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After taking a shot at Mitt Romney, his criticism of the government "picking winners and losers" and comparing the government's track record to Bain Capital's record in that regard, Jon Stewart reminded us of what the real problem is that Romney and Ryan have been carping about on the campaign trail. They only think government shouldn't pick winners and losers when the Democrats are in charge.

As always, IOKIYAR.

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George Will admitted something on ABC's This Week that is as obvious as the nose on everyone's face and has been for some time -- that the economy doing well is not in the best interest of the Romney campaign and that they've got every reason to be rooting for it to fail.

TAPPER: I want to switch topics right now to a hardening we've seen in conventional wisdom about the state of -- of the -- of the election. We've seen in -- in Friday, these three swing state polls came back indicating, in Ohio, Obama's up 7 points, Virginia, Obama is up 5 points, Florida, Obama is up 5 points.

And, George, one of the amazing things is, Mitt Romney is no longer in polling beating Obama on trust to handle the economy.

WILL: Which is his campaign in one sentence. Those three states have one thing in common: They all have Republican governors. And all three Republican governors are bragging -- perhaps rightfully so -- that they have got their economies up and running. If you add Wisconsin, with Scott Walker, and -- to that list, you have a tension, a kind of disconnect between the interests of the Republican governors in the swing states and the interests of the Romney campaign.

What you'll never hear Will admit is the fact that a lot of the reason those states are doing better is because of federal intervention and President Obama's policies like that auto bailout and stimulus they want to pretend didn't work.

If we could get Will to admit the extent to which Republicans in the Congress have done their best to sabotage the economy purely for political gain, now we'd be getting somewhere.

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It appears that Buzzfeed's Andrew Kaczynski isn't the only one digging through C-SPAN's archives for old footage. Kudos to the crew at Up With Chris Hayes for this find which puts on full display Rep. Paul Ryan's complete hypocrisy when it comes to stimulus spending and whether it helps the economy. It appears Etch-A-Sketch Mittens has found himself the perfect running mate, since he's just like him when it comes to flip flopping.

VIDEO: Paul Ryan defended stimulus in 2002, when George W. Bush wanted it:

Long before he became one of the right’s most vocal critics of the idea that government spending could help boost the flagging economy, Rep. Paul Ryan offered a forceful, full-throated defense of stimulus spending — when then-President George W. Bush wanted it in 2002.

Ryan has denounced the 2009 Recovery Act signed by President Obama as “a wasteful spending spree” and “failed neo-Keynesian experiment,” and – as The Huffington Post pointed out this morning — dismissed as “sugar-high economics” the idea that government spending, through measures like payroll tax cuts and unemployment benefits, can help shore up a faltering economy.

But in 2002, when then-President Bush was seeking a roughly $120 billion package of tax cuts, tax incentives for business and unemployment benefits to jump-start the economy, Ryan offered a vigorous defense of the plan. “What we're trying to accomplish today with the passage of this third stimulus package is to create jobs and help the unemployed,” Ryan said in video that aired today on Up w/ Chris Hayes. The remarks came during a House debate on the measure on Feb. 14, 2002.

Ryan’s comments reveal a strikingly different economic analysis than the one he has become known for in recent years as the “intellectual leader” of the Republican Party and, now, Mitt Romney’s running mate. In 2002, Ryan argued that unemployment would remain at elevated levels even after the economy began to recover, and that aggressive stimulus would be a necessary and effective antidote.

“What we're trying to accomplish here is the recognition of the fact that in recessions, unemployment lags on well after a recovery has taken place,” Ryan said at the time. “We have a lot of laid-off workers, and more layoffs are occurring. And we know, as a historical fact, that even if our economy begins to slowly recover, unemployment is going to linger on and on well after that recovery takes place.”

Ryan’s advocacy of stimulus spending wasn’t limited to Washington, either. When he returned home to face constituents, he used similar language to make the case for the Bush stimulus bill. “You have to spend a little to grow a little,” Ryan told constituents at a town hall in Wisconsin in January 2002, according to the Journal-Times, a local newspaper. “What we're trying to do is stimulate that part of the economy that's on its back." [...]

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Ed Schultz pulled out his own whiteboard to try to keep tabs on how may lies Mitt Romney told this week and asked whether the Republicans' presumptive presidential nominee or his running mate, Paul Ryan was the bigger liar. I think Mittens wins it hands down so far and Schultz was quite a few lies short with his list.

He needs to start reading his colleague, Rachel Maddow's blog, because Steve Benen has Romney up to thirty three lies this Friday in his weekly series: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XXX.

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This is the kind of fact free claptrap that passes for political commentary on Fox every day of the week. From this Thursday's Your World with Neil Cavuto, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal joined Cavuto's show to critique President Obama's speech in Cleveland, Ohio this Thursday.

