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From this Saturday's The Chris Matthews Show, it seem the Villagers believe the Obama campaign is going to quit going after Mitt Romney on the issue of his taxes once the Republican convention rolls around. I'm not sure why they would do that but that was the consensus here.

After discussing how poor old Mittens was somehow “baited” into discussing his tax returns last week during his little whiteboard fiasco and the fact that the Obama campaign has been happy to keep the discussion on Romney's taxes going, Chuck Todd weighed in with this statement on how long that discussion might go on:

TODD: But it seems to me like we're getting to an expiration date.

COOPER: I think so. Don't you? (crosstalk)

GARRETT: Cayman Islands, Bermuda and Swiss bank accounts. That's one year of tax returns. The Democrats look at five or ten years and say, whoa... (crosstalk).

TODD: Kelly, don't (inaudible) thinks, if I get to the convention...

O'DONNELL: That they'll move on.

TODD: They'll move on.

Quite a far cry from Todd's colleague Rachel Maddow and her reporting last week: Maddow: Romney’s history shows he’s willing to lie about his taxes:

Friday night on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” host Rachel Maddow said that presumptive Republican nominee Gov. Mitt Romney (R-MA) has, if precedent is any guide, given us no reason to take his word on the subject of his refusal to disclose his tax returns. In fact, he has given voters rather the opposite. [...]

Romney said that when he looked back over his tax returns from the last ten years, he found that he had never paid less than 13 percent of his earnings and that we’re just going to have to trust him on that. However, Maddow said, in 2002 when Romney was running for governor of Massachusetts, it was demanded of him that he release tax returns to demonstrate a residency in that state of at least seven years. Romney refused and insisted that the public take his word for it.

Eventually it came out that Romney had lied. He was forced to pay Massachusetts taxes retroactively, because when he said that the public would have to take his word that he had paid taxes for seven years as a Massachusetts resident, it simply wasn’t true.

Now he wants us to take his word that he has paid at least 13 percent of his massive income over the last 10 years in taxes. Why should we take him at face value? He has demonstrated a willingness to prevaricate on this very subject in his career as a public figure.

So why would the Obama campaign drop this issue? I'm not sure when they taped this show and if it was before or after his interview with NPR, but as of this Friday, Major Garrett claimed he'd never even heard about the issue with the tax returns from 1999-2001 and the issue in Massachusetts. You can read more details about that here: Ex-Fox's Major Garrett: Never Knew Romney Caught Lying On 1999-2001 Tax Returns.

My guess on Todd's hackery here is this is what we're going to hear out of him once the convention rolls through. This is an old issue and it's time to move on. And he'll have plenty of help as well. Here's to hoping the Obama campaign ignores him and so far this election season, I'm happy to say they've been doing a lot of that and ignoring the cries by the beltway Villagers.

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The panel on The Chris Matthews Show this weekend engaged in a debate that we've been hearing all over by the media, which is whether the Obama campaign would be better off portraying Mitt Romney as a flip flopper who has been on every side of the issues, or as a "severe conservative" which is the angle it appears they have chosen to take now.

Most of them agreed that the flip flopper angle could actually help Mitt Romney because it allows voters to believe that if elected, Romney might actually govern as some sort of "moderate." Sadly what is ignored during this debate is just what the media defines as "moderate" these days, which has moved so far to the right it's absolutely ridiculous. Just because Romney once professed to be pro-choice, or because he supported a center-right health care plan in his state, that doesn't mean he did not govern as a conservative in Massachusetts.

And other than Chris Matthews who hinted at it when talking about how John Boehner has been reined in by his base as Speaker of the House and forced to move to the extreme right, the panel mainly ignored the fact that if we're unfortunate enough to have Romney elected, his base and the Congress are going to keep a tight rein on him and he's going to govern from the far right no matter how much he tries to soften some of his rhetoric on the campaign trail.

The Republican Party has purged anyone that could remotely be considered an actual moderate from their ranks a long time ago. Romney has been running as an extremist in order to placate his base and get through the primary race. I cannot picture him pushing back at that base or at the extremists in his party in the Congress if he's elected and has any desire to be reelected.

