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Just what we need... another Republican bed-wetter screeching like a banshee on cable news in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombing attack. First of all, who in the hell gave this clown a radio show? And second, why does MSNBC think that anyone in their audience cares what this disgrace of a former Congressman and deadbeat dad and known flamethrower Joe Walsh thinks about anything?

Having him on when he was a member of Congress and taking him to the woodshed over failing to pay his child support, as Bashir did a while back is one thing. Having him on there as someone to be taken seriously to discuss policy after he's been run out of Congress is quite another.

Jonathan Alter hasn't been much better with his usual appearances on the network where he's happy to help with the hippie punching and pushing for Democrats to go along with austerity measures, as he did with Sam Seder on his radio show as well not long ago, but in this segment, he was the voice of reason -- only to have Walsh insult him at every turn, just looking to start an altercation on camera with name calling.

I guess Ted Nugent and Glenn Beck were too busy to come spend some time as a "panel member" so they settled for Walsh.

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From Majority FM: Jonathan Alter On His Calls For Democrats To Embrace Entitlement Cuts:

Blommberg View Jonathan Alter, argued that cutting entitlements will guard investment in discretionary spending, guess how Sam felt about that argument? Sam and Jonathan debated whether or not CPI was a cut and agreed that the wealthy should pay more taxes...

You can read Alter's article here: Why Democrats Must Get Smart on Entitlements.

It's a long and pretty infuriating interview for anyone who has time to listen to all of it. Alter pretty much personifies everything we've seen wrong with our beltway Villagers who want to insist that liberals are being unreasonable and don't want to do anything about the long term sustainability of our social safety nets, which is not true. Seder did a nice job of taking apart his arguments and the constant false equivalency game he played throughout the interview, which was bad enough that at one point he was comparing liberals who want to protect those programs to Grover Norquist.

Alter based most of his arguments during this interview off of the assumption that if Democrats just agree to cut these programs now, that will stop Republicans from trying to make more cuts in discretionary spending in the future and that if President Obama finally agreed to some "grand bargain" that it would keep Republicans from demagoguing the issue in upcoming elections. As Sam rightfully noted, it didn't stop them from doing it in past elections and there is no reason to believe that Republicans still won't be demanding more cuts.

I also thought Alter was going to blow a gasket when heaven forbid Seder suggested lowering the Social Security retirement age and increasing benefits to take care of our unemployment problem in the United States. It would really be nice to see Alter have to face this same type of scrutiny every time he comes on the air and is portrayed as representing the left side of the aisle.

And I'm sure it will come up here again, but I hate the use of the word "entitlements" but that's what Alter called them in his article and in the segment above. They're earned benefits and social insurance programs and they are designed to keep people out of poverty, but it's not ridiculous to take note of the fact that if you turn any of them into a poverty program only, they won't have a political constituency left to fight to keep them in place and they'll wind up being demonized like welfare has been.

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Anyone who doesn't watch Chris Hayes' show on MSNBC on the weekends is missing out on some of the most intelligent conversation on cable news, and the segment above was no exception. I didn't get a chance to watch the whole show Sunday with the other video monitoring I do for the site, but Digby flagged this segment the other day and I agree with her criticism of Jonathan Alter.

The discussion was over the problems within the judicial nomination and confirmation structure and the fact that the process has been broken ... and it's been broken by the right. Alter seems to think that the left would be behaving "just as badly" as the right if heaven forbid Democrats nominated judges who would be perceived as just as "partisan" as those on the right.

What Alter didn't point out is that the biggest problem with judges like Thomas or Scalia isn't just the fact that they're "partisans." It's the fact that they're corrupt and have huge conflicts of interest and won't recuse themselves from cases where they have no business ruling. And unfortunately as long as we've got members of Congress who are going to defend their actions, we're not going to see them impeached.

Here's more from Digby's post — Partisan (Judicial) Review:

Yep. We can have as many right wing fascists on the court but Democrats should only nominate people who "moderate" and have a "reasonable" judicial temperament.

These Village "liberals" are killing us. He is completely wrong about this. If the people didn't give a shit that a partisan court stole an election, giving them a lecture about the Obamacare mandate isn't going to get the job done.

No, we are living in an ideologically polarized age and this guy wants liberals to stand around tittering politely about how wrong it is that we be so. History shows how well that works out for them when the other side has gone mad.

The left has allowed themselves to be completely outgunned when it comes to whipping up public outrage and getting their base to care about judicial nominations. Guest Nan Aron pointed out what's at risk if the Supreme Court is allowed to move any further to the right than it is already:

ARON: This is going to take a fight. Not just from the White House, but from the Senate, from all of us. This election... the stakes with this election for the future of this Supreme Court are enormous when you think about it. And we now know just how this court and several courts under it make decisions that affect every aspect of our lives and we can't sit back.

