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First we've had these clowns doing their best to try to downplay Todd Akin's remarks on abortion and rape by comparing it to a gaff by Joe Biden as we saw from hate monger Tony Perkins the other day. Now we've got some GOP operative from South Carolina named Wesley Donehue – the likes of which or his bow tie I've been fortunate enough not to have watched before this Saturday – apparently doing some consulting work for Todd Akin, and trying to compare Akin's remarks to the now infamous "Dean Scream."

Thankfully Howard Dean was right there to shoot down the false equivalency on this Saturday's Weekends with Alex Witt where they were discussing the Republicans Akin problem, woman problem and their upcoming convention:

DEAN: The problem with the Akin remark is Akin is not an outlier in the Republican Party. Paul Ryan, Romney's running mate voted for the same stuff that Akin voted for, which is outlawing abortion with no exceptions for rape and incest. This is not exactly a pro-woman party and it shows by the ticket, so I think this is a problem for the Republican Party everywhere, not just Missouri.

After being asked how things were going for Romney as we head into the convention with his racist “joke” and Akin's remarks and whether he should have seen “the backlash coming,” Akin consultant Wesley Donehue responded.

DONEHUE: Listen, first off, Mitt Romney... he likes to joke around. I was watching a special on MSNBC where his sons say, listen my dad likes to joke around and sometimes those jokes don't come across the way they need to. I think it was a very human moment for him, just like it was a very human moment for Todd Akin.

I want to go back to what Gov. Dean said. You know, I think trying to label our party as anti-woman because of one comment is insane. I mean look, Gov. Dean's entire presidential campaign was ruined because of one moment. That's like saying the “Dean scream” crazy moment was indicative of the entire Democratic Party. He lost the presidency because he looked insane. That didn't mean the entire Democratic Party was insane because of one moment. That was absolutely a ridiculous comment!

Host Alex Witt stood back and allowed Dean to reply.

DEAN: I think that's silly. I lost the Democratic nomination because I came in third in Iowa and I was supposed to come in first. That was the problem. And I also think it's not very nice to George Bush to say I would have kicked his butt as well. We don't know that. But leaving all that aside, the fact of the matter is Todd Akin is not an outlier.

Boehner's bill which Ryan voted for and all the Republicans in the House or virtually all the Republicans in the House voted for is exactly what Akin said. (crosstalk) No exception for rape. No exceptions for incest. This is a party that doesn't value women and that's just a fact.

DONEHUE: And you're a party that doesn't value life. (crosstalk)

DEAN: They voted that way again and again and again (crosstalk). It's in the Republican Party platform. So I think this just makes this a party a very hard sell for women.

Donehue has the the feigned indignation game down pat and tried to defend the Republicans with a version of I have one black friend, or in this case, we elected a woman who is a minority to be a governor and some black Congressmen, therefore we can't be sexist or prejudiced, or racist.

Dean did a nice job of pointing to their policies and the fact that they seem like they'd be a whole lot comfortable living in the '50's... as in the 1850's. He also made note of the fact that when you look at their ranks like those delegates filling their convention floors, it's almost all white whether they've got some diversity at the top as figure heads or not.

I don't know what Akin is paying this guy, but whatever it is, it's too much. I was waiting for him to stick out his tongue and wave his fingers next to his ears and say "I know you are, but what am I" before this was over. He was no match for Dean when it came to trying to make his party's case on women's issues or to defend Akin. Trying to pick a fight with Dean with a ridiculous, childish false equivalency is no argument.

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From ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Peggy Noonan manages to downright embarrass herself with this ridiculous statement, but what else is new? Nooners apparently thinks that if Mittens new running mate Paul Ryan just gets out there and does some interviews, stat, Democrats won't have a chance to define him in campaign ads. And he'd never do anything to hurt grandma. How could he when he looks like such a nice young man?

