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From AC360, Mary Matalin does her best to spin the GOP's new purity test as a good thing for the party and not a move by the RNC to drag the Republican Party even further to the right.

HILL: In "Raw Politics" tonight, the GOP's purity test. A group of conservative Republican National Committee members is working on a resolution that could radically alter the party's look and its message and also risk to drive out moderates.

The proposal sent out new rules, a checklist really, that candidates must meet in order to secure both support and funding from the GOP.

Now many are expected here: smaller government, a smaller national debt. The checklist also includes opposition to the president's stimulus and health plan, as well as opposition to gun control, cap-and-trade-based energy reform, same-sex marriage, and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

It also mandates support for troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the containment of Iran and North Korea. So what does this list say about the party, and most importantly, perhaps, about its future direction? We're going to talk about that now with Democratic strategist Paul Begala and Republican strategist Mary Matalin. Both, of course, are CNN political contributors.

Good to have you both with us.

And Mary, I want to start with you, because this is your party here. The draft resolution written, basically, as a tribute to President Reagan. But frankly, even he wouldn't meet all these qualifications. He raised taxes. He grew the deficit. And he really was the big-tent guy who grew the Republican Party.

Is it wise at this point for the RNC to be in the business of potentially excluding people in what seems like a categorical way?

MARY MATALIN: Not excluding anybody, except Nancy Pelosi Democrats. I applaud these members who have taken the initiative to come up with these ten points, all of which -- and I defy my friend Paul to find me any blue dog Democrat that wouldn't agree with at least eight out of ten of these mainstream principles.

And if you look at your own -- our own CNN polls, all of these issues and these policies are received majority mainstream support. So there's not -- they're not going to move out any moderates. It's going to pull back in people who left the party because we became liberal light.

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This morning my crazy thing locator pointed to this pro-Palin oped by Mary Matalin, who pooh-poohs complaints in Palin's book about the rough, nasty and foul-mouthed staffers inside the McCain campaign:

Time is the most valuable commodity on a campaign and you just can't waste it thinking about how to choose your words carefully or get your job done more diplomatically. If someone isn't in tears every day, that day wasn't all it could be advancing the campaign. I once witnessed an experienced (big) man slap a professional female colleague across the face over an ad buy... and no one thought anything of it, starting with the woman. In fact, she would have been insulted if anyone told her she should have been insulted.

Yes, politics is a hard job full of lots of pressure, long days, and high-stakes high-stress decision making. And many of the personalities attracted to that kind of work are narcissistic, most to the point of tantrums, and more than a few to the point of violence, and think it's no big deal. Matalin isn't just dishing about a specific instance here; she's pimping her insider importance--you bet she can remember just exactly the specific "ad buy" mistake that "deserved" the workplace assault and battery--and contrasting that insider importance to Palin's relative political naivete.

Matalin should be ashamed of herself, her politics, and her "professionalism" on a daily basis. That she actually points to an instance of physical assault of a female employee by a male superior as "the way it is in a campaign--get over it" just puts everything that's wrong with her argument in high relief. Does anyone wonder what would happen if that kind of thing happened in the private sector, or the outrage if a former corporate employee reported such physical assault as "acceptable in the business we're in" hearsay on the pages of CNN's website?

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Argh, there's so much wrong with this clip that it's all I can do to keep typing and not smacking my head against the desktop. First of all, they ask on Krugman to discuss his NY Times column talking about how GOP obstructionism has reached cartoonish levels and they decide to frame the segment on whether Obama lost his "MOJO"? Seriously? A major news organization ignores the absurdity of the GOP overarching need to find things with which to smear Obama and instead frames the issue for the President of the United States as an Austin Powers plot? And no one but a hyper-partisan conservative "party before country" cheerleader thinks that the IOC selecting Rio for the 2016 games has something to do with a failing on any kind on the part of Obama. Cheers to Anderson Cooper for validating what Krugman so aptly described as "bratty 13 year old" behavior and using a Nobel Laureate to do it. Way to keep on top of the issues of the day, Anderson.

