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I guess PBS decided that "Fix the Debt" campaign's Steve Rattner wasn't getting quite enough air time, what with his near daily appearances on MSNBC's Morning Joe, because Charlie Rose and his producers gave him some unfettered air time Monday evening.

Rose asks why President Obama should care about the "Democratic wing of the Democratic party" thinks about his policies, and whether he's willing to go after our social safety nets. I'd love to know the last time Rose asked whether a Republican president should just ignore the base of his party and suggested that what they think doesn't matter all that much. To his credit, Rattner did admit that President Obama has good reason to pay attention to those that just reelected him, and that they should not be ignored.

He also briefly alluded to the conversation he had during the panel segment on This Week, where his fellow guest Steve Brill rightfully pointed out that lowering the Medicare age would actually save money, but rather than getting into the weeds on that discussion, Rattner only admitted that maybe raising the age might not be "such a good idea." Heaven forbid anyone might actually discuss the heart of Brill's arguments, because it runs counter to the Villager narrative that we must raise the Medicare eligibility age in order to control our health care costs.

Instead, the conversation turned to whether President Obama is entitled to change his mind on the issue or not and with Rattner again pushing for "significant changes to entitlements" as long as there "was a reasonable response from the Republicans on revenues." The idea that Republicans are ever going to come around on taxes seems pretty ridiculous, and as Karoli noted here on our health care costs, the problem is not with the cost to administer Medicare or with the consumers out there, it's with the providers Congress refuses to reign in.

Rose and Rattner were also extremely dismissive of Paul Krugman, who has written extensively about the fact that the debt and the deficit are not urgent issues now and not what we should be focusing on, with Rose calling him "a Nobel Prize winner, but also a minority opinion."

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Yes, those poor, poor Republicans have just been completely humiliated by President Obama's initial offer during these debt negotiations, or so says former Bushie and Romney adviser, Dan Senor on ABC's This Week. Senor also did his best to try to spin the idea that the offer was somehow so toxic that most of the public would not blame Republicans if they can't reach a deal.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you agree that something is going to happen. Dan Senor, that conflicts at least with a lot of the reporting I had on Capitol Hill this week, where you saw significant numbers of Republicans and Democrats more willing to accept the idea of going over the cliff, at least for a few days?

SENOR: Yes, I think as one Republican House member said to me, good lesson in negotiating is don't make your opening offer one of humiliation, which is what Republicans felt the White House has put forth in the last couple of days.

I think there's a sense now, Republicans I have spoken to, particularly in the leadership, have said, look, if we go over the cliff, we're going to get blamed.

STEPHANOPOULOS: No question about that.

SENOR: The view is shifting a little bit now, where there is a sense that if President Obama goes into his second term and poisons the environment so much that he can't get a deal and we go over the cliff, it's going to be so toxic for year two, year three, year four, and he -- the Republicans have some leverage too. The president has to be worried about his legacy and how he's going to govern through the second term. And even though Republicans might get blamed, this whole idea that the president is bringing the country together, something he wasn't able to do in his first term, if he can't do it in his second term, it could be very problematic.

Yeah, that's the ticket. President Obama had better not hurt the Republicans' feelings, or they might start obstructing everything he does and that's going to harm his legacy... oh wait.

I guess Senor thinks the American public has been asleep for the last four years is he actually believes the garbage he's shoveling.

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Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) says that the tea party should not be blamed for the political brinkmanship that led to S&P's downgrade of U.S. credit because they have bent over backwards to compromise.

"We have actually done a lot of compromising," Chaffetz told ABC's Christiane Amanpour Sunday. "Remember, it was the tea party that really spurred -- I was the primary sponsor of 'Cut, Cap and Balance.'"

"Wait a minute," former Obama administration "Car Czar" Steve Rattner interrupted. "'Cut, Cap and Balance' was not a compromise."

"Yes, it was," Chaffetz replied. "It was a raising of the debt ceiling by $2.4 trillion. And what is wrong in this country is that we aren't willing to have the discussion about a balanced budget amendment."

CNN's Jeanne Sahadi noted at the time that "Cut, Cap and Balance" exacerbated the problem.

"For starters, since the bill isn't expected to go anywhere in the Senate, lawmakers are wasting precious time needed to pass a debt ceiling increase before Aug. 2," she wrote.

In the end, Chaffetz did refused to compromise and vote for the final bipartisan compromise that raised the nation's debt ceiling.