Naturally we had Jindal running through the list of typical Republican talking points about all the evils of "big gubmint" and how we're going to end up like those evil Socialists over in Europe and the public sector just needs to "get out of the way" and allow the private sector to unleash all of that awesome job creating they're going to do if they were just free from those over burdensome regulations and taxes they're having to pay.

Never mind that they had eight years under Bush which proved those theories aren't true. And now of course you're not supposed to be allowed to talk about that, because we can't have anyone daring to ask the voters to do something like remember their recent history over the last decade. That would just be terribly irresponsible.

Note to Bobby Jindal: until Republicans take some different economic stances than they have under Bush, or most of their candidates and leaders for the last half century or so, it's going to be fair game to run against those policies. It's only too late if your party has actually changed those policies, or stances, which they have not.

Here's how Fox's blog, Fox News Insider, characterized the interview: Bobby Jindal: It Sounds Like President Obama Is Trying to Run Against President Bush; He’s 8 Years Too Late:

Jindal described Obama’s remarks as “disappointing,” because he talked about the need for even more government spending in America. “What it shows is President Obama continues to believe that government is the source of our prosperity; he couldn’t be more wrong,” he added.

He pointed out the one thing he thought the president said that was right was when he said that this election is only about two clear choices. “We can either go the European way or the American way. We can either grow the government or grow the private sector.”

“He literally can’t ask people ‘Are you better off than you were four years ago?’” Jindal said. “So, instead of talking about his record, instead he has to attack Governor Romney and instead he has to try and distract us with his class warfare.”

Cavuto couldn't be bothered to point out that these days, the "European way" means a whole lot of painful austerity measures; the same kind which are being pushed by his party and their presidential candidate Mitt Romney. And in case anyone hasn't noticed, that's not working out so well over there right now.

Jindal also seems to think that government spending and private sector spending are mutually exclusive, as though the government spending when the economy is otherwise stagnant doesn't help the private sector as well, or at least he pretended to here. I've already noted here at C&L, Jindal was more than happy to take credit for that government stimulus spending back in 2009, but wasn't willing to admit President Obama's policies were responsible for his state's recovery back then either. I guess we can at least give him an "A" for being consistent about sticking to his same lies a few years later.

Jindal was still being touted as a potential presidential contender himself until he gave his zombie-like performance after President Obama's State of the Union back in 2009. It seems he's brushed up his act on television a bit since then, but he's no less dishonest. And now he's supposedly on the short list for a spot as the vice presidential candidate on a Romney ticket.

Given Mittens' propensity to lie non-stop every time his mouth is opened, I'd say Jindal would fit right in.

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From the man who brought us 'Liberal Fascism" and who doesn't seem to have much of a grasp on logic or facts, here's Jonah Goldberg on Fox's Special Report with Bret Baier: Fox's Jonah Goldberg: The Idea That GOP Obstructionism Is Hurting The Economy "Doesn't Track Logically Or Factually".

Goldberg has a pretty short memory if he doesn't recall the record number of filibusters we've had in the Senate, the fact that Mitch McConnell said their main goal was to make sure Barack Obama was a one term president, or that they forced him to water down a good portion of the stimulus with tax cuts they claim create jobs. Or the fact that since taking the House, Republicans have done nothing but pass one anti-abortion bill after another and refused to work with him on anything.

Goldberg also apparently doesn't think that cops and firefighters and teachers spend any money if he thinks that putting some of them back to work isn't going to help the economy. But that's not the way things work in Republican upside down world.

BAIER: Jonah, Brit Hume argued earlier in the program in his commentary that this is really how the President thinks and that another stimulus, another big influx of money for government workers is really what he'd want to do.

GOLDBERG: I think Brit's absolutely right. The second where you cut it, he cleaned up his statement, he didn't clean it up. Nowhere in that statement did he actually sort of rebut the logic or reasoning from his press conference statement. David Axelrod on another network was asked by Candy Crowley, three times, yes or no, is the private sector doing fine. David Axelrod could not answer the question.

Obama's theory is that what we need is this new government controlled stimulus and he has to have that theory about government jobs, because if he concedes that the private sector is doing terribly, then he's basically ceding the fundamental argument to the Romney campaign, that Barack Obama has failed to fix the economy.

So he has to say, hey look, the Republicans stopped me from hiring more cops and firefighters, keeping us from having a robust economy. And it just doesn't track logically or factually.

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I don't always get a chance to catch C-SPAN's morning call in show, Washington Journal, but when I do, I can usually immediately tell which callers have been watching way too much Fox News or listening to too much hate talk radio. They've got all of their talking points down pat. Here's Charles from Bella Vista, Arkansas:

CHARLES: Say, Krugman and the people in Congress, they want to spend the money. We're $16 trillion in debt and we borrow forty cents on every dollar. Our children and grandchildren can't afford this.

Krugman keeps saying, well we've got to spend money to get out of the hole. You ask him what country or what instance that ever worked and all he can ever say is well, they never spent enough money to really prove my theory. And free trade and capitalism has worked fine. And when the government gets out of the way...