And there's that issue of media's bizarre notion of balance again. Sweet Jesus, why on earth would anyone need Mary Matalin's opinion on Obama's "mojo"? The woman has spent years advising Dick Cheney, fer cryin' out loud, what exactly is her expertise in mojo? As would be expected, Matalin never answers anything directly, resorting to the familiar GOP projection and mean-spritied insinuations, saying she's never drunk the kool-aid on the messiah-like qualities of Obama.

Watch as Krugman acknowledges that Obama hasn't done everything perfectly and that there's still far to go, but that the level of discourse from the right prevents any actual adult-level dialog. And Matalin proves him right by devolving into fingerpointing and bringing in one non sequitur after another. Of course, everything that Obama has been hit with has an equivalence in Matalin's mind to that poor, misunderestimated George W. Bush. If you believe Matalin, the Democrats did nothing but screamed "Liar!" and "Loser" to Bush. Constantly. Hmmm....funny that, I don't remember it that way, but maybe that's because I'm part of the reality-based community.

But hey, how much honest analysis can you get from someone who openly admits she reveres the Fat Bastard himself, Rush Limbaugh? For that alone, she should be laughed off camera.

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Paul Krugman writes an excellent column on the mental state of the Republican Party and compares their collective glee over the United States losing our Olympics bid to that of a "bratty 13-year-old", and who better to make him go up against but Lady McCheney who's never found someone she could not bully on the set of CNN? If CNN wanted to have an honest discussion about the points he was trying to make in his column, they wouldn't have put him up against this Cheney hack who represents everything that's been wrong with the last nine years plus of our politics in this country.

COOPER: In "Raw Politics" tonight: the mounting pressure on President Obama, under attack from his critics and on the defense about his policies. The shocks are not just coming from the right anymore. Check out who "Saturday Night Live" chose as their newest target over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")

FRED ARMISEN, ACTOR: On my first day in office I said I would close Guantanamo Bay. Is it closed yet? No.

I said we would be out of Iraq. Are we? Not the last time I checked.

ARMISEN: I said I would make improvements in the war in Afghanistan. Is it better? No, I think it's actually worse.

ARMISEN: How about health care reform? Hell no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The sketch then went on to lampoon Mr. Obama for Chicago losing the 2016 Olympic Games.

Now, some of the president's conservative critics literally broke out in applause when the news broke that Chicago had been rejected.

Today, "The New York Times"' Paul Krugman said the GOP has become a party ruled by spite, eager to see the president fail, even if it's on something that is good for America. His latest book is "The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008."

Paul Krugman and political contributor Mary Matalin, who's -- who was a counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, joined me earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: There is a narrative right now that -- that President Obama has lost his mojo. There was a couple people saying that the last couple days, "Saturday Night Live." Do you -- do you buy that?

KRUGMAN: No.

I mean, I think there are -- there are a lot of problems. And he -- you know, it's very difficult to be a strong, successful president when the employment picture is still worsening. And the employment picture is still worsening. And the stimulus law, while it has helped, isn't big enough to turn that around any time soon. So, he's got some problems.

But, look, health care, the -- the mood I get from the people who are really working on health care legislation is that this thing is now going to happen. A few weeks ago, there were real doubts about whether it was going to happen. But now it looks like it is going to happen. And that is going to be a huge thing.

Regardless of exactly what happens in the midterm elections, if we come out with legislation establishing universal health care by the end of this year, which I now believe we will, My God, that is transformational. We will be a different country. So, that is mojo in -- in the space that matters.

COOPER: Mary, do you believe that he has lost his mojo? I mean, there's people saying: Look, health care has not worked out. He's been weak on. He hasn't been out in front of it enough. The situation in Afghanistan, certainly, and other issues. The Olympic thing is just the -- the latest.

MATALIN: I don't -- I don't know if he lost his mojo. I never drank the Kool-Aid in the first place.

