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In a heated confrontation on Sunday, lesbian Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen shot down Faith and Freedom Coalition Chairman Ralph Reed after he argued that the primary purpose of marriage was procreation.

During a NBC panel discussion about the Supreme Court's decision to consider the federal government's Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Reed suggested that current polls in favor of same sex marriage did not matter because 31 state elections had backed "traditional marriage," while only three had affirmed marriage equality.

"The issue before the country is, do we have a compelling interest in strengthening and supporting the durable, enduring and uniquely complementary and procreative union of a man and a woman?" the conservative activist asked. "And by the way, the reason why is it's better for children, and all the social science shows that."

NBC host David Gregory pointed out that the American Academy of Pediatrics has said that marriage was in the best interest of children living with same sex parents.

"Ralph raises a point that we cannot ignore," Rosen observed. "Which is the rationale that the opposition is putting before the Supreme Court, the only difference between a gay couple and a married straight couple that gets benefits from the federal government is that one has accidental procreation. I think that would be a surprise to a lot of infertile heterosexual couples."

"Well, that's not really a fair characterization," Reed insisted.

"Of course it is," Rosen shot back. "That's the point you just made, which is the point of marriage is procreation. That's not the point of marriage. The point of marriage is love and commitment."

"What I said is the verdict of social science is overwhelming and irrefutable," Reed said, refusing to look at at Rosen, who is a same sex parent. "And that is without regard to straight or gay -- in other words, this applies to one-parent households, it applies to foster homes, it applies to the whole panoply. They have looked at them all, that the enduring, loving, intact biological mother and father is best for children and it's not even a close call. And the only issue before the court is there a social good to that and does the government have a legitimate issue in protecting and strengthening. That's the only issue."

"We're going to dispute on the science," Rosen replied.

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From this Sunday's Meet the Press, Robert Gibbs called out former GE CEO, Jack Welch for embarrassing himself along with the other "jobs report truthers" who were touting that there was some grand conspiracy theory at work with the latest report released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even Chuck Todd had a few words about the fact that it's a "bad trend" when we've got conservatives out there getting traction with this nonsense.

But of course, since right-wing flame thrower Newt Gingrich was invited to the table, the waters on whether this sort of behavior ought to be tolerated or not were muddied up a bit, with Gingrich touting a far right, Koch-funded lobbying group and their "survey" as proof that "small business" he supposedly speaks to, don't believe the economy is getting any better. I believe this is the same group Chris Hayes and his panel mentioned on his show today and they said they were created because the U.S. Chamber of Commerce wasn't far enough to the right to suit them.

Dan Froomkin has more on that here -- NFIB Exposed: 'Voice Of Small Business' Is A Front, Group Charges.

What's really disgusting is that the likes of Gingrich keeps getting invited to these panels and treated like he's some senior statesman, instead of the shyster that he is, but then, he's far from alone when it comes to the list of terrible guests for these shows.

As Driftglass pointed out about this week's show, "The Gingrich Rules continue to remain in effect."

Transcript below the fold.

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The Romney campaign needs to get themselves some better spokespeople if they're going to continue to say things like this: Mary Matalin: Thanks To Romney, We Can Single Out ‘Parasites’:

Conservative commentator Mary Matalin hailed Mitt Romney's "47 percent" line on CNN as good news for Republicans.

"There are makers and takers, there are producers and there are parasites," she said. "Americans can distinguish between those who have produced and paid in through no fault of their own and because of Obama's horrible polices who cannot get a job or are underemployed. That's what the campaign is about."

Matalin really needs to put down the Ayn Rand novels and find somewhere else to get her talking points if she wants to stop alienating everyone in the country other than the extreme right-wing, libertarian leaning Republican base. Most people don't believe poor are causing our problems in the United States, or that they don't pay enough in taxes. Quite the opposite, in fact. But if you listen to Lady McCheney here, it's those lazy, mooching, welfare recipients that refuse to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps that are destroying America.

As Hilary Rosen reminded her, it's not the 1960's any more.

Full transcript below the fold.

(John Amato: This reminds me of the time that Glenn Beck called me a parasite.)

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Ruh roh! Looks like someone over at Fox wandered off script tonight after Queen Ann gave her speech at the Republican National Convention this Tuesday -- Juan Williams: Ann Romney Looks "Like A Corporate Wife" Hard For Me To Believe She Struggled.

