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After Anderson Cooper took his audience through some of Mitt Romney's revolving positions on the issue of abortion and access to contraception and the fact that there are some recent polls again showing that Mitt Romney is having trouble with women voters in swing states, Romney surrogate Bay Buchanan tied herself in knots trying to explain and defend Willard's flip flopping on the issue.

As much as I really detest Buchanan for her demeanor and just being really mean, nasty and aggressive with anyone unfortunate enough to appear on the air at the same time she does, I have to say, I don't envy her or any of the rest of the right wing pundits out there who have the unenviable task of trying to explain to the voters why Romney has had every position imaginable on the abortion issue and how women are not supposed to worry about who he might appoint to the Supreme Court.

Neera Tanden did pretty well holding her own with her, even though Buchanan did her best to bully her way through the interview and filibuster as much as Cooper would let her get away with it. The fact of the matter is that Mitt Romney has said he wants to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which means rolling back the contraceptive coverage along with a lot of other benefits that everyone is now receiving. He has said he wants to appoint judges who would reverse Roe v. Wade. And Romney has proven during this primary process that he's beholden to the right wing of his party and he's not going to buck their will with what he's willing to either sign or veto if we're unfortunate enough to have him elected as president.

It's also a shame no one called Buchanan out when she tried to claim that making insurance companies pay for birth control is not having the "government" pay for contraception. That's a lie they're allowed to get away with way too often with no rebuttal. As Tanden did manage to point out on the issue, you don't really have access to something if you can't afford either the doctors' appointments or the prescriptions, and that's exactly what would happen under the policies Romney now claims he supports.

And Buchanan's lame defense that birth control has "been out there since the 1950s" is utterly ridiculous and meaningless. If it's only "out there" for the wealthy and upper middle class and not the poor, that doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot for a good part of the population that would also like to have some control over their own reproductive health.

Transcript below the fold.

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A senior adviser to Mitt Romney on Sunday said that every woman she had talked to was turned off by Vice President Joe Biden's debate performance because it was "awful and obnoxious."

During a panel segment on Face the Nation, Bay Buchanan extended a recent conservative line of attack that attempts to paint Biden as a sexist-type personality because he was aggressive and interrupted Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan.

"That's where the vice president really hurt his ticket," Buchanan explained. "Because as women looked at that debate, there's nothing that is more offensive to us than to see a man just constantly interrupt and be offensive and boorish in his behavior and have no respect for somebody who's trying to have a legitimate debate."

She continued: "I haven't talked to a woman who's looked at that debate and not just responded and said that was just awful and obnoxious."

"Bay, I actually talked to a lot women who didn't have that reaction, including my mom," Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn interrupted. "So, let's not be over the top. You're drawing out what you want to draw out to make your point."

"I talked to a lot of women who are apolitical," Buchanan insisted. "I just know that women do not like that."

Conservative Fox News host Andrea Tantaros made a similar point in her debate analysis on Friday.

"You know the guy that puts his finger in your face, the guy that sort of dresses you down, who knows more than you do -- hey, honey, go make some coffee," Tantaros said. "That's how I took it. You know what I thought? If he's gonna behave that way in public with millions of people watching, how does he behave in private?"

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After dismissing the poll numbers which are not moving in their favor and the uphill battle they're facing with the number of swing states the Romney campaign is going to need to win, Romney surrogate Bay Buchanan made this excuse for Mitt Romney not taking all of his charitable contributions as deductions after having said earlier that paying more taxes than he owed would disqualify him to be president.

BUCHANAN: No, that's simple. He's always paid exactly what's been required by law. Whatever his accountants said needed to be paid, he's written a check, no questions asked. And what happened this year is in January, he estimated, there was an estimate accountants gave him of what he would be paying. And when they finally did the tax return they said, Gov. Romney, I'm sorry but, you're not paying that high. And he said, well I told the people I was going to be paying that much, so that's what I'm going to pay.