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John King asks Mary Matalin what she thinks about Lindsey Graham's statement that Glenn Beck does not represent the Republican Party and Matlin does her best to distance Beck from the party as well. This is looking like a new theme her from them. He may not be willing to call himself a Republican but he sure as hell is doing their dirty work for them.

KING: All right. One more. One more before I let you go. Glenn Beck works for another network here in town. I believe it's the FOX News network. And there's been a great controversy about some of the things he said about the president. It was put to Lindsey Graham, a conservative senator from North Carolina, this morning on another program. Does Glenn Beck speak for you and the Republican Party?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: No. I'm not saying he's bad for America. You've got the freedom to watch him, if you choose. He did a pretty good job on ACORN.

What I am saying, he doesn't represent the Republican Party. When a person says he represents conservatism and that the country is better off with Barack Obama than John McCain, that sort of ends the debate for me as to how much more I'm going to listen.

So he has a right to say what he wants to say. In my view, it's not -- it's not the kind of political analysis that I buy into.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is the political analysis I buy into. What do we make of this?

MATALIN: Well, full disclosure, Glenn is a threshold author, Simon & Schuster imprint, of which I'm associated with. Glenn has two best-sellers. This has never happened before. Two No. 1 best-sellers in hard cover and paperback, non-fiction. All right. Somebody out there is listening, what Glenn Beck says. I know he doesn't listen and Lindsey doesn't listen.

Glenn Beck is unequivocal in saying he's not a Republican; he's not a Democrat. He possibly has libertarian leanings in a vacuum. So what he has tapped into is really, really what I think is going to be the dispositive future for us. Maligned mothers.

He did not -- it wasn't just ACORN. He did the czars. He was instrumental in these tea parties and this rising opposition, again, of people who aren't typically listened to. He doesn't affiliate with either party, or any party, but he has tapped into this mainstream of America who feels otherwise not listened to.

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From John King's State of the Union, James Carville cites the tobacco industry using Betsy McCaughey to plant a story at The New Republic as an example of the "vast right wing conspiracy" that President Obama is facing. Of course Mary Matalin pretends she has no idea who Betsy McCaughey is.

KING: All right. Let's stay for a moment on the -- because I said we would mention it after the break, and Mary brought up that term that we came to know during the Clinton years -- the Clinton presidential years, the vast right-wing conspiracy. It was on his mind.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Your wife famously talked about the "vast right-wing conspiracy" targeting you.

GREGORY: As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama, is it still there?

CLINTON: Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was because America has changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: Again, this week, there was breathtaking proof that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy. It was revealed in Rolling Stone that Philip Morris paid -- paid a woman named Betsy McCaughey to plant a piece in The New Republic, all right?

This was -- this is not -- in other words, this was a tobacco company paying for a piece printed in a so-called respectable magazine.

Now, I don't know that, in The New Republic in 2006, that, oh, gee, the whole thing was, kind of, a mistake after they went through all of that. I don't know if The New Republic has called the president to apologize, but I suspect, as we go through, we're going see more and more instances of this.

And every Clinton person, when the president told us the stuff with Taylor Branch, it felt good. And you know what really made us feel good, is Bill Clinton's doing a whole lot better than The New Republic is. They're sitting there at the CGI, and everybody went "Yes." That was a great moment to be a Clinton person.

MATALIN: I don't even know what he's talking about, but I'll say...

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From The Situation Room Sept. 24, 2009. Lady McCheney Matalin is still out there trying to say that George Bush's foreign policy made the world a safer place to live. What a completely ridiculous thing to say. Walk is what keeps peace in the world. No, "walk" is called starting wars Mary. Why CNN feels the need to continue to give this woman air time as though she has anything credible to say is beyond me.

BLITZER: Mary, let's talk a little bit about the substance, though. Do the folks and the leaders in Iran or North Korea or the Taliban for that matter or al Qaeda, do they fear President Obama?

