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From Monday night's Massachusetts senate debate between Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren, here's another example of why David Gregory should not be moderating any more debates, ever. He used the debate to push his own agenda and his fetish with the now defunct Simpson-Bowles "plan" that isn't really a plan, since it never made it out of the committee.

Paul Krugman explained again last week why the likes of Gregory and his fellow Villagers pushing for austerity is so destructive if our politicians take their advice:

I ask that question because we already know what Mr. Obama will face if re-elected: a clamor from Beltway insiders demanding that he immediately return to his failed political strategy of 2011, in which he made a Grand Bargain over the budget deficit his overriding priority. Now is the time, he’ll be told, to fix America’s entitlement problem once and for all. There will be calls — as there were at the time of the Democratic National Convention — for him to officially endorse Simpson-Bowles, the budget proposal issued by the co-chairmen of his deficit commission (although never accepted by the commission as a whole).

And Mr. Obama should just say no, for three reasons.

First, despite years of dire warnings from people like, well, Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles, we are not facing any kind of fiscal crisis. Indeed, U.S. borrowing costs are at historic lows, with investors actually willing to pay the government for the privilege of owning inflation-protected bonds. So reducing the budget deficit just isn’t the top priority for America at the moment; creating jobs is. For now, the administration’s political capital should be devoted to passing something like last year’s American Jobs Act and providing effective mortgage debt relief. [...]

Finally, despite the bizarre reverence it inspires in Beltway insiders — the same people, by the way, who assured us that Paul Ryan was a brave truth-teller — the fact is that Simpson-Bowles is a really bad plan, one that would undermine some key pieces of our safety net. And if a re-elected president were to endorse it, he would be betraying the trust of the voters who returned him to office.

And here's more from a couple of others who share my disgust with Gregory's pathetic performance as moderator. First from Charles Pierce -- Warren/Brown II — Out of the Ring and into the Classroom of National Ideas, Advantage: Professor:

There was a general consensus on several issues as we all filed out of Tsongas Arena on Monday night. The first was that incumbent U.S. Senator Scott Brown had done a little better than he'd done in his first debate with challenger Elizabeth Warren in that he dialed the essential dickitude of his essential personality back to about a six. The second was that Warren was not quite as good as she had been the first time around, although she finished very strongly. The third, and by far the most solidly held, consensus was that moderator David Gregory should be flogged through the streets for wasting everyone's time.

The Dancin' Master promised that the evening would be held "Meet The Press-style" and, alas, he delivered. (I kept waiting for John McCain to wander onto the stage out of pure reflex.) Gregory made such a terrible dog's breakfast of the his job that his performance can best be summed up by a question he asked late in the proceedings. "We've only got a few minutes left, so I'd like to touch on some other issues. The war in Afghanistan..." [...]

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I guess Scott Brown was going for some of that 'he-man woman haters club" Todd Akin vote with this remark to his challenger Elizabeth Warren during their second debate this Monday evening -- Brown To Warren: ‘I’m Not A Student In Your Classroom’:

Republican Sen. Scott Brown and Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren met Monday night for their second debate of the top-tier Massachusetts race — in a knock-down, drag-out fight filled with attacks and vitriol.

The bitter exchanges between the two reached a crescendo, as the audience of several thousand at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell booed and applauded.

During an exchange on unemployment benefits and President Obama’s jobs proposals, Warren attempted to interrupt Brown on a key point. Brown retaliated: “Excuse me, I’m not a student in your classroom. Please let me respond.”

Go read the rest of the TPM post for more of their recap of the debate. I'll just add one quick note on my own feelings after watching this debate and that is, David Gregory just took the cake for one of the worst moderators ever. Why in the hell Warren agreed to allow that hack to control the debate with almost no rules is beyond me. It was a really bad version of Meet the Press, with Gregory deciding to score points and gotcha' moments of his own. And he wasted a whole lot of time right in the beginning on the drummed up controversy by Brown over Warren's claimed Native American heritage.

Note to the presidential debate moderators. Please do not use David Gregory as an example for the upcoming debates over the next few weeks other than a lesson in exactly how you're not supposed to moderate a debate. Here's to hoping he's not chosen to moderate another one any time soon.



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Good for Harry Reid for making sure Scott Brown didn't weasel out of his debate with his opponent Elizabeth Warren this Thursday evening -- Harry Reid Calls Off Votes To Prevent Scott Brown From Ditching Debate With Elizabeth Warren:

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid interrupted proceedings on the Senate floor to announce there would be no more votes Thursday afternoon, delaying action on pressing issues like funding the government.

Why? Because he thinks Republicans were fixing the schedule to allow Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) to use evening votes as an excuse to get out of a debate with Elizabeth Warren.

