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Rather than admitting that Republican's policies just aren't that attractive to most women, and that maybe they should take a look at those policies if they ever intend to change that dynamic, Rep. Marsha Blackburn twisted herself in knots and came up with some pretty ridiculous excuses for the lack of women in GOP leadership roles.

After being asked about the backlash to House Speaker John Boehner putting 19 white men in charge of their committees before finally appointing Rep. Candice Miller to lead the House Administration Committee, Blackburn did her best to try to put a positive spin on the situation.

JANSING: Well, there is a perception out there that there's not an opportunity for them to move ahead. When I talk to women who try to recruit other women to fun for Congress, to run for higher positions, one of their concerns is that they won't really have a significant place at the table.

BLACKBURN: Well, I think that that's always a concern. But you know, one of the things that I have found is that, number one, you don’t have to be entitled in order to lead, and that is something that we see happening. Women jump in and take the leadership role and they get in there and it’s kind of the lead from behind and move to the front. They take the responsibility. They perform beyond expectations and by doing that they have the ability to change the debate.

My goodness, look at what has happened in the tea party movement. Every time I go to a tea party rally, I'm amazed. The crowd is primarily female. The organizers are female, and I think that that bodes well for participation, grass roots participation and policy making participation.

When asked about the fact that women organizers or participants at the grass roots doesn't change the fact that their numbers in leadership positions on the Congress are still sorely lacking when compared to their Democratic counterparts, Blackburn responded by saying that Democrats have more women in their ranks and who have served for longer lengths of time. She also came up with this doozy.

BLACKBURN: They have women that have had more of a career in the political process. Those of us who are conservatives, we kind of have a circuitous route in our lives. Politics is not something that is a lifelong job for us. We have careers in the private sector. Look at the women that are in the House. You know we've been marketers and nurses and we've been teachers and we're education specialists. And we bring all of that expertise to bear in the public sector.

Yeah, they have careers, unlike those Democratic women who are all just lifelong politicians. And what is it with Blackburn suddenly loving the idea of "leading from behind?" I thought that was what that Socialist, Marxist, Kenyan usurper, evil, Democratic President did.

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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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Ed Schultz wonders if BP's commitment to "make the small people" whole again will still be there three years from now. Mike Papantonio thinks that it was smart of President Obama to get a $20 billion down payment on the commitment instead of waiting for them to slow walk everyone in the courts.

Papantonio: We wouldn't see $20 billion in a case like this, all you've got to do is look at Exxon, it would be decades before the legal system would be able to render anything close.

...It's unprecedented to have a leader that says we don't trust you and we want your money now. To do this in the legal system is almost impossible. You can't go back and find an example of this kind of leadership yielding this kind of money in any legal setting in America.

Pap had a lot of praise for President Obama's speech and for the actions he's taking now. I don't care about speeches. I care about what action he takes and getting this oil contained and cleaned up. This was definitely a step in the right direction but there's a long way to go.

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This is coming from a woman whose father said this:

"I think they're in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." -- on the Iraq insurgency, June 20, 2005

and this:

"We know he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." --March 16, 2003

and this:

"My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." --March 16, 2003

and this:

"There are a lot of lessons we want to learn out of this process in terms of what works. I think we are in fact on our way to getting on top of the whole Katrina exercise." --Sept. 10, 2005

Of course the name Halliburton or her father's energy policy that helped bring this disaster about never came up in the conversation. She has no credibility to be criticizing anyone about what's going on in the Gulf now, but that's not going to stop Fox from giving Mini-Me-Cheney a chance to lob political stink bombs at every opportunity.

Wallace: Liz, I think it's fair to say that Katrina marked a turning point in the public's view of George W. Bush. Does this have the same potential downside for President Obama?

Cheney: I think it does because I think we begin to get into the issues here of credibility and leadership where it's about, it's bigger than just this particular crisis and catastrophe. You've got a President now who thinks that saying something makes it so. You know you showed it in the last segment when he said "I'm going to have the most transparent administration in history" but that doesn't actually mean you're going to be open and transparent. It's not the same thing as we've seen with him.