NOONAN: What Ryan ought to be doing is going out there, I think now, and showing himself in very long and thoughtful interviews and talking about exactly what he thinks and why and what his intentions are. [...] Let the American people look at him literally over the next few days so that when the Dems come with Demiscare and he'll take -- Grandma is being thrown off the train or off the sled or whatever the metaphor is [...] think, my goodness, he doesn't look like the type of young man who would throw Grandma off the sled.

I guess Noonan thinks that one, he's going to say anything different than what he's already been saying in interview after interview for the last fourteen years or so now. And two, that if he does, it would matter since we've got, you know, these modern day things called recording devices.

I'm not sure what they're paying Noonan in wingnut welfare to appear on these shows, but if it's more than a penny, it's too much.

Full transcript of the clip above below the fold.

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We're hearing a lot of tough talk from Republicans as we did from LA Gov. Bobby Jindal on this Sunday's Meet the Press about how they're not going to cooperate at all in enacting provisions in the Affordable Care Act now that the Supreme Court has ruled on its Constitutionality.

Howard Dean did a nice job of pointing out that states are going to get the insurance exchanges whether they're willing to cooperate or not because the federal government will set them up if governors like Jindal refuse to, as he was promising here. He also explained how it didn't make any sense economically for them to refuse the money in the Medicaid expansion.

Once you have hospitals and businesses and voters getting upset with the politicians for saying they're going to refuse that money and they start hearing from them after a lot of this national dust up is over, we'll see what Jindal actually does. This is the same guy who was calling the stimulus plan a failure and then did this: Jindal takes credit for stimulus, presents constituents with jumbo-sized stimulus check.

Transcript below the fold.

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Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) is calling Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) "perfectly ridiculous" for claiming that women would support presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney because the war on women was a "myth" and they had "overwhelmingly" voted for the GOP in 2010 -- which they didn't.

CBS host Bob Schieffer on Sunday asked Bachmann how Romney could reverse polls that showed him far behind President Barack Obama among female voters.

"First of all, that's a myth and it's not true," Bachmann insisted. "There's not a Republican war on women. That's coming from the Obama re-election team because everything they do right now is -- any word that you hear will go through the grid of Obama's re-election."

"It must be working then because most of the polls show he's way behind," Schieffer noted.

"But actually if you look at the 2010 election, women went Republican," Bachmann explained. "They didn’t go Democrat, and they will this time as well, because women are more concerned about the economy and jobs for themselves, for their husbands, for their children, and that’s not happened because Obama’s broken his promises."

"The polls showed and the ballot box showed in 2010, women went with the Republican," she continued. "Remember, a women lost the gavel as the Speaker in 2010. That was Nancy Pelosi. And it was women who overwhelmingly went Republican and threw out a woman Speaker."

"I think this time again what women want, Bob, is they want competence, and, unfortunately, with all due respect to the president, he’s not competent to deal with the economy. Mitt Romney is competent in spades. That’s what women are going to be looking for."

While Republicans did better with women in 2010 than any year since 1982, exit polls didn't indicate an "overwhelming" advantage. As Think Progress pointed out, Republicans and Democrats tied among women in the 2010 midterms, 49 percent to 49 percent.

Following Bachmann's appearance on CBS, Dean blasted the Minnesota congresswoman's assertion as "perfectly ridiculous."

"Michele Bachmann has never had much command of the facts and that shows us exactly why," the former Vermont governor declared. "Women are terrified of what the Republicans are talking about. They're talking about basically stripping away their ability to have insurance pay for their birth control pills. Latinos are terrified of the Republicans because they seem to have a total tin ear when it comes to the basic needs of treating people with dignity."

"And the average American thinks that Mitt Romney doesn't care about them," Dean added. "Here's a guy that's building, during a campaign, a mansion in Malibu with an elevator for his car. He had a Swiss bank account and invested in the Cayman Islands. I don't think we've ever elected a president who's invested in the Cayman Islands as a tax dodge before."