“Madam president, I’m so sorry. We have no more votes today,” Reid said. “No more votes today. It’s obvious to me what’s going on. I’ve been to a few of these rodeos. It is obvious there is a big stall taking place. One of the senators who doesn’t want to debate tonight won’t be in a debate. While he can’t use the Senate as an excuse, there will be no more votes today.”

As Rachel Maddow noted, Brown did show up for the debate this evening and proceeded to try to run as far away from being a member of the Republican Party and any association with Mitt Romney as humanly possible. And who can blame him with the latest numbers from who is likely to retain control of the Senate. Here's more from Nate Silver's post which Rachel mentioned in the segment above -- Senate Forecast: What Has Gone Wrong for G.O.P. Candidates?.



Scott Brown Pulls Out of Kennedy Institute Debate

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It looks like Sen. Scott Brown is doing his best to make sure he only has to debate Elizabeth Warren in places that are very friendly territory for himself: Kennedy Institute Rejects Scott Brown’s ‘Unprecedented’ Debate Demand:

Republican Sen. Scott Brown’s terms for debating Democratic nominee Elizabeth Warren at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute in Massachusetts were rejected Tuesday, a move that prompted Brown to pull out of the event altogether.

The Kennedy Institute rebuffed the Brown campaign’s demand that Vicki Kennedy, widow of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy and president of the institute named in his honor, pledge to not make any endorsement throughout the Senate race.

“This non-endorsement pledge is unprecedented and is not being required of any other persons or entities. To us, such a pledge seems inappropriate when a non-media sponsor issues a debate invitation,” Kennedy Institute chief operating officer Lisa McBirney and chief of staff Christopher Hogan wrote in a letter released Tuesday. [...]

That explanation did not satisfy the Brown camp — instead, it prompted Barnett to reject the debate altogether.

“We respect Vicki Kennedy’s decision but we regret that we cannot accept a debate invitation from someone who plans to endorse Scott Brown’s opponent,” Barnett said in a statement to TPM. “The Kennedy Institute cannot hold itself out as a nonpartisan debate sponsor while the president of its board of trustees gets involved in the race on behalf of one of the candidates.”

The Brown camp had also asked for another stipulation. While Brown accepted the choice of Tom Brokaw as moderator, he wanted MSNBC to withdraw as a sponsor. Barnett declared that “we prefer debates with local media sponsors, not out-of-state cable networks with a reputation for political advocacy.”

Rachel Maddow insisted that MSNBC was never going to host the debate and that her network was not asked to host it, and went after Brown for continuing to use herself and her network as some liberal boogeyman to campaign against.



#CNNDebate: Mitt Romney Fires Newt Gingrich

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It's true. Mitt Romney really does like firing people. With a somewhat condescending tone after Newt Gingrich paints a grand picture of his dream of a moon colony (not that it wasn't a bald pander or anything), Mitt lets him know that corporate investors would guffaw at him right before they fired him. The joy Mitt gets out of saying "you're fired" just shines through. Channeling his inner Donald Trump, perhaps?

BLITZER: We're going to move on, but go ahead, Governor Romney.

ROMNEY: I spent 25 years in business. If I had a business executive come to me and say they wanted to spend a few hundred billion dollars to put a colony on the moon, I'd say, "You're fired."

The idea that corporate America wants to go off to the moon and build a colony there, it may be a big idea, but it's not a good idea. And we have seen in politics -- we've seen politicians -- and Newt, you've been part of this -- go from state to state and promise exactly what that state wants to hear. The Speaker comes here to Florida, wants to spend untold amount of money having a colony on the moon. I know it's very exciting on the Space Coast.

In South Carolina, it was a new interstate highway, and dredging the port in Charleston. In New Hampshire, it was burying a power line coming in from Canada and building a new VHA hospital in New Hampshire so that people don't have to go to Boston.

Look, this idea of going state to state and promising what people want to hear, promising billions, hundreds of billions of dollars to make people happy, that's what got us into the trouble we're in now. We've got to say no to this kind of spending.



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I was really hoping Newt Gingrich would take the gloves off and hammer Mitt Romney, but alas. It seems he has gotten over his sadness over Mean Mitt and decided to play nice just like the rest of them who appear to have reached consensus that Mitt Romney is the Nominee Apparent. However, that didn't stop Ron Paul and Newtie from going personal with each other, and boy did they.

The kerfuffle seems to begin with an interview Ron Paul gave to CNN earlier this week, where he came right out with it and called Gingrich a chickenhawk. (Video) Diane Sawyer asked Dr. Paul if he stood by his comment. He did, and when asked whether he'd say it on the debate stage, he was happy to oblige. Suffice it to say, Newtie didn't take it well. Not at all.

