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Why does Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) hate Christmas?

The Arizona senator slammed President Barack Obama on Thursday for buying Christmas gifts for his daughters instead of meeting with the House Republicans who are refusing to pass a payroll tax cut extension.

"The four previous presidents I served under, including President Clinton, would be calling them over to the White House and sitting down with them and looking them in the eye and saying, 'Look, we need to fix this,'" McCain told CNN's Ali Velshi.

"The Republicans are losing this fight. We need to get back on track. There is no doubt about that," the senator admitted. "But I think it requires some presidential leadership as well as a little bit of bipartisanship."

"In times like the past, in the past, four presidents that I served under, they have exerted a lot more leadership than going shopping."

A two-month extension of the payroll tax cut was passed with the bipartisan approval of 89 senators -- something that is almost unheard of on serious legislation -- but House Republicans are demanding that cut be extended for a year. Americans' taxes will automatically go up if a bill is not signed in the next week.

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January 01, 2010 CNN

Heather: Only the Villagers like those on CNN would think that Ed Schultz and Rep. Alan Grayson's fiery rhetoric during the health care debate is the same as the insanity of Glenn Beck, Rep. Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin. Shame on John Avlon and CNN for this bit of false equivalency bullpucky.

JOHNS: Every week independent analyst John Avlon joins us to name the Wingnuts of the Week. Wingnuts, according to John, are professional partisans and unhinged activists.

KAYE: John even has a book coming out called "Wingnuts: How the Lunatic Fringe is Hijacking America." And he's put together a list of last year's 2009 worst offenders. He joined Kiran Chetry to countdown the top five, including the biggest wingnut of the year.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KIRAN CHETRY, CNN ANCHOR: Let's just get right to the list. We did this little countdown, and we're going to start with number five. So who made the cut for wingnut -- top five wingnut?

JOHN AVLON, INDEPENDENT POLITICAL ANALYST: Top five wingnut, big threshold, we have Ed Schultz, sort of aiming to be the liberal Rush Limbaugh this year. And here's one comment he made this fall regarding health care that really stood out.

Let's take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ED SCHULTZ, HOST, THE ED SHOW: The Republicans lie. They want to see you dead. They'd rather make money off your dead corpse. They kind of like it when that woman has cancer, and they don't have anything for her. That's how the insurance companies make money -- by denying the coverage. My God, Democrats, what's wrong with you? You can't deal with these people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AVLON: Wow. That's wingnut stuff.

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