And so it was just to make certain that it wasn't a misleading statement that he made in January. You know, this is what's interesting, is last night, Barack Obama said on television, he actually said that the last ten days of the turmoil in the Middle East was a bump in the road. Chris, four Americans were killed. Four Americans in a terrorist attack on our consulate. Flags... American flags are being burned... and, and, and what... this is a bump in the road. It's time to start talking about Barack Obama and how he's completely clueless on foreign policy and the economy.

Yeah, that's going to make people feel better. I had them fudge the numbers because I'm running for office for Pete's sake. I can't have them think I was lying. And then of course let's change the subject to the latest faux outrage of the day based on a lie that appears to have started with neocon Romney fan-girl Jennifer Rubin. They just keep looking more and more desperate, latching onto every single little sound byte they can find and blowing things out of proportion and out of context. They're just flailing around aimlessly, throwing mud against every wall praying something sticks.

And the Romney campaign really needs to get themselves some better spokespeople to come on television. Buchanan was so angry here, she's baring her teeth. I think it's a toss up between Buchanan and Sununu as to who the absolute worst surrogate they keep trotting out there. They're both about as equally angry and unhinged on the air.

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Bay Buchanan, a senior adviser to Mitt Romney's campaign, on Sunday doubled down on the Republican presidential nominee's comment that 47 percent of Americans refused to take personal responsibility for their lives by asserting that the entire country was "a nation of people dependent on their government."

In video published by Mother Jones last week, Mitt Romney had told wealthy donors that 47 percent the country were "dependant" on government and were going to vote for President Barack Obama.

“My job is is not to worry about those people,” Romney declared. “I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”

During a panel segment on NBC's Meet the Press, Democratic strategist Dee Dee Myers said that Romney's comments showed that he had a "very limited universe" and "really has no feel for what real people are doing."

"To characterize the personal life of Mitt Romney as Dee Dee has is to show that she does not know the man, she does not know what he has done," Buchanan shot back. "This is a man who has spent a life in serving others. That is the basis of what he believes."

"We are in perilous times in this country," she continued. "We are looking at financial ruin."

"We are a nation of people dependant on their government, and that is what Barack Obama gives us. And he promises more of that in four more years."

(h/t: Think Progress)

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Romney adviser Bay Buchanan on Tuesday declared that the release of leaked campaign videos showing the Republican presidential nominee writing off 47 percent of the country as "dependant" and "entitled" was just a "bump in the road."

In an edited video published by Mother Jones on Monday, Mitt Romney had told wealthy donors that almost half of the country "pay no income tax" and were going to vote for President Barack Obama.

"My job is is not to worry about those people," Romney asserted. "I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

On Tuesday, Buchanan had the unenviable task of trying to do damage control while being grilled by CNN host Soledad O'Brien.

"As a candidate, he can't worry about those he can't get," Buchanan explained, adding that the media should be focusing on "one out of every six Americans are in poverty today and that 47 million are taking food stamps in order to take care of themselves and their families."

"Listen, I fully understand the strategy is to turn to the 'real problem' and talk about something else, but I'm going to keep you on this," O'Brien said. "He says 47 percent of Americans pay no tax. That's not correct. ... Forty-seven percent of those people who pay no income tax -- look at that chart there -- 61 percent of those folks, they're paying payroll tax, money is coming out of their paycheck. It's being described as the myth of sort of the deadbeat nation."

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After a week or so of watching the right wing and pundits on television either make excuses for the Romney campaign taking President Obama's "you didn't build that" comment out of context, or as Jon Stewart showed in this segment, going out of their way to repeat the distortion, it was nice to see them get taken to the woodshed again on The Daily Show.

Last night it was Lewis Black ripping up the Romney campaign, and tonight it was Stewart's turn.

After showing a compilation of some of the various talking heads out there, with Erick Erickson calling President Obama's remarks "grade school Marxism," Stewart responded:

STEWART: Yes! Grade school Marxism... or, as your second grade teacher might have referred to it... sharing.

Stewart went on to show the hacks over at Fox & Friends doing their best to make things worse as Media Matters clipped here: Fox Claims To Offer "Context" For Obama Comments -- Then Airs Another Deceptively Edited Clip and we brought you here: Kilmeade Asks Little Girls if Government Built Their Lemonade Stand .