As Andrew Kaczynski at BuzzFeed noted, this is likely to get Williams some comparisons to Hilary Rosen's remarks about Ann Romney coming across as someone who hasn't worked a day in her life.

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This is what happens when you let everyone see the thought process, or lack thereof that goes into your ramblings that are generally reserved for your Wall Street Journal column. I don't know if Peggy Noonan was having a senior moment or if she'd already been hitting the cocktails before the taping of This Week, but she had a bit of trouble when asked what she thought about Anne-Marie Slaughter's recent article in The Atlantic, Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.

We got quite a stark contrast between the concise, intelligent, specific remarks from Hilary Rosen on the United States being behind the rest a good deal of the world when it comes to family-friendly work places and then... well... there was Peggy Noonan's response.

Transcript via:

TAPPER: OK, let us talk -- now turn to this Atlantic cover story, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" by Anne-Marie Slaughter, former State Department official. Hilary, we've all read this. It's a provocative essay. What did you think of it?

ROSEN: You know, two things kind of for context first. The first is, two-thirds of mothers in America today actually are primary or co-breadwinners for their family, so women don't have the luxury of whether or not to work. We have to work.

The second is, I think men are increasingly feeling this pressure, so I don't -- I don't, you know, want you to feel left out. But that kind of brings us...

TAPPER: Thank you.

ROSEN: ... to a central problem, which is this issue really has to move beyond kind of party talk and angst and philosophy to some place that gets our country moving forward. We're the only -- we're one of two countries in the developing world that do not actually have paid family leave, that does not have flexible mandated work hours, that does not have federally supported child care. Those issues, you know, have historically been women's issues, but they're really economic issues. They support everything, and we really ought to move this issue into some policy debate.

TAPPER: Peggy?

NOONAN: Oh, I think you can't legislate away some of life's limits and joys. It's a very rich and varied thing. Look, I think that -- interesting article in the Atlantic tends -- it seems to me it is focusing on how women are doing in the world, in business, in the professions. What percentage of people we have -- of women we have in the State Department and are we slipping and such?

And I think, therefore, it takes a slightly limited view of what women are, what choices they have, and what they might want to be. And so it's seemed to me a little bit limited and crabbed in its canvas, I suppose.

I forget where I'm going with that, beyond it is good to remember that it is good to work with children, it is good to be in the house, it's good to be in the office. All of these things are good. You've got to be open about them, but you can't try to legislate it too closely.

If there was ever a segment in need of a bobblespeak translation, it's this one.

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I'm not fond of Hilary Rosen being put out there as a pundit or a spokesperson for the Democratic side of the aisle for a whole lot of reasons, a good number of which can be read about in Susie's post here which lays out who she's worked for or represented. That said, when it comes to the issue of gay marriage, she was exactly right with her comments she made as a member of the panel on This Week over the weekend and her noting that "straight people don't need any help tearing down the institution of marriage."

I've got a co-worker that has been Jesus-ed into believing that gay people being allowed to get married might somehow interfere with him not being allowed to get divorced again and maybe remarried again, since he's on his second marriage now and is terribly frightened by those evil gay people are somehow breaking down the institution of marriage. And when you try to talk to him about it, it's about as productive as talking to a box of rocks. He's stuck and stubborn on his stance that gay people being allowed to get married is some sort of abomination.

My fellow liberals at work along with myself haven't had much luck with him, but I remain hopeful that more people making the points that Rosen did here will eventually get through to some of them even if we never manage to change my friend's views. The real damage to the institution of marriage has not been gay people wanting to get married. It's the number of divorces and broken families we've seen with straight couples. And as she noted, getting married, or serving in our military, which are issues the gay community has been pushing for where they would like to have equal rights, are what would normally be considered "conservative" issues or values.

If "conservatives" really cared about the so-called institution or marriage, they'd care more about the issue of divorce, which of course they will never do since they'd have to drive the majority of their members out of their party. They're much happier fear mongering and gay-bashing instead while ignoring the fact that they really don't care that much about the institution of marriage at all, unless it means their fellow citizens they'd like to discriminate against can't have access to it.

Transcript of the clip above below the fold.

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A conservative Fox News contributor insisted on Monday that President Barack Obama had a "disdain" for women that he learned from his "Marxist" father and "communist" mentor.