MATLIN: Well, absolutely not. And what Paul just said is emblematic of how the Democrats think about foreign policy in general. That's demean our strongest friends our greatest allies, like the Australians, like the Polish, like the Czechs, like the central and eastern Europeans who are working so hard at democracy and just demean any kind of opinion.

Look, this is not some sort of partisan or right wing or Murdoch thought. Since the beginning of time the history of the world is that weakness invites provocation. And we have -- and talking is good and relationships are fine. But our allies need to know that they can rely on those relationships and that there will be consequences for the bad guys when the talk runs out and they're not doing the walk.

As for proliferation and chairing a U.N. committee, great. Oh, isn't that wonderful? It's the U.N. that wouldn't enforce 17 of its resolutions against Saddam in the first place, so big deal. He's chairing and talking in another instance.

But the proliferation security initiative of the Bush administration was responsible for quantum leaps in the reduction of proliferation and including the disarmament of Libya, the capture and detention...

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From Fox's Wall Street Journal Editorial Report, the panel recites the latest GOP talking point that any abuse of prisoners has already been investigated. Scott Horton does a nice job of debunking this in his article at Harpers Magazine, Seven Points on the CIA Report:

The “prior investigation” canard. It looks like the favorite talking point emerging for torture apologists (like David Ignatius) is that the CIA cases were already examined by career prosecutors who decided not to take any action. But this claim is false. Although these cases were enshrouded in extraordinary secrecy from the outset, I closely studied their management and conducted a number of interviews with Justice personnel who were involved; I also worked with the House Judiciary Committee in its review of the matter. The cases were referred by Helgerson to the Justice Department, which in turn passed them to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Paul J. McNulty. (This U.S. attorney’s office was the most highly politicized in the entire U.S. attorneys system, and McNulty was ultimately promoted to the office of deputy attorney general and then resigned amidst accusations of misconduct involving the politicization of the Justice Department.)

McNulty’s office acted as a sort of “dead letter office” for troublesome torture allegations. The suggestion that there was an active investigation is laughable. No grand jury was impaneled or testimony taken, and contrary to Ignatius’s claims no decision was taken not to prosecute. What happened instead was inaction. Why? If the cases had been pressed, the CIA personnel involved would have immediately implicated high-level Bush Administration officials. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has examined the handling of these cases and has confirmed that no serious investigation ever occurred. So the suggestion that Holder is now somehow undermining or second-guessing the decision of career prosecutors is preposterous.

Transcript below the fold.

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It looks like Mary Matalin, Chris Wallace and Bill Kristol all got their talking points from the same place for the Sunday shows this week. Matalin, like Wallace claims that we haven't been attacked since 9-11 and then names anthrax attacks as something that was prevented by the CIA after they tortured prisoners.

Uuummmm.... Mary, I hate to break this to you, but we were attacked by anthrax. But then you're fully aware of that already, aren't you? I doubt there's a single person in the Bush administration that has forgotten the event that was enough to scare some Democrats into voting for the invasion of Iraq.

I'm also wondering how many of the "attacks" she rattled off are on the list from Keith Olbermann's The Nexus of Politics and Terror? My guess is more than a few if she was forced to give specifics and maybe had someone besides her DINO husband and that hack John King sitting across the table from her.

As our own Jon Perr pointed out to me, Matalin is doing a good job of carrying water for Dick Cheney and his strategy to assure that torture is never investigated.

Transcript below the fold.

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Lady McCheney and professional turd polisher Mary Matalin takes playing the victim card to a whole new level on Campbell Brown's show on CNN. I know when the chips are down these guys love to portray themselves or those they're shilling for as martyrs, but this is really just over the top even for Matalin.

BROWN: Sarah Palin's got some very good reasons to keep her options open right now -- 72 percent of Republicans in a recent poll said that they would consider voting for her for president in 2012.

So is quitting the new winning? Joining me to answer that, Republican strategist and CNN contributor Mary Matalin with us tonight, the "Daily Beast" editor-in-chief, Tina Brown with me as well, and NPR contributor John Ridley also here. Welcome everybody.

