been perpetuating in their support for John McCain's candidacy. And worse, for someone who has made his ability to reach across the aisle in a bipartisan manner a mainstay of his campaign, John McCain's allowing his proxies to divide Americans into "good" and "bad" camps shows how far he has slid from his "maverick" days.

(Senator McCain,) I disagree with you on virtually every major point of policy and practice.

And yet I do not think you "anti-America." I would not hesitate to join you in time of crisis in defense of this country.

Fortunately you did not echo this chorus of base hatred.

But neither have you repudiated it.

What is "pro-America", Senator?

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The McCain campaign has turned to sketch comedy writing lately because after William the Bloody Kristol rips McCain's erratic campaign on FNS Sunday saying the negative ads haven't worked, where's Rev.Wright, they are pathetic and why isn't Sarah Palin doing the Sunday shows among other things.

Why isn't Sarah Palin on this morning instead of Rick Davis. It is ridiculous. It's malpractice. It's a tough environment, maybe they would have lost anyway....but to do what they are doing is inexplicable to me.

McCain's very own Nancy Pfotenhauer came out and said that Kristol is buying Obama's talking points. No, really, she actually said this on Teevee.

Think Progress:

Asked to respond to Kristol’s criticisms, McCain campaign spokeswoman

Nancy Pfotenhauer said on Fox News:

Well, you know Bill is entitled to his perspective. And I used to work for Bill. And I can tell you personally sometimes he’s brilliant and sometimes he’s not. And this is one where it’s the latter category. You know, I think unfortunately he has bought into the Obama campaign’s party line.

Kristol has responded to McCain:

This afternoon on Fox News, Kristol fired back:

Is John McCain the best messenger for his campaign? Why isn’t he on this show? Why do we have Tucker Bounds and a bunch of nice young kids who are spokesmen out there spinning implausibly on behalf of the McCain campaign? McCain is better than his campaign.

What's the saying about rats leaving a sinking ship?

  Download | play   Download | play   (h/t Heather)

Based on her performance with Katie Couric, it's no surprise that the McCain campaign has kept Sarah Palin off MSNBC news shows where she wouldn't get the Hannity kid glove treatment. But the campaign has also quite studiously ensured that no spokesperson at all appear on shows like Countdown and The Rachel Maddow Show.  Until Friday, that is, when Sr. Policy Adviser Nancy Pfotenhauer agreed to talk up John McCain with Rachel Maddow.  Given Maddow's command of facts, I think it's safe to say this won't be repeated between now and Election Day.  

Watch when Pfotenhauer launches into her typical talking points (which, for the McCain campaign, means repeating the same debunked memes against Obama) and Rachel responds, knowing the actual timeline of the bill McCain takes credit for co-sponsoring and pointing out that the tired Franklin Raines smear has been denied by all parties involved.  Ooops!  None of the other news shows actually do homework and question anything she's said before.  What's a surrogate to do?  Filibuster the rest of the segment by spurting out a lot of words without a lot of substance behind them.

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