I don't know what it will take to get those on the left to pay more attention to this issue but I was glad to see it raised on Hayes' show, regardless of the fact that Alter wants Democrats to bring a knife to a gun fight. The rest of the panel was in complete disagreement with him about the sort of judges the left should be trying to get nominated and what tactics should be used to try to get some better judges through our broken nominating process. The Democrats could take some lessons from Republicans about getting public opinion on their side and with being willing to fight for good nominees.

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Ed Schultz spoke to Rep. Jan Schakowsky and Jonathan Alter about the tentative deal to extend the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance. When asked why it appears Republicans are finally giving in and willing to pass the measures without demanding offsets, both Schakowsky and Alter noted the obvious; they're looking at their poll numbers and hearing from their constituents and responding to the fact that the electorate is fed up with their obstruction.

Lawmakers reach tentative deal on payroll tax, jobless benefits:

House-Senate talks on renewing a payroll tax cut that delivers about $20 a week to the average worker yielded a tentative agreement Tuesday, with lawmakers hopeful of unveiling the pact Wednesday and sending the measure to President Barack Obama as early as this week.

Under the outlines of the emerging agreement, a 2 percentage-point cut in the Social Security payroll tax would be extended through the end of the year, with the nearly $100 billion cost added to the deficit. Jobless benefits for the long-term unemployed would be renewed as well, with the $30 billion or so cost paid for in part through auctioning broadcast spectrum to wireless companies and requiring federal workers to contribute more toward their pensions.

Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, said it was described to lawmakers as a tentative agreement.

The payroll tax cut and renewing jobless benefits were key planks in Obama's jobs program, which was announced in September. The payroll tax cut benefits 160 million Americans and delivers a tax cut of about $20 a week for a typical worker making $50,000 a year. People making a $100,000 salary would get a $2,000 tax cut.

The deal would not only be a win for Obama but would take the payroll tax fight — which put Republicans on the defensive — off the table for the fall election campaign. Read on...

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All I can say is it's about time some of the Democrats are calling out Republicans for something that's been obvious to me for some time, their willingness to wreck the economy for short term political gain.

Steve Benen's been writing about this for some time and wrote about the same press conference Ed Schultz and Jonathan Alter were talking about in the clip above in his post here -- The 'sabotage' question goes mainstream:

In November, I faced all kinds of pushback by raising a provocative argument: is it possible Republicans would pursue policies that would hurt the economy on purpose?

Seven months later, it appears the “sabotage” question is going mainstream.

E.J. Dionne Jr. inched pretty close to it last week, noting that Republicans “have no interest” in working on job creation because “Republicans benefit if the economy stays sluggish.” Kevin Drum wondered whether this will ever be “a serious talking point,” adding, “No serious person in a position of real influence really wants to accuse an entire party of cynically trying to tank the economy, after all.”

That appears to be changing.

Republicans are sabotaging economic recovery efforts because it will help them win in 2012, Senate Democratic leaders charged Wednesday.

“Unfortunately our Republican colleagues in the House and Senate are driven by putting one man out of work — President Obama,” Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) declared at a Capitol Hill press conference called the day after Senate Republicans blocked an economic development bill that they have backed in the past.

Durbin pointed to remarks made by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), in which he said the top goal of Republicans should be to make Obama a one-term President.

Durbin added that “their only goal” is to defeat the president, adding, “They believe a weak economy is there best chance of winning the next election.”

This isn’t subtle. Durbin is saying that Republicans are deliberately holding back the economy for purely partisan reasons. It’s an explosive charge, and as of today, he’s not the only one making it.

The rhetorical shift appears to the result of last night’s vote on the Economic Development Administration, a successful program that provides federal grants to local projects. Republicans have repeatedly said that they believe the EDA is great for economic growth and job creation, but they nevertheless linked arms and killed the bill. This comes after Republicans balked at a payroll tax cut intended to spur hiring, another measure the GOP has traditionally supported — until now.

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the number three Democrat in the chamber, told reporters this morning, “If they oppose even something so suited to their tastes ideologically, it shows that they’re just opposing anything that helps create jobs. It almost makes you wonder if they aren’t trying to slow down the economic recovery for political gain.”

Yes, almost. Read on...

I don't think there's any "almost" about it. As Schultz and Alter pointed out in the clip above and as Steve wrote in his article, Republicans are voting against all kinds of proposals to promote job growth that they were formerly on record as supporting and as he noted, McConnell's on record saying his top priority is not job creation, but making Barack Obama a one term president.

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Good for Keith.

OLBERMANN: As you'll hear in the next few minutes all of us here at Countdown and a lot of us among the progressives had one major well defined problem with the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear and we're going to address that in a moment in our number one story; a false equivalence between what we do here and what Fox News and the like do there.