Mary, let me start with you, because you're a little bit out of lock step with some of your Republican friends about this decision and sort of how she handled had. Karl Rove called, said he was rather perplexed by it, Ed Rollins calling it a disaster. But you disagree.

MATALIN: Well, it was unconventional, to be sure, in the veracity and the -- velocity rather, with which the opinion class -- and I'm excluding Karl, they took it as unconventional, and they were asked to give an opinion more quickly than it needed to be digested.

What I find more interesting is it the resistance to which everybody in the chattering classes refuses to accept her at face value. She couldn't do her job anymore. Her family was under assault. She was receiving the political equivalent of a stoning. And she could not function in her job.

So the reason I thought it was smart was that she can continue to be a strong voice, build political capital out there in the next two years, and get her equilibrium reset, the word of the week, and do what she does well, which is communicate a conservative message.

[....]

BROWN: But Mary, what does she do next? Now, if this was such a brilliant move, how does she capitalize on it.

MATALIN: It's brilliant in the sense of, if have you two bad options, you take the least bad option.

I want to speak to what Tina said. This is still an unfortunate situation that women are judged differently in politics. So it would be great if she could say, and she did say a version of, no family has been treated like this. I need to get with my family.

But if she had said it the way Tina said it, which was quite eloquent, she would have been wiped out. She would trying to do some, say it in some conventional way.

And everyone is discarding the fact that her saying she did this for Alaska, there's something false about that. She put in place a system to finish what she started there, and she literally, for the past six months, could not get work done, and it was costing lots of money.

And a small state like that, I don't know why anybody rejects it as an authentic answer. But it's sad that you couldn't say it the way Tina said it, because I think that was a huge big part of it.

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What a surprise. Neocon and former Cheney advisor Mary Matalin thinks that Sarah Palin's announcement that she is resigning as Governor of Alaska is just brilliant...brilliant, I tell you. In her world it's a wonderful thing the Governor is cutting and running away from taking care of her state right now which is in a huge mess, and having some time to play politics for 2012 instead.

On the flip side, David Gergen and Ed Rollins think she's toast. I don't always agree with either of them, but I'd take their slant on how this is going to play out before Matalin's any day of the week.

Matalin's hackery and the video of Rollins and Gergen below the fold.

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Mary Matalin thinks having a few more "conviction conservatives" like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh out there would be a winning formula for the GOP in future elections. I wonder if she actually thought this one through ahead of time.

I don't think it bodes well for Republicans to be using phrases which include the word convict and Dick Cheney or Rush Limbaugh in the same sentence. The only thing that magnifies for me is a reminder that if they were both treated like most Americans who aren't rich or well connected, they would both have already served some time in prison.

KING: So, James, what do the Republicans need to end this personality, Rush versus this guy? They need an election, I guess.

CARVILLE: Yeah they do. And, you know, my friend and my mentor Mark Shields once said that political parties are like churches. Figure out what party is trying to drive out the heretics and which party is trying to get the converts. And all of the people that they drive out that they say are heretics, we're glad to take them as converts.

And I think that's part of the problem here is, I'm not the member of a movement, I'm the member of a political party that I'm glad to say that embraces people of some different ideologies and tries to get things done.

And the Republicans, right now, consider themselves -- a lot of them consider themselves part of a movement more than a part of the Republican Party. Senator Jim DeMint said he would rather have 30 real conservatives than 52 -- or 51 that are not that conservative.

As one commentator very briefly observed that if they continue their policies, he'd be lucky to have 30. I think they're going through a time where they're trying to figure out what they are and they have some that want to start up an inquisition and they have some that want to start up a -- you know, a bunch of missionaries. We'll see which way it goes.

MATALIN: John, if we had 30 good conviction conservatives, they'd have a magnifying force. Look what Dick Cheney has done in just a couple of weeks with one strong cogent voice.