"This candidacy is a shipwreck, and for Michele Bachmann to go out there and claim that women are going to vote for Mitt Romney is perfectly ridiculous."

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Former governors Howard Dean and Haley Barbour appeared on Fox News Sunday for what host Chris Wallace described as preview for what a debate in the general election between President Obama and Mitt Romney might look like. Amazingly the subject of Barbour's lobby shop being linked to Iranian nuclear efforts didn't come up during the segment. Imagine that.

For his part, Howard Dean did a fairly good job of explaining towards the end of the segment just what kind of trouble Mitt Romney is going to have during the general election, given the fact that's he's rightfully perceived as out of touch with everyday Americans and only cares about helping the 1 percent, of which he's a member.

Republicans keep pretending this long primary season was somehow good for Mitt Romney, but without is we wouldn't have the list of gaffs Dean was able to rattle off here. The more the man talks, the more he continues to stick his foot in his mouth.

Transcript below the fold.

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Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) on Sunday predicted that if the United States Supreme Court strikes down a key part of President Barack Obama's health care reform law, it could actually benefit him in the 2012 general election.

Dean told Fox News host Chris Wallace that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate was "something that's not really necessary."

"If the justices strike it down, it might actually help the president because people don't like the mandate," he explained. "But if the rest of the bill stays intact, I think it will ultimately seen as a victory for the president. He'll do fine."

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) indicated that his party was already planning the best way to spin the Supreme Court's decision against the president.

"I think it will be pretty interesting if former constitutional law professor President Obama's signature law gets kicked out because it's unconstitutional," the former Republican National Committee (RNC) chairman quipped. "The fact of the matter is that the law is very unpopular. Unlike most entitlements, it has continued to stay unpopular after it was enacted."

For his part, Dean agreed that the law was unpopular, but Americans "actually do like what is in it."

"I think the president is in great shape in health care unless they strike down the whole bill," he added. "This is the most political Supreme Court we've ever had. Seventy-three percent of the American people believe that politics motivates the Supreme Court, and I am one of those 73 percent. So, I think a lot of this is going to be seen as politics."

Barbour suggested that the president would not be able to run against the ruling because voters "are going to favor the Supreme Court's opinion if the Supreme Court does, in fact, strike down the law."

"President Obama's policies on health care, on energy are his problem," he opined. "They're the wrong policies. They are bad for the country."

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This Monday morning we got treated to another example of the crew over at Morning Joe telling their viewers that they had better get used to the idea of some "reforms" to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security, this time with former Gov. George Pataki and Joe Scarborough leading the way with their claims that Americans will just love anyone currently running in the GOP primary race if they show some real "leadership" and embrace Paul Ryan's push to privatize Medicare.

The one voice of sanity on there was Howard Dean who reminded them that yes, Americans do want leadership, but not if that leadership is pushing for crazy ideas. It's too bad it's not considered a "crazy idea" that we allow insurance companies to profit off of the sick and that we aren't regulating them in the same manner utility companies in this country are regulated, or heaven forbid that we don't have Medicare for all where the government is the insurance provider for all of us, instead of just covering the sickest and the eldest among us as they do now.

I have to say I agree with Howard Dean here on the fact that it's insanity if anyone in the Republican Party thinks latching on to Ryan's budget plan is a good idea. But if they want to listen to the advise of Pataki and Scarborough here, I say go ahead and good luck. You're going to need it. I'd be more than happy to see Paul Ryan and his budget plan be turned into the poster boy for the Republican Party and made a major issue during the upcoming election.

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Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) explained Sunday that S&P's downgrade of U.S. credit was primarily the fault of the tea party.

"I think the Standard & Poor's downgrade is a good thing because I think it underlines the fact that you can't get out of this without raising revenues," Dean told CBS' Bob Schieffer. "Sixty percent of the deficit is due to the Bush tax cuts. That's CBO saying that not me. You can't get out of this without raising revenues. It is impossible."