On the war he says "I know we're at war" but he doesn't understand he actually has to lead us in the fight. Words themselves aren't enough. And, you know, going down to Louisiana and saying gosh, you know "I'm heartbroken, I'm angry, I'm frustrated" and then going on vacation to Chicago, really doesn't send a message that this is a man who's leading.

And at the end of the day, I disagree with Bill on this, I think actually there is more that the federal government could be doing in terms of approving the licenses for the berms that Governor Jindal has asked for, in terms of responding more quickly to the requests that are coming in from the parish presidents, not pushing this all off onto BP. And I think people sense when an administration is really in charge and really leading and when they aren't.

And so I think you know, the Obama administration has got a problem here, not having learned from the lessons of Katrina and you know, really confirming in people's minds frankly that a gift for reading a teleprompter is not the same as leadership.

Bill Maher hit the right wing hate talkers pretty hard in his New Rules segment and I agree with him on Republicans saying no to everything for the sake of being obstructionists. I've got to take him to task for one thing he said though. The notion that going along with that debt commission is being "an adult" is just wrong. As Susie pointed out, those "adults" don't have most of our best interests in mind.

New Rule: The Republican Leadership in America Must Produce Their Birth Certificates:

New Rule: The Republican leadership in America must produce their birth certificates! Not because I doubt they're Americans, I just want to make sure they're not eight-years-old. I mention this because a major talking point on Fox News and hate radio these days is that, after a year and a half of Obama, it's time to bring the "adults" back into power, so they can rein in our deficit, defeat terrorism, and focus on America's real enemy: cleaning ladies in Arizona. But I must protest the premise, because conservatives are the ones who tend to believe in magical ideas, like: America is never wrong; you can defeat terrorism militarily; and lower taxes will somehow fix the deficit. And I'm not even mentioning the stuff about how Jesus used to fly around on a pterodactyl and just hated it when homos ate wedding cake.

Now, am I saying there are no adults in today's Republican Party? Absolutely not, there are -- but like a lot of parents today, the adults let their kids cow them. And silence them. And rule over them. Rush Limbaugh is a child, a primal scream of a man, but he gets his way because he's the fat bully on the playground; and Glenn Beck is the weepy kid who's always crying because he's insane and you don't know what he's going to do and who he's going to take with him. Read on...

Again, I've got to hand it to Steve Benen for expressing how I felt when I watched the Republican response to the President's Weekly Address.

House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) delivered the Republicans' weekly address yesterday, and repeated plenty of tired talking points. Listeners learned, for example, that those rascally Democrats intend to "remake America in the image of Europe." Gripping stuff.

But there was a phrase that Cantor mentioned that stood out for me. The frequently-confused Republican leader said that if voters backed the GOP in November, his party would offer "responsible, adult leadership."

Now, of all the things Republicans have to offer the electorate, perhaps no three words in the English language are less appropriate than "responsible, adult leadership." As should be abundantly clear by now, today's GOP officials approach their responsibilities and substantive discourse with all the maturity of a child. A young child. A young, slow child. A medicated, young, slow child who's easily distracted and hasn't learned social norms about honesty.

Jacob Weisberg notes in his latest piece that there were responsible, adult leaders in the Republican Party in the not-too-distant past, but they've gone missing.

As Steve noted and as I've also written about here, the Republicans are simply not a serious political party right now. They have nothing to offer other than attacking the Democrats at every turn and they are more than willing to use every means at their disposal to assure they get back into power.

Go read all of Steve's post for more on this but I'll quote him one more time on Cantor.

Cantor is promising "responsible, adult leadership"? From whom, exactly? When was the last time a Republican leader said something intelligent and accurate about any area of public policy? When was the last time the GOP acted in a responsible fashion during a substantive debate? When was the last time the nation saw so much as a glimmer of maturity from any member of the party leadership?

Weisberg concluded, "The rise of hyperpartisanship is not one of those problems for which the left and right are equally to blame. Democrats, who like legislating better than Republican do, and who have seldom had the GOP's ability to march in lockstep, still instinctively prefer to work on a bipartisan basis. They continue to hope, against the odds, that [Responsible Republicans] will escape extinction and one day provide partners for them again."