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Mary Matalin on John King's State of the Union defends those great champions of what she considers "conservatism" as opposed to "Republicanism", Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh. Seems she's not taking too kindly to the "Endangered Species" headline at Time Magazine or to Wanda Sykes smack down of Boss Limbaugh. Bob Corker didn't want to answer whether Cheney's appearances are good for the party or not but Matalin of course thinks her old boss being out front and center defending torture is the greatest thing since white on rice.

We also are getting our first glimpse of how the right wing is going to go after Sykes. Call her stupid and uninformed and carp about how unfair it is for anyone to dare to use a personal attack on Limbaugh. Claim that no one on the left ever attacks Cheney or Limbaugh for their ideas, but instead only make personal attacks. We all know the right wing would never dare to try to call anyone on the Democratic side of the aisle a terrorist. Right Mary? And if you think no one has attacked them for their ideas you're walking around with blinders on.

I wonder if Matalin realizes that her being out there telling lies defending her old boss about how torture worked and saying it's legal when it's not is almost as bad for the GOP as Newt Gingrich, Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh being their P.R. department? Of course given her participation in the White House Iraq Group whose purpose was to sell the invasion of Iraq to the public, this is nothing new for her.

KING: Mary, I want to start with you. If you look at the Sunday talk show landscape this morning, you'll see John McCain, Newt Gingrich, and your friend and old boss, Dick Cheney. And as we showed in our last segment, the cover of Time magazine this week is "Endangered Species." As you know, on the left, they're having a field day with the Sunday lineup, saying, great, if that's the face of the Republican Party, more of it. Let's have more to it, specifically to the point of the former vice president.

You know the debate he has stirred up over the past several weeks, beginning right here on "State of the Union." Helpful or hurtful for the Republican Party for Dick Cheney to be out there so much?

MATALIN: Well, if you consider the -- as I do, as most conservative do -- that Republicanism and conservativism are not necessarily synonymous, that when Republicans aspire and ascend is when they go back to what they do best, which is radical reform and being a party of ideas, as they did post-'64, as they did post-'92. When you have the people who best exemplify and represent those ideas getting (ph) and articulating them, like Newt Gingrich and Vice President Cheney, then that's a good thing.

You'll note whenever the Democrats attack Dick Cheney for being out or what he's saying, they never attack the ideas. There's never an answer for what he's speaking about, it's always just a personal attack.

Specifically, and I'm sure he's speaking even as we speak now about how really damaging and dangerous it was for this president to release the legal memos on the EITs, on the enhanced interrogation techniques. Very dangerous, very bad precedent and will come back to haunt this president.

So rather than have an argument about that, there's a personal attack on Dick Cheney, which means there's no argument against the ideas, which goes to what the Republicans need to do, which is to quit being an echo as Goldwater said, really the godfather of the conservatives and present a clear choice.

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Countdown's Worst Person for March 2, 2009 with winners Bill O'Reilly, Mary Matalin and John Ziegler.

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Lady MacCheney still lives in an alternate reality. One in which she hangs out at a saloon with John Hinderaker, who once called Bush a genius.

It must be very strange to be President Bush. A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile.

She's still defending Bush and Cheney for all she's worth and it's pretty sad that she never will come clean with the American people.

From Race to the White House Nov. 3, 2008.

Gregory: Do you think it's possible to overstate the impact of the President on this election? It's where a lot of the arguments started and where, it's where it ends. The shadow that the President and the Vice President for that matter have cast over the Republican ticket.

Matalin: I, to answer your question directly, I don't think it's possible. I think it's, the President's impact on this ticket has been grossly, grossly overstated.

{snip}

And I'll say this and you were there for eight years, we're going to look back at a pretty, really remarkable Presidency relative to national security and yes there is an un, ah unrecorded and unreported lately how long that recovery was that economic recovery right up to this last incident here which he warned against.

I think the Bush Presidency will be remembered as remarkable, but not for the same reasons as Matalin does. The word tragic comes to mind.

(h/t John Amato for a little help)