He followed that up with these remarks:

STEWART: Look, the campaigns all like to have fun with gaffes, making it a big deal out of a misstatement is a great way to win a news cycle. [...] but this ain't a gaffe. And Mitt Romney's not having a little fun with it. This deliberate misstating and misrepresentation of his position is now the centerpiece or Romney's entire campaign. He's got signage, T-shirts, and this unrelenting ad. [...]

Mr. Romney, hanging your attack on a person's slight grammatical misstep is what people do in an argument when they're completely f**ked and they know they have no argument.

I know you, Mitt Romney would like this election to be a stark choice to the American people and to Obama's vision of a Marxist state-run oligarchy and your simple and your simple ode to the freedom our Founders envisioned, because given that choice, you would... come really close. But, you're not running against this guy, Straw-Man Johnson.

Stewart wrapped things up with a mashup of Romney repeating all of the same lines as President Obama on the need for infrastructure and the fact that no one makes it on their own.

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An adviser to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney on Monday said that President Barack Obama's policies were at fault for jobs cuts in the public sector -- even though the GOP hopeful recently blasted the president for wanting to hire more firefighters, police and teachers.

"He's the president of the United States, the most powerful man in the world," Bay Buchanan told CNN's Soledad O'Brien. "He had to take some responsibility for the economy that his policies have created after three and a half years. Take a little responsibility. Show a little leadership."

O'Brien wondered how much of a problem it was for the campaign that Romney had recently criticized Obama's call to cut back on the hiring of firefighters, police and teachers.

"Those three groups -- firemen, policeman and teachers -- are critical to society," Buchanan explained. "This idea that Obama has no responsibility. In [his] own ad, he really indicts himself. He says 450,000 local and government state workers have been laid off. Why do you think they're being laid off, Mr. President? Do you not understand when the economy is suffering, when we are having the situation we're having today with this slow, slow, almost no growth in the country sometimes, that he is impacting? His policies are impacting what's going on in the state and local."

"If Barack Obama could just do half the kind of job that Mitt Romney did [as governor of] Massachusetts, this country would be thriving."

During a press conference on Friday, Obama had called on Congress to pass a jobs proposal that would prevent layoffs and rehire public workers like police, firefighters and teachers.

“The truth of the matter is 3 million jobs over the last 27 months, over 800,000 just this year alone,” the president told reporters. “The private sector is doing fine. Where we’re seeing weaknesses in our economy have to do with state and local government.”

At a campaign stop in Iowa that same day, Romney blasted that assertion.

“For the president of the United States to stand up and say the private sector is doing fine is going to go down in history as an extraordinary miscalculation and misunderstanding by a president who’s out of touch,” the former Massachusetts governor charged.

“And his answer for economic vitality, by the way, was, of course, pushing aside the private sector, which he said is doing fine,” Romney continued. “Instead, he wants to add more to government. He wants another stimulus. He wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policeman, more teachers.”

“Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did! It’s time for us to cut back on government!”

(h/t: Talking Points Memo)

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Indiana Republican Sen. Dick Lugar and his 77 percent conservative voting record was not good enough to prevent him from having a "tea party" primary challenger, State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. Complete and total obstruction rather than an iota of compromise to make sure the government actually functions seems to be the new standard of what it means to be a "conservative" these days.

The panel on ABC's This Week weighed in on Lugar's primary challenge and pundits Bay Buchanan and George Will think it's just wonderful that Lugar is facing a primary challenge, despite the fact that he's got a lot better chance of defeating his Democratic challenger, Joe Donnelly. They might want to be careful what they wish for.

Nate Silver has more on that: Lugar Loss Could Provide Pickup Opportunity for Democrats:

The latest veteran lawmaker to be the subject of a vigorous primary challenge is the 80-year-old Senator Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, who is being challenged for the Republican nomination by State Treasurer Richard Mourdock. [...]