Fox News contributor Sandy Rios, who is vice president of the conservative political action committee Family-PAC Federal, told host Sean Hannity that Obama did not disagree with CNN contributor Hilary Rosen's assertion that Ann Romney had "never worked a day in her life."

"His father was a Marxist, his mentor was Marxist," Rios explained. "The Marxist theory on women is that they should work just like men. There's a total dripping disdain for women who stay at home and take care of their children. ... This is not an accident. This is what they believe. They hold people like Ann Romney and others of us that have stayed home with our children in complete disregard and disdain."

"That is not what Barack Obama believes," Democratic Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers disagreed. "You don't know what you are talking about. You're making up stuff."

"Frank Marshall Davis was a communist, that was his mentor," Rios replied. "His father was a Marxist."

As Slate's David Weigel noted last year, "Obama's past and philosophy makes it very clear that he only read up seriously on socialism and Marxism when he got to Columbia."

"There is no evidence that Obama ever read his father's economic papers; if he did, it's unclear how dense tracts about the problems of post-colonial Kenya would have influenced his thinking about American urban/class politics and economics."

And contrary to Rios' claims, Obama has spoken out against Rosen's remarks, saying it was "the wrong thing to say."

"It’s not something that I subscribe to," the president told WCMH-TV in Columbus, Ohio last week.

(h/t: The Political Carnival, Media Matters)

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Jon Stewart took on the GOP's "war on women" during his opening segments Monday, first with highlighting the hypocrisy of the media firestorm over Hilary Rosen's comments and the Romneys' blatant hypocrisy on whether he respects "the dignity" of motherhood or not.

Stewart went after Fox "News" in both segments, who have been flogging this story for everything they can get out of it, trying to do damage control for Mittens given the Republicans' sinking poll numbers with female voters. I was glad to see someone finally go after them as he did for their feigned outrage over the Democrats using the phrase the "war on women" when Fox has happily used the same type of language for everything from their fake "war on Christmas" to the "war on Easter" or the "war on food" or whatever their latest ridiculous outrage of the week is.

I could have done without the picture of the pregnant woman spread eagle his graphics department chose to use in the segment though. Tasteless addition to what was otherwise a pretty good summation of the rank hypocrisy we've been seeing from Republicans who would be content to take us back to the 1950's with women's reproductive rights and the desperation of the Romney campaign to now try to distance himself from the way his party is governing, or at least distract the voters from paying attention to it.

You can watch the second segment below the fold.

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I have to say, I could not agree more with Chris Hayes and what he said about Hilary Rosen during his show on Saturday and who CNN chooses to represent "the left" on their network. Sadly, I could say the same thing about a whole lot of their other pundits or which politicians they bring on as well. And it's not just CNN. The corporate media as a whole is terrible about giving those who actually represent the working class and their interests any time on the air.

I'll give Hayes credit for being one of the exceptions to that rule.

HAYES: If CNN is looking to represent the left in their crossfire style segments, they could do a lot better than a lobbyist messaging guru with a who's-who list of corporate clients – women who is head of the Recording Industry Association of America when it was crushing Napster and who was forced to severe ties with the Huffington Post in 2010 because she had BP as a client at a time when it was, well, in the news.” We know there are literally thousands, if not tens of thousands of people, who could better represent the left in our national conversation.

Indeed there are.

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Republicans have spent the last week attacking President Barack Obama after a Democratic CNN contributor said that Ann Romney, who is the mother of five, had "never worked," but it turns out that presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney has also said mothers on welfare "need to go to work."

"I wanted to increase the work requirement," Romney told an audience in New Hampshire in January. "I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work."

"And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.'"

Last week, CNN contributor Hilary Rosen charged that the candidate's wife had “actually never worked a day in her life.”

“She’s never really dealt with the kinds of economic issues that a majority of the women in this country are facing,” Rosen added.

Ann Romney responded by saying that her "career choice was to be a mother."

"And I think that all of us need to know that we need to respect choices that women make," she explained.

"Look, I know what it’s like to struggle,” Ann Romney continued, possibly referring to her battle with multiple sclerosis. “And if maybe I haven’t struggled as much financially as some people have, I can tell you and promise you that I’ve had struggles in my life. And I would love to have people understand that Mitt and I have compassion for people that are struggling and that’s why we’re running. We care about those people that are struggling."

(H/T: Think Progress)