The arguments about the flip flopper benefiting him only work if you ignore what's happened to the Republican Party and the constraints that would be put on him as president by his party were he elected.

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Here's an example of why no Democrat or President Obama should ever look to the likes of someone like Michael Gerson for advice on what makes for good campaign messaging. While discussing President Obama now campaigning on raising taxes on the rich, here was some of Gerson's input after Chris Matthews asked him whether he thought it would hurt or help the president in the upcoming election, given that he's “now seen as the guy taking sides against the rich, he says aren't paying taxes.”

GERSON: I'll tell you what. I think the problem is not that he's being to harsh on the rich. I think the problem is he's being irrelevant to the only debate in American politics, which is growth and job creation. He had an anemic plan he brought forward that was largely recycled stuff and then even swamped that plan with now class warfare rhetoric.

People are concerned with Europe in economic decline, with the possibility of a second dip of an American recession. How do we get growth back in this economy? The president's not even speaking to this issue.

After some of the panel acknowledging that anything President Obama has proposed to try to get our economy back on track has been knocked down by Republicans and Chris Matthews talking about how some fairness in our tax system has finally gotten the progressive base animated and supportive of what they're hearing from the president, Matthews went to his “Matthews Meter” for the week, the question being whether “tax the rich” will get Obama votes in 2012. Three of them agreed that it was a smart move that were on the panel this week. Naturally, Gerson disagreed and then pulled out the angry black man card, or if not that, at least the heaven forbid anyone should be angry about the real class warfare we've seen waged on the poor and middle class card.

GERSON: But I think Obama's basic problem here, political problem, is changing his narrative completely. He ran the last time as the candidate of hope, inclusion, progress. Now he's running as the candidate of anger and redistribution. That's not a particularly good Democratic message.

As Andrew Sullivan rightfully pointed out, a large part of the reason the president has finally resorted to just calling out Republicans instead of continuing to try to work with them was because Republicans have obstructed everything President Obama has tried to do and he can't keep running on the meme of bipartisanship because he “looks like Lucy with the football.”

Can I just say amen to Andrew Sullivan here with that statement and for pointing out to Gerson how ridiculous it is to say that President Obama should continue to pretend that Republicans are ever going to work with him on anything. Most of us on the left have been tired of the President continuing to pretend like the Republicans were not the obstructionists they obviously showed themselves to be quite a long time ago, but Gerson apparently thinks it's still worth beating that dead horse here.

Note to Michael Gerson. It's exactly a good Democratic message that we've got horrible income disparity in the United States and asking the rich to pay their fair share and a call for some “shared sacrifice” is a message any Democratic candidate should be running on rather than asking for more austerity measures and tax breaks for the rich, which is apparently the Republican's only plan to supposedly create jobs.

The Republicans' economic policies are nothing but a race to the bottom for what's left of our dwindling middle class and American workers and Gerson's message here pretty well resonates with one group of people, and that's the far right of the Republican Party. And they're not going to do anything to help President Obama get reelected no matter what he says on the campaign trail.

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You’ve got to love this one. Chris Matthews on his weekend show put it to his “Matthews Meter” and asked his regulars if “serious candidate” Haley Barbour “can run as a Southern alternative [to Barack Obama] without appearing racially insensitive?”

And what was their overwhelming response? By 11 to 1 they said yes he can. Howard Fineman took the first turn out of the box defending Barbour.

MATTHEWS: Howard, you said he can get away with that sort of geographic appeal and Southern boy appeal without raising the old American problem.

FINEMAN: Well, he can’t just get away with it, he can do it, but he’s got to be careful. There is no margin for error. And he’s made a couple of pre-season errors here in some of his comments about how the controversy in Virginia over black history month didn’t mean diddly…

MATTHEWS: Confederate month…

FINEMAN: Confederate month didn’t mean diddly, etc., etc.