"I think this is a tea party problem," he continued. "They're totally unreasonable. They're not founded in reality. I think they've been smoking some of that tea, not just drinking it. But the fact of the matter is that the president is going to get the blame and the credit for what goes right whether he deserves it or not."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) shot back that he thought the tea party was actually a solution to the country's economic problems.

"The tea party is a result of what's wrong in Washington," Graham said. "They didn't create all of this mess. It was an energy created by people seeing the country slipping away and wanting to do something about it. The tea party is is for a balanced budget amendment to the constitution. So am I."

"The truth of the matter is if President Obama were -- if he were in the South Eastern Conference, he'd be fired as a coach," he added. "He would not have his contract renewed. Everything is worse. Unemployment is up by 18 percent. Gas prices are up by 93 percent. Everything -- housing prices are down by 12 percent. He's had a chance. We're three years into this. He's failing and it's not the tea party's fault. What was hope and change is despair and confusion. People are not creating jobs in this country because they think Howard Dean is going to raise their taxes... The tea party is not the problem. Washington was broken before they got here. I hope they can help us fix it."

"You said President Obama would be fired," Dean noted. "The truth is that if this were a private corporation, President Obama would fire you all."

From Thom Hartmann's show on Russia Today, a look at how CNN and Fox covered Palin and Breitbart being booed in Wisconsin compared to "the Dean scream" that derailed Howard Dean's presidential campaign.

Pitifully I think the first person to finally mention them getting booed on the air was Rachel Maddow Monday night followed by Ed Schultz who also showed it. So much for that non-existent "liberal media" the right keeps pretending exists.

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Howard Dean and Newt Gingrich participated in a debate at George Washington University, and of course, Gingrich couldn't pass up the opportunity to do a little fearmongering over "radical Islam". Here's more from Think Progress' Faiz Shakir, who posted a slightly different version of the exchange.

Dean Rejects Gingrich’s ‘Radical Islam’ Fearmongering: ‘Radical Anything Is What’s Bad’:

The clash between the progressive and conservative visions for targeting extremism was on full display last night during a debate between former Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Gov. Howard Dean. Like Peter King, Gingrich harped on the need to confront “radical Islam,” which he said is the most dangerous threat facing the world. Dean responded:

I’m a little uncomfortable focusing on the notion of ‘radical Islam’ because the truth is radical anything is what’s bad, and people who use violence – (applause). … What radicals do is they polarize people to get this kind of reaction. … Intolerance breeds intolerance. And we can’t fight intolerance with intolerance. … The radicals that are targeting us are in fact bigoted, misogynist, and intolerant. And if we respond that way, they’ve won. I’m not gonna give up what America believes in because different individuals happen to belong to a particular religion or to a particular sect.

Gingrich responded by conceding that he’d be happy to find a different term than “radical Islam,” but then mused, “There have been, to the best of my knowledge, no radical Norwegians.” [...]

A few points in response to Gingrich. First, there are radical Norwegians, just as they are radicals of different faiths, cultures, and ethnicities. Secondly, he fails to concede in his story about the Times Square Bomber that the street vendor who alerted authorities to the burning car was in fact a Muslim, and that Muslims are key allies in confronting the threat of violent extremists. And lastly, the threat of “radical Islam” is actually decreasing, according to a new analysis released today.

The Triangle Center on Terrorism and Homeland Security reports that, while 47 Muslim-Americans committed or were arrested for terrorist crimes in 2009, the number dropped to 20 this past year. Tips from the Muslim American community provided the source of information that led to a terrorist plot being thwarted in 48 of 120 cases involving Muslim Americans, according to the study. The author of the study, UNC Prof. Charles Kurzman, said, “This trend offers a challenge for the American public: If we ratchet up our security concerns when the rate of terrorism rises, should we ratchet down our concerns when it falls?”