As Steve added in his post, this won't happen until this starts costing them some elections. Sadly with the media enabling them and their astroturf teabagger movement to be seen as somehow mainstream instead of fringe, that makes the getting these people out of office all the much harder. These people need to go the way of the Know Nothings. Just how badly they have to behave before it forces the media to acknowledge it is beyond me. Right now, almost nothing seems to be out of bounds for them to consider how the party is acting to be extremist.

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If President Barack Obama adopts the Republican platform then one Tea Party-backed candidate for Senate from Florida would be more than willing to work across the aisle. Mark Rubio told Florida State House Speaker Mark Rubio that he wouldn't make bipartisanship worse in Washington if his Senate bid was successful.

"Partisan gridlock is not something I'm in favor of. Okay? But the problem is it depends on what you're standing for. What are you fighting for?" asked Rubio.

"I've been more than happy to work across the aisle to do things like lower the capital gains tax, lower the corporate tax, flatten the tax rate, lower all these other taxes that make America increasingly unfriendly place to do business. And if the Obama administration tomorrow announces that is their agenda or the leadership in Congress does, I'll be more than happy -- I'll be thrilled to work with them," he said.

"But what they're attempting to do fundamentally redefine the role of government in America. And we can't cooperate with that. We have to stop that from happening," explained Rubio.

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Sen. John McCain once said that he would trust the opinion of military leaders to decide when it was time to end the military's controversial Don't ask, don't tell policy. Now that the Congress is considering repealing the policy, McCain seems to have changed his tune.

In 2006, McCain told MSNBC's Chris Matthews, "The day that the leadership of the military comes to me and says, Senator, we ought to consider seriously changing it because those leaders in the military are the ones we give the responsibility to."

In past weeks, military leaders have come forward to do just that. Admiral Mike Mullen told Congress that repealing the ban was "the right thing to do."

Gen. David Petraeus told NBC's David Gregory that troops didn't care if fellow soldier were gay.

But the Arizona Senator seemed to dismiss the opinions of those military leaders Sunday. "Admiral Mullen was as quote speaking personally. Just this week commandant of the Marine Corps said he did not want Don't ask, don't tell repealed. There are many in the military who do not want to," said McCain.

McCain went on to say that the discriminatory policy is effective. "I believe that it's working," he told David Gregory Sunday.

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Drew Weston joins Ed Schultz to talk about the demoralization of the base and his statement the President made to the Washington Post:

Obama said the public option "has become a source of ideological contention between the left and right." But, he added, "I didn't campaign on the public option."

That's clearly not true as Ed Shows in the video clip. Drew Weston's recent article in the Huffington Post is Looming Losses in 2010: Pretty Speeches, Compromised Values, and the Quest for the Lowest Common Denominator:

As the president's job performance numbers and ratings on his handling of virtually every domestic issue have fallen below 50 percent, the Democratic base has become demoralized, and Independents have gone from his source of strength to his Achilles Heel, it's time to reflect on why. The conventional wisdom from the White House is those "pesky leftists" -- those bloggers and Vermont Governors and Senators who keep wanting real health reform, real financial reform, immigration reform not preceded by a year or two of raids that leave children without parents, and all the other changes we were supposed to believe in.

Somehow the president has managed to turn a base of new and progressive voters he himself energized like no one else could in 2008 into the likely stay-at-home voters of 2010, souring an entire generation of young people to the political process. It isn't hard for them to see that the winners seem to be the same no matter who the voters select (Wall Street, big oil, big Pharma, the insurance industry). In fact, the president's leadership style, combined with the Democratic Congress's penchant for making its sausage in public and producing new and usually more tasteless recipes every day, has had a very high toll far from the left: smack in the center of the political spectrum.

What's costing the president and courting danger for Democrats in 2010 isn't a question of left or right, because the president has accomplished the remarkable feat of both demoralizing the base and completely turning off voters in the center. If this were an ideological issue, that would not be the case. He would be holding either the middle or the left, not losing both.

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Digby has more:

Not long ago, Dr Drew Westen was the "it boy" of the Democratic Party, with his book "The Political Brain." I doubt if anyone in the White House likes him much today.