MATTHEWS: The Citizens Councils were pretty cool…

FINEMAN: But well, I think he is playing to the Southern old boy vote, there’s no question about the good old boy vote, there’s no question. But I think he can do it in still try to sell himself to the rest of the country if he’s careful. I’ve covered him for years. I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a very smart guy and he’s doing what you advised in your book, Hardball, which is if you have a problem…

MATTHEWS: Hang a lantern on it…

FINEMAN: Hang a lantern on it… I was a lobbyist, and I was a darn good lobbyist.

Yeah, who cares that he was a lobbyist, or that he's paling around with the KKK CCC, or that he's tried to rewrite the Civil Rights movement in the South. Why would anyone care about any of that? This just reeks of the same treatment they gave George W. Bush as just some regular guy everybody "would like to have a beer with" when that was about the furthest thing from the truth.

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Looks like the Villagers are finally willing to admit that Sarah the grifter isn't running for anything other than trying to line her own pockets after the WTF moment on Fox News this week.

MATTHEWS: Wow… this brings us to our big question of the week, “Is Sarah Palin hurting Republican hopes of beating Obama?” Rick Stengel, just her whole manner, WTF, those people who use their Blackberries know what that means I guess.

STENGEL: You can’t say that on air right? Look, I think the White House, Democrats think that she’s hurting Republicans. They like the fact that there’s this kind of schism in the party. The thing that I find interesting about it and I don’t know if everybody agrees, its like, where’s her learning curve, right? I mean from the time she was nominated, the last couple of years you’d think she would become sort of more sophisticated about talking…

MATTHEWS: Do you think the curve is going the other way?

STENGEL: I don’t know. Maybe the people who like her don’t want her to have a learning curve. Maybe we are the only ones who do.

MATTHEWS: That is so smart.

MITCHELL: I don’t know if she’s hurting the Republican Party as a party. She’s hurting herself. She is really trivializing herself. She’s marginalizing herself. She’s not presidential and maybe it helps to sell books, but that hasn’t been the case actually in the last cycle. So I think she’s hurting herself and potentially other Republicans.

MATTHEWS: Does this square with running for president even? Does it square for being presidential, the doom comments that are sort of off color, the WTF, things like that.

COOPER: No it doesn’t, but I don’t think that this is necessarily about Sarah Palin being president. It’s much more about the Republican Party and what it does and I think, yes, to a certain extent. But I think the people who love Palin, love Palin and that’s not going to… you know… that’s not going to go away.

MATTHEWS: Bigger question, they put all these people up like Glenn Beck and her and Bachmann. They’re becoming sort of the spokes people, whether they like it… I think they do like it for their point of view. But does that hurt their chance of selling the American people that that point of view should rule the country?

HARRIS: Good for business for them but not good for the Republican Party. She’s not going to hurt the Republican Party long term Chris, because she’s not going to run. So the great 2011 preoccupation but by the fall I think it will be more a more serious race and she won’t be in it.

MATTHEWS: Will the people on the right accept that?

HARRIS: I think they will.

MATTHEWS: The disappearance of their heroes.

HARRIS: Look even among the Republican Party in polls they show that almost a majority don’t want her to run for president and think she’s not qualified.

MATTHEWS: Well said.

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You've just got to love this framing for Chris Matthews' first panel segment on his weekend bobble head show. Does President Obama have the "bedside manners" to tell the left they're not going to get a public option? How about this one instead Chris? Does President Obama have the "bedside manners" to tell anyone who wants to filibuster a public option to break out the cots and the Depends? How's that for a different lead in to this segment Chris? In case you didn't notice, it takes 51 votes to get something passed in the United States Senate, not 60. It's time for the Democrats to quit allowing these silent filibusters.

INTRO: Bedside manners--the time is coming when our Democratic President will have to break the bad news to his liberal supporters and have to tell them that they can't get the kind of health care bill on which they have set their hearts. Does he have the strong bedside manner to give them the bad news and still keep their spirits up?

[...]