But first, the overall message that the tone needs to change, that the volume needs to change was not lost on any of us. The anger in this news hour was not an original part of it, nor was it an artifice we added to it. It was a response to a threat to this democracy posed by Mr. Bush and now by his lineal descendants. The anger happened, it will still happen, it is not for ratings and it is not get angry first and find a reason later.

But there is an institutionalization of it that may no longer be valid. That is the Worse Persons in the World Segment. Which started, of all things, as a way of defending Tucker Carlson. Its satire and whimsy have gradually gotten lost in some anger. So in the spirit of the thing, as of right now, I am unilaterally suspending that segment with an eye towards discontinuing it. We don’t know how that works long term. We might bring it back. We might bring back something similar to it, might kill it outright and next week we will solicit your input.

Its just that today, given the serious stuff we have to start covering tomorrow, we think its the right thing to do short term and then we will see what happens. And we’ll also see if anybody else, on T.V., or radio, will do something similar.

Don't hold your breath Keith.

For some similar perspective on Jon Stewart's comments at their rally this weekend, here's more from Bob Cesca's place -- The Messy Fray of Democracy.

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Jonathan Alter made some good points about why the Republicans are being ridiculous going after the White House and Sestak for this trumped up scandal on Real Time. It's criminalizing politics and if you're going to go after Obama and Emanuel for this, then there's a long list behind them to go after as well.

And Patrick Ruffini's tired line about campaign promises is wearing thin. That's not an excuse to scandalize everything and they obviously don't hold their own politicians to the same standard. As our team member Jamie pointed out to everyone when he was watching this last night "It's funny though that no one mentions how George W. Bush was going to 'restore the integrity of the Oval Office', and we all see how that went." Ain't that the truth.

I like Bill Maher's suggestion for a compromise at the end of the clip.

Alter: George H.W. Bush's political director Ron Kaufman said recently that if this was a crime that every president going back to George Washington, should go to jail. This has been done in politics forever. It will always be done in politics and there's actually nothing wrong with it. Nobody's ever been prosecuted under this.

Ruffini: Here's the problem.

Maher: Do you agree with that.

Ruffini: Wasn't Obama supposed to be different? I mean wasn't the... the Bush administration was hyper-political. They were using their political office to fire, you know, supposedly fire the US Attorneys...

Maher: And they did.

Ruffini: ...and instead, you know, we were basically... when Obama got in we were going to put all the politics over at the DNC, get it out of the White House...

Alter: Who said that?

Ruffini: ...and then you have Rahm Emanuel...

Maher: But that's not really... now wait a second. That's not really (crosstalk) that's not really a good analogy. Firing the federal prosecutors, okay, a federal prosecutor, a non-political job with a very important function, okay? This is, this is politics. This is people on your own team. This is one Democrat saying to another Democrat, "Maybe you'd be better over here and we'll elect this guy"...

Alter: Patrick your man Ronald Reagan about twenty years ago, his political director Ed Rollins actually bragged in the newspaper that they were trying to get Senator Hayakawa from CA to not run for reelection by offering him a federal job. It's just, to politicize, to criminalize politics is insane. (crosstalk)

Ruffini: But Obama had held himself up to a higher standard I think during his campaign.

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Peggy Noonan, as Bob Shrum rightfully points out, attempts a bit of history revisionism with her defense of the poor downtrodden Robert Bork and the reasons he was not confirmed for a position on the Supreme Court.

NOONAN: Mm-hmm. Look, I think that since the Bork hearings it has been very hard for young lawyers who want to go forward in the judiciary to realize anything but this. If you are colorful, if you are interesting, if you are forthcoming and share your thoughts and philosophy and views on the way up, when you get to your confirmation hearing for the court, they will put a noose around your head, hanging you with every interesting thing you've ever said. I, I happen to think the Senate Judiciary Committee has not done a good job of vetting and bringing out the thoughts of, of Supreme Court nominees for a long time. I think they should change. Let those nominees be forthcoming, let them speak. And I think this whole sense we've got that you can't say anything interesting on the way up ought to just go away. Oliver Wendell Holmes today would not be allowed on the U.S. Supreme Court because he said such fabulous, interesting things.

SHRUM: He wouldn't have, he wouldn't have to have a confirmation hearing, Peggy, because they didn't have them in those days.

NOONAN: Well, fair enough. Fair enough. But we do have them now, and they ought to summon thought, and they ought to respect individuality and taking a different view, and creativity, frankly.

SHRUM: Well, look, here's what should...

NOONAN: Those things shouldn't kill you.

Yeah...colorful and interesting. That's not exactly how I'd describe him. Here's an op-ed from People For the American Way back in 1987 explaining the reasons for their opposition to his appointment and defending this ad narrated by Gregory Peck.

