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Republicans will tell everyone Social Security is completely deficient, that it's running a 'deficit'. In fact, that isn't the case. What is happening right now has been expected for decades and was planned for in the 1980, when Social Security reforms were passed under Ronald Reagan. Social Security has the largest surplus of any government program and is projected to fully fund 100% of all benefits due now and in the future until 2037. But Republicans are seizing on a known fact to demonize it.

Here's a snippet from the transcript:

KUTTNER: Let's separate out social security. Social security is going to be in surplus for the next 27 years. Social security has nothing to do with the budget deficit.

WALKER: That is just false. That is false. Social security is running a cash flow deficit. It is adding to the deficit. It will be in a permanent cash flow deficit starting in 2015. That is just false.

KUTTNER: I'm sorry. It is not false.

WALKER: I'm a trustee. I know what the numbers are.

KUTTNER: So do I.

WALKER: Okay.

KUTTNER: This commission was charged with -- the report says social security has nothing to do with the current deficit and the cuts are not going to take effect for decades. I don't know why social security is part of this at all except ideological opposition to the whole idea.

If Social Security were a private pension plan, it would be funded to a surplus in the early years with the goal of leveling out costs in later years. This gives a funding curve that's fairly level, much like a loan amortization schedule. In the case of pensions, part of the payment goes to the present, and part to the future. It's not a private pension plan, and is funded a bit differently, but the underlying principle is the same.

Kuttner is right. Social Security is not part of the problem. Medicare is, but the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act begins to deal with the Medicare problem. The only reason to attack Social Security is ideological -- to kill it altogether.

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Poor little Clenis-obsessed Tweety. Bill Clinton rocked his world yesterday by saying that he had always been against the Iraq invasion. Now whether that is true is somewhat debatable, because my own Lexis search didn't turn up anything that would indicate that, although he certainly has expressed it in the years since. Certainly at the time of the invasion (can you say "freedom fries"?), the wingnuts would have gone crazy had a former president spoken out against the current administration. But that doesn't matter to Chris Matthews, he can't believe that Bill Clinton would be rewriting history.

Well, with this flim-flam coming out about Bill Clinton , I just don't know what to say. I have finally been mastered by Bill Clinton. I finally don't think I can match him for chutzpah. It's a good Yiddishism for the ability to say something absolutely ridiculous.

Really, how dare anyone attempt anything as utterly ridiculous as rewriting pre-Iraq invasion history?

If this doesn't prove Tweety's right wing tool-osity consider this: Hardball did make a passing reference to Rove's unbelievably audacious interview with Charlie Rose, but spent five whole minutes over two segments on the betrayal by Bill Clinton, who it must be said, did NOT occupy the White House at the time of the invasion.

I so wish I was just being snarky. Atrios found this from the Charlie Rose Show:

I am so horrified by this macho over-compensation manifesting itself as foreign policy that I must again ask, when you say something so heinous, so egregious, so over-the-top offensive, why in the HELL are you allowed a continued place on the national platform?

I think that Tom "F.U." Friedman and the NYTimes public editor deserve to have you ask them that question, don't you? Otherwise, I'm thinking that maybe we should take up a collection to send Tom to Basra (no Kevlar vest in the Green Zone, guarded by 100 troops and Blackhawk helicopters for him) and let him go door to door and see how the Iraqis left would respond.

David Brooks: "O'Reilly (equals) Clownishness"

O'Reilly has material for his next talking points memo. David Brooks was on Charlie Rose and answered a question about Bill by saying:

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Rose: Well I see people like Bill O'Reilly just attacking secularism saying that's the great----danger-

Brooks: well- he's doing a show-

Rose: Right

Brooks:That's clownishness...

Time to put together another FOX poll, Bill. David Brooks has just joined the ranks of the angry left and smear websites. Welcome aboard Bobo.

Arthur Sultzberger's Entanglement

Arthur appeared on Charlie Rose and fell on his sword for Judy. He threw the previous editor's under the bus over weapons of mass destruction.

Arthur: I Think it's fair to say that those stories would not have run in the New York Times today.---That the WMD coverage that we ran would not have appeared