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I guess no matter how badly these so-called "tea party" leaders behave, we won't see them kicked off the air any time soon. Case in point: Wingnut Judson Phillips, CEO of Tea Party Nation, who as we've noted here is prone to misogynistic attacks on female Democrats, has had some trouble paying his group's hotel bills and who wants President Obama to prove that he doesn’t smoke crack and have gay sex. What a guy. But here he was on MSNBC this Thursday, being allowed to pretend he doesn't know Republicans won the House due to gerrymandering, and throwing both Boehner and Romney under the bus.

Thomas Roberts might be good when it comes to LGBT issues (which he actually cares about), but he's fairly useless when it comes to holding most of his guests' feet to the fire on anything else. This interview was just another example of that.

Naturally, Phillips was demanding that John Boehner not give an inch on these "fiscal cliff" negotiations and that we cut spending to take care of our deficit. I agree with him on getting rid of government waste, but I suspect he and I might have very different ideas about what amounts to "wasteful spending." Republicans always think "waste" equals gutting our social safety nets - he was short on specifics and wasn't asked to clarify.

Phillips was also happy to make excuses for why Republicans lost the presidential election and threw Romney right under the bus --and even backed over him a couple of times: Tea Party Leader: Romney Was ‘The Worst Candidate In History’:

Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips on Thursday disputed that President Obama claimed a mandate in November's election, arguing that his re-election victory came over "the worst candidate in history in Mitt Romney."

"You know, Obama ran on the fact he was going to raise taxes, the Republicans put up the worst candidate in history in Mitt Romney, yet Obama allegedly has this mandate," Phillips said during an appearance on MSNBC. "Well, why did Republicans keep the House if Obama has this great mandate? People don't want their taxes going up. What people do want is spending cuts."

If Romney was the "worst candidate" ever, what does that say about the rest of the wingnuts he was running against in their primary? He would have been a bad candidate already, but Phillips and his ilk along with the rest of the GOP base pushing him to the right helped to assure his fate. He alienated every group out there other than crusty old white men and the millionaires paying his tab, and he paid dearly for it later.

It's always amusing to watch these guys come on the air and complain about a problem they helped create. It's too bad they're not called out for it and asked about who is funding these AstroTurf groups that they represent when they're allowed on the air.

From Majority FM: Right Wing: Everything BUT Guns Caused the Newtown Massacre:

Did you know teachers, unions, and the lack of both God and George Zimmerman are at fault for the Newtown school shooting? The Tea Party Nation thinks so! In both a post on their website and in an email from founder Judson Phillips, the group blamed the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on everything BUT guns...

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It's so good to see that Pat Buchanan has the poor and possibly disenfranchised voters that the teabaggers want to see stripped of their voting rights at heart. Buchanan disagreed with Tea Party leader Justin Phillips’ position that only land owners ought to be allowed to vote, but only because it might affect rich people that rent as well. Buchanan also espoused civics tests to allow Americans to be allowed to vote, apparently ignoring the fact that his favorite teabagger, Sarah Palin, probably couldn’t pass them.

Someone tell me how this wasn’t just a cheap shot for ratings for Hardball knowing ahead of time that Buchanan would say something idiotic? He’s the crazy old grandpa on the set that they keep bringing back out there that keeps babbling racist and sexist nonsense that hasn’t been acceptable dinner conversations for the better portion of America for twenty years or so. David Corn did some good push back here but why MSNBC thinks they need to keep their closet, or not so closeted racist, Sarah Palin fan-boy commenter Buchanan constantly on hand and ready to trot out on the set is beyond me.

MATTHEWS: Welcome back to HARDBALL.

The Tea Partiers have famously said they want to take their country back, but no one thought they meant back in time, until now.

A small group of conservatives are clamoring right now to change the country`s voting rights. Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips recently said that the right to vote should be limited to property owners.

Here he is on his own radio program.

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)

JUDSON PHILLIPS, FOUNDER, TEA PARTY NATION: The founding fathers originally said they put certain restrictions on who got the right to vote. It wasn`t just you were just a citizen and you automatically got to vote.

Now, some of their restrictions were -- you know, you obviously would not think about today. But one of them was, you had to be a property owner. And that makes a lot of sense, because, if you`re -- if you`re a property owner, you actually have a vested stake in the community. And if you`re not a property owner, you know, I`m sorry, but they -- property owners have a little bit more of a vested stake in the community than non- property owners do.

(END AUDIO CLIP)

MATTHEWS: Well, Pat Buchanan is an MSNBC political analyst. I`m not sure where he stands on property requirements for voting. David Corn is a Washington bureau chief for "Mother Jones" and a contributor writer to PoliticsDaily.com.

Pat, this is a throwback. I mean, there`s nothing in our founding documents, certainly not in the Constitution of the United States, requiring landownership before you have the franchise, or the suffrage, if you will.

(CROSSTALK)

PAT BUCHANAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the right to vote, Chris, as you know, is restricted to the states.

MATTHEWS: Right.

BUCHANAN: They make the decision, and that`s why you needed a constitutional amendment to make sure African-Americans could vote and women could vote.

And I understand the principle behind it, but I`m afraid we`re pretty far beyond that. A lot of folks who are very wealthy and contribute to a community rent property, or they rent in places. A lot of retired people do.

I have thought that maybe it ought to be restricted to folks who pay taxes to the community, but can you really do that, when some young 18- year-old is not paying any taxes, but he is on some hill in Afghanistan?

I think you should leave it to the states. And I think the restrictions on the franchise, I don`t think any of them, realistically, are going to get through in any state.

MATTHEWS: Do you support, if you had the opportunity, a landowning requirement to vote? Do you support it in principle, if it could pass?

BUCHANAN: Well, no, I would not restrict it to that.

But the idea of owning property -- let me say this, Chris. I often thought when I was out in Saint Louis and I was renting, I don`t bother voting and stuff. I was having a good time. And the people that lived there and owned houses were really concerned about schools and about traffic and about -- and they really get concerned in the community.

And there`s no doubt, in that sense, they were a better citizen of the community than I was, and then I am right now, when I`m a property owner in McLean, as you are in Chevy Chase.

So, I think there`s an argument that can be made, but, as a practical matter, it ain`t going to happen.

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