This is one area where I agree with Ron Paul. Far too many politicians want to send our young people off to fight wars when they haven't served and really don't have a clue about what a sacrifice it really is. For all of Newt's righteous indignation, it was clear the punch landed and landed hard. As it should.

I will give Newt this much. Being in a military family is its own kind of sacrifice. It's hard, whether a spouse or a child, to wonder if your parent is going to come home safely and be the same parent they were before they left. It's hard never to put down roots and to live on the salaries paid to our troops. This is why Michelle Obama works so hard on behalf of military families -- she knows it's a difficult haul. He's right about all of that, but it doesn't serve as a substitute for service itself.

The transcript follows after the jump, via Washington Post.

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C-SPAN aired a debate held on November 30, 2011 between David Callahan, co-founder of Demos and Yaron Brook, Ayn Rand Center Executive Director. The debate was held in Seattle and moderated by former U.S. attorney John McKay, one of the eight US Attorneys fired by Bush Admin in 2006. The topic was the roll of government.

For anyone not familiar with either of them, John Amato wrote about Yaron Brook back in 2004 who came on The O'Reilly Factor and as John described, "was so over the top that he even scared the bejesus out of Bill O'Reilly!" David Callahan recently made an appearance on The O'Reilly Factor as well that I wrote about here -- Fox Guest Callahan Knocks Down Ingraham and Stein's Talking Points on Taxation and Income Disparity.

I don't expect to see either of them coming back on Fox again any time soon, for completely different reasons, obviously, but seeing Callahan's name on the C-SPAN schedule was what caught my eye to decide to watch this debate in the first place. He did as good of a job pushing back against Brook here as he did on Fox, when appearing with Laura Ingraham and Ben Stein. His response reminded me a whole lot of Elizabeth Warren and some of the remarks she's made out on the campaign trail in her run against Sen. Scott Brown.

I've heard a lot of these Any Rand worshipers talk about their philosophy where they still try to pretend like they care about their fellow human beings. There was no sugar coating with this guy Brook. He just came straight out and said his beliefs are I've got mine and everyone else can basically go to hell. What's scary is that his response to the questioner here actually got applause from the audience.

Update: Apparently I was wrong about Fox not wanting Brook back as a guest after his appearance on O'Reilly's show. No shock here with which show decided that he was someone worth bringing back on the air... the now canceled wingnut fest which was Glenn Beck's show.

Transcript below the fold and you can watch the entire debate at C-SPAN's web site here -- Debate on the Roll of Government.

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For anyone that missed it, GOP presidential candidates Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich had themselves a little as touted, and definitely not my description of what I watched, a "Lincoln-Douglas style debate".

It would more rightfully be described as a little love-fest where the two of them spent an hour and a half discussing their vision for America if the country would be unfortunate enough to actually see either of them elected and telling myths about how conservative economic policies are somehow going to pull us out of the mess they caused in the first place.

You can watch the entire event if you've got the stomach for it at C-SPAN's site here.

If you're not so inclined to give away an hour and a half of your life as I did, there's the short segment above where Gingrich compares Obama to Bernie Madoff with this bit of flame throwing while praising St. Ronnie Ray Gun.

GINGRICH: Compare Reagan's ability to talk to the American people, make sense, and have the American people move the Congress, with the current president. This president is about as candid and accurate as Bernie Madoff in what he tells the American people.

Sorry Newt, but I'll still take at face value anything our current president says to the public as having some basis in truth with some educated skepticism when it's warranted and deserved before anything that comes out of your mouth. And comparing President Obama to Madoff is nothing but flame throwing to satisfy your right-wing base that likes it when you call the "Kenyan usurper" nasty names because that same base still can't quite reconcile that a man who is half black got elected to the White House.

Herman Cain also pulled what amounted to close to another ‘Ubeki-beki-beki-stan-stan’ moment when asked about his opinion on Medicare and whether we ought to have a defined benefit plan or premium support. Cain punted and said Newt should go first on that question.

I hate to break it to Cain, but saying I pass and let the other guy answer first isn't going to exactly endear the public to the idea that you know what the hell you're talking about when it comes to issues that matter a great deal to seniors in the United States.

FDL's TBogg summed this up better than I ever could -- Adultery Off Limits At Cain-Gingrich Steel Cage Adulterers-Only Deathmatch:

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UPDATED: Audience Boos Gay Soldier At GOP Debate

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I'm not sure what's worse in this clip: Rick Santorum's answer or the audience booing the gay soldier.

Santorum's bottom line: No sex in the military. Celibacy, FTW! Also, he would reinstate DADT. I promise to add the transcript later.

Here is the transcript:

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MSNBC Republican Debate in 45 Seconds

Not much more needs be said. Except maybe "Ponzi Scheme".