BORK HEARINGS SHOWED HOW DEMOCRACY WORKS; A Very Small Poll Tax:

To the Editor:

You say (''Who Torpedoed Judge Bork?'' editorial, Oct. 13) that the critical factor in the opposition to confirmation of Robert H. Bork as an associate justice of the Supreme Court was the merits as ''ventilated in fair, exhaustive, sometimes brilliant hearings.'' We agree and are proud of the role People for the American Way played, with others, in contributing information and ideas to the debate.

But you also say there were ''exaggerations'' in an ad narrated by Gregory Peck and produced by our group to educate the public about Judge Bork's record. We disagree.

At Robert Bork's confirmation hearing to be Solicitor General, he defended the poll tax struck down in Harper v. Virginia, saying, ''It was a very small tax, it was not discriminatory, and I doubt that it had much impact on the welfare of the nation one way or the other.'' In his 1987 confirmation hearing, he held firm to this view, stating, ''It was just a $1.50 poll tax'' (committee print draft, page 129).

Judge Bork's statements on literacy tests are also a defense of their use -he characterized the decisions upholding Congressional authority to ban literacy tests as ''very bad, indeed pernicious, constitutional law.'' Under his theory, the courts and Congress would be prevented from taking any action, and the only remedy would be through constitutional amendment. While Judge Bork recognizes that the Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable searches and seizures, one form of a right of privacy, at his confirmation hearing he reiterated his long-held view opposing an unenumerated right, ''I do not have available a constitutional theory which would support a general defined right'' of privacy (print draft, page 266).

Judge Bork was not running for the legislature; he sought a lifetime seat on our nation's court of last resort. We have no reason to believe, and we did not suggest, that as a legislator he would vote to enact a poll tax. Judge Bork's statements clearly indicate, however, that as a judge, he would defend a state legislature's ability to enact a poll tax. It is on his judicial philosophy, not his personal preferences, that his nomination must be judged. JOHN H. BUCHANAN ARTHUR J. KROPP Washington, Oct. 13, 1987 The writers are, respectively, chairman and executive director of People for the American Way.

Shrum did a nice job of making those points during the segment. Full transcript via MSNBC below the fold.

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Man did Joe Scarborough drink himself a heavy dose of Cheney Kool-Aid before this Monday's show. After hearing Liz toss out the idea of her daddy running in 2012 on Fox News Sunday the day before, Scarborough argues that Cheney running would be a wonderful idea and that no one could take him on in a debate. Jonathan Alter points out that the Bush administration was not exactly popular with the American public but that doesn't seem to phase Scarborough one bit. He wants Cheney out there fear mongering for the GOP and says at much at the end of the clip.

Rough transcript:

Scarborough: By the way I'm glad she did that because I have been pressing, by the way the buttons for like a couple of months-Cheney 2012.

Brzezinski: (laughter)

Scarborough: What's so funny?

Brzezinski: Ah...just the thought...makes me a little tired. That's all I'm going to say.

Scarborough: Tired in a way like you're going to be so excited and you can almost sense the confetti falling in your hair? I know you're excited about it too.

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Chris Matthews and his panel of Joan Walsh and Jonathan Alter talk about the Republicans' bad case of A.D.D. where they're already carping that the Democrats had better not use Ted Kennedy's death to push through health care/insurance reform. Heaven forbid what's good for Ronnie Raygun might be good for Ted Kennedy as well.

Matthews: Let me ask you about this attempt at foot steps here on the part of the right to interrupt this in a way, I called them ghouls a few minutes ago..

Walsh: Yeah.

Matthews: ..ah, grave robbers. They're trying to get into this story by saying the Democrats are going to do a "win one for the Gipper"...well do me if Audie Murphy served this country and was fighting for us, we'd say, well let's try to do something as well. Let's try to be equally courageous.

If somebody dies in a battle you say, let's try to carry it on, carry the banner forward. That seems to be very, American. They're turning that on the right as some kind of "well, you'd better not try that".

Alter: We've seen this before. The year was 1964. John F. Kennedy has been assassinated and Lyndon Johnson said let's pass the Civil Rights Act as a memorial to the slain president.

Matthews: Let it continue.

Walsh: Right.

Alter: And the right wing at that time said that it was inproper. The bill was passed and Ted Kennedy told me once that it was one of the top three accomplishments of the United States Senate in you know, all the years that he was there in the Civil Rights Act of '64.

Walsh: Well of course it was and you know passing a great health reform bill would be another signature accomplishment and he deserves it. And no one's dictating what should be in the bill, but to accuse, to say that's playing politics is just ridiculous. That is what the man stood for.

Matthews: Isn't it funny that people have memories that are so slight. The A.D.D. that overcomes them? Not in a clinical or medical sense, but just in a political sense. How many times in our lives in the last twenty or so years have you heard the phrase "win one for the Gipper"?

Walsh: Right.

Matthews: It's hilarious. It's a hoot, and now they're saying "don't do what we do".