MATTHEWS: Boy, Dan, this is a rock and a hard place. The liberals in the Congress are pushing and pushing, and the president has to face reality. He needs 60 senators, 218 members of the Congress.

Mr. DAN RATHER: Uh-huh.

MATTHEWS: Can both meet peacefully?

Mr. RATHER: No. The president isn't going to get a--the--what's been described as a public option. He may get something close to that, something he can camouflage up as if--he isn't going to get it. And this is going to take a long time, Chris. I wouldn't be surprised if we aren't talking about this same subject late into December. And there is the question of public fatigue. I think he will get a bill, I think it will be progress along the lines of health care reform, but he's going to need a health care reform number two. And whether he can get that in an election year of 2010 is a real open question.

MATTHEWS: Kelly, you cover it all the time, and my question is, can you square a circle? You've got people on the Republican side now, Olympia Snowe, who's aboard so far. Maybe Susan Collins, the other senator from Maine. Maybe, maybe. But you've also got Joe Lieberman of Connecticut saying, `I'm here for the--for the insurance industry of Hartford. I'm not going to be for this bill as it stands.'

Ms. KELLY O'DONNELL: Well, getting all the Democrats will be tough if you're talking about a government insurance plan. That is going to be difficult because not only Joe Lieberman, but there are a number of moderates. When you're talking about Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins, the Republican ladies of Maine who get a lot of attention, they're kind of--they're using their influence really effectively right now. They still can have a phone call with the president, a one-on-one meeting with the president, which most Republicans don't have any chance of having, and they're still also talking to Republicans, expressing concerns about what it would cost, how big the change would be, could government be competent to have this kind of a program. So they're keeping the conversation going. In the end you could see Snowe, you could see Collins joining on, but that might be crucial to get to 60 because you may lose some of the moderate Democrats.

MATTHEWS: Right. Well, that's what I don't get here. Helene, jump in here. I mean, you cover the White House. How in the world does this president deliver health care if the price is a public option, when so many people who will have to vote for this to pass are against it? I don't see how it works.

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Chris Matthews was off this week with Norah O'Donnell filling in so there is one good thing I can say about this week's show. None of the guests were interrupted or talked over. That said, check out this ridiculous "Matthews Meter" question. And six of their panelists thought the venom was partly Obama's fault, including Howard Fineman.

Once again driftglass nails this one in his post Sunday Morning Comin' Down -- "The Tell-Tweety Heart" (warning, not safe for work):

Epilogue:

While six of the "journalists" who make up the "Matthew's Meter" say, yes, the anti-Obama hatred was unavoidable, six say Obama partly brought it on himself.

Fineman: He didn’t talk to Main Street. He needs to spend every minute of every day constantly reassure crazy people on the Right that he doesn’t want to abort Sarah Palin's baby and shoot grandma in the head or turn Murrica into a Franco-Islamic Communist Caliphate. This is perhaps unfair, but after all, he is Black.

Jokeline: I was at some town meetings this summer, most recently in Arkansas. And this is an awful lot about race. And not just because of Obama’s name or skin color. If you’re working class white, you’re seeing Latinos and Asians.

driftglass: And bears. Oh my.

But why is this coming up now during a health care debate?

Jokeline: Because they’re being egged on by demagogues in the Republican Party. By Boss Rush Limbaugh. And I call him The Boss, because there is not a single, Republican elected official who is willing to call him out on his lies.

Cooper: Because there are a lot of White people – particularly in the South – who have just lost their s#%t over a Black man being President.

Fineman: Let me repeat it in case I was not condescending enough the first time – this White House needs to constantly kiss wingnut ass every way they can think of. Maybe it’s unfair, but after all, he is Black. Also he was forced to behave like a filthy, filthy Liberal to save the economy from crashing and burning, and the doublewide trailer crowd who his policies probably saved from living in refrigerator boxes and begging for nickels on freeway overpasses will never forgive him for it.

There's lots more at driftie's place. Go on over there and check out the entire post. I don't want to give too much of it away to spoil the fun, but I thought it was priceless.