If Mr. Lugar loses, it should increase Democrats’ odds of picking up the Senate seat in November. Democrats have a fairly good candidate in Indiana in the form of United States Representative Joe Donnelly, who represents the Second Congressional District and who narrowly retained his seat in a very tough environment for Democrats nationally in 2010. The Second District, which includes South Bend and Michigan City, is slightly Republican-leaning relative to the country as a whole but slightly Democratic-leaning relative to the rest of Indiana.

I'm not getting my hopes up on this one, but it would be nice to see Republicans lose a seat in the Senate because of their purity tests. This AstroTurf so-called "tea party" of theirs, which is nothing but a rebranding effort by the far right wing of the party which wants to push them continually to the right has done some damage in previous elections already. Maybe we get lucky here and they do it again.

Transcript of the panel discussion below the fold.

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You know the Romney campaign is worried about whether they're going to be able to break out the Etch A Sketch successfully and erase everything Mitt Romney was saying about immigration policy during the Republican primary when they're bringing out the likes of Bay Buchanan to scream to the hills that Romney's not a flip flopper.

Buchanan appeared on Wednesday evening's Anderson Cooper 360 on CNN to tout the current campaign talking point that Mitt Romney really does not believe that Arizona's SB 1070 should be a model for the country. She and the campaign are claiming that what Romney was really talking about during the Republican debate last February, was E-Verify..

Never mind that Russell Pearce said this-- Man Behind Arizona Immigration Law: Romney ‘Absolutely’ Called SB-1070 A National ‘Model’:

Mitt Romney had the most conservative immigration policy of any Republican presidential candidate during most of the primary, but now that’s he trying to appeal to Hispanic voters as he pivots to general election, the presumed GOP nominee has been shifting back towards the center. Yesterday, he opened to door to a Republican alternative to the DREAM Act — a law he vowed to veto during the primary — and earlier, he said that he never called for making Arizona’s harsh immigration law a “model” for the nation.

But that’s not how one of the key people behind that law, former Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce, sees it. The former Republican lawmaker, who was ousted in a recall election, was the key force behind turning SB-1070, authored by Romney adviser Kris Kobach, into law. He told reporters today that he “absolutely” believed Mitt Romney had endorsed the law as a model for the country. [...]

Previously, Pearce has said that Romney’s “immigration policy is identical to mine.”

Romney has tried to distance himself from Kobach, who also helped author the controversial immigration crackdowns in Alabama, South Carolina, and other states. But Kobach quickly contradicted him, saying he regularly advises senior members of Romney’s staff.

Here's what Mitt Romney actually said during that debate on CNN in February:

KING: Governor Romney, the border security is part of the equation, what to do about whether it's 8 million or 11 million illegal immigrants in the country now is another part of the equation. And Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who's with us tonight from Maricopa County -- he's in the audience -- he told me -- he told me this week here in Mesa -- these are his words -- "it's called political garbage, if you will, to not arrest illegals already in this country."

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Nothing like watching Republicans eating their own. On Fox's America Live, host Megyn Kelly first talked to Newt Gingrich Super PAC, Winning Our Future, adviser Rick Tyler about the half hour long documentary, When Mitt Romney Came to Town, now being aired heavily in South Carolina, which attacks Romney for his time at Bain Capital and his claims that he's somehow a "job creator."

Tyler defended the documentary, calling Romney a vulture capitalist, who unlike venture capitalists who come up with new services and innovations, make their money picking companies apart and raiding their pension funds.

For anyone who hasn't seen the documentary, it's available on line now, and it's pretty scathing. You can watch the entire video here -- King of Bain.

And we may have gotten rid of Pat Buchanan on MSNBC, but unfortunately we've still got his sister Bay showing up on Fox (where I suspect we'll see more of Pat as well) and Kelly followed up by bringing her on to defend Romney. When asked about Romney's time at Bain Capital, Buchanan rambled on with their usual talking points that you're just attacking the "free enterprise system" if anyone dares to say anything negative about how Romney and his rich friends conducted business there, painted what they did as a positive for the economy and called the Gingrich campaign "desperate" for the attacks.

I can't disagree that they're not, but I don't think Romney's going to come out of this unscathed. His Super PAC went after Gingrich hard in Iowa and it's payback time from Newt.