SWAIN: And so Charles, let me ask you about the situation we're in right now with this fiscal crisis and the aftermath. You want that Washington still stay totally out of the way? No more spending? You don't want the Fed to do anything? What's your prescription?

CHARLES: Absolutely. I don't want the government in anything. Free trade and capitalism has worked. This country made it. They become great by standing back and lettin' the people do the work.

And people, you can't steal from one person to give to another. The gimme' people are now at 50 percent and you can't win that argument. We get a little more people that want something for nothing, it's never going to come out of the hole.

First off, as to the lie about Krugman, he has cited an example of when spending got us out of an economic hole and it was this pesky little thing the caller apparently doesn't know anything about called a world war. Second, he's repeating the lie we hear from the right that half of the country doesn't pay any taxes, when that's only true if you're looking at income tax alone and ignoring all the other taxes everyone pays, and even Republicans used to agree with leveling the playing field in that regard with something called the Earned Income Tax Credit, which was supported by that terrible Socialist and wealth redistributor Ronald Reagan.

The caller also ignored that a whole bunch of the people who are not paying income taxes are seniors who are on fixed incomes and should not be paying any taxes on their very limited retirement incomes. I would love to be able to find out if he's one of them. It would not surprise me since he sounded like he could be older.

And last off, when he talks about those who are wanting "something for nothing," we all know he's not talking about white people. I have a feeling no one's ever pointed out to this man that more white Americans than black are receiving food stamps right now.

Not that it would probably make much difference if anyone tried. These people have their preconceived notions and they're sticking to them and facts be damned. They can go get their own set of facts from the likes of Hannity and Limbaugh instead.

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Steve Benen, who once upon a time was a contributor here at C&L before being hired by the Washington Monthly is no longer a regular guest on Rachel Maddow's show, probably because because he's working for her now, both as a producer and writing for her blog. And you can definitely see his influence when she does segments like this one, because he's been writing about Mitt Romney and his constant lying on the campaign trail for some time now.

He's been keeping a running list and doing weekly installments documenting Romney's lies in a series that comes out on Fridays, the latest of which from last week you can read here: Chronicling Mitt's Mendacity, Vol. XIX. I'm sure Romney's latest which Maddow reported on in the clip above will make this Friday's post as well.

As Rachel noted, on a crazy news day when most of the media was reporting on George W. Bush at the White House having his portrait unveiled, Romney openly admitting to sending hecklers out to scream over Obama adviser David Axelrod and the trial of John Edwards finally coming to an end, Mitt Romney appeared for a campaign stop at the failed energy company Solyndra, and besides the crazy conspiracy theories the Romney campaign was throwing out there that Dave wrote about this Thursday and the fact that Romney has a Solyndra type problem of his own from his time as Governor in Massachusetts, there's also the problem that Mitt Romney just straight up lied about the Obama administration supposedly steering contracts to "friends and family."

Here's more on that from the Time article she quoted in the segment: Mitt Romney’s Ads: Still Wrong on the Stimulus:

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After Cory Booker went out and undermined some of the recent attack ads by the Obama campaign during his appearance on Meet the Press this weekend, and President Obama's defense of those attacks, telling reporters that the issue is not a distraction but instead critical to evaluating Mitt Romney's qualifications to be president, Paul Krugman agreed during his appearance on Current TV's The War Room with Jennifer Granholm.

Krugman: Romney ‘really does not understand the economy at all’ :

Nobel Prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman joins Jennifer Granholm in The War Room to discuss candidate Mitt Romney. Krugman says, in spite of his protestations, Romney’s business career is fair game. “Yes, he made a lot of money. He made a lot of money in ways that were often not good for workers.” Krugman points out that what made Romney an effective businessman may be the opposite of what’s needed from the leader of a country: “What a President needs to do is not what you need to do if you’re trying to make a bunch of money for private equity for investors.”

Krugman also pointed out the need for more stimulus spending right now to get the economy out of this depression we've been in:

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While discussing the fact that the United States has been slow to recover from the recession, David Gregory parroted the Republicans' talking point that you can't claim the stimulus plan worked because it failed to keep unemployment below 8 percent as the administration claimed it would.

Gregory also ignores the record amount of obstruction the Democrats have had to deal with ever since President Obama took office with either blocking or watering down the stimulus package they did manage to get passed. As many have pointed out, one of the biggest drags on the economy right now has been the number of government jobs that have been lost, as opposed to the private sector which has been recovering more quickly.

As Vice President Biden pointed out, the economy was in a lot worse shape than they realized when that statement was made and no one can argue that putting more teachers and firefighters back to work is not going to improve the unemployment numbers. He also pointed out that Mitt Romney's record on job creation is not the best one either as a businessman or during his term as governor.

Transcript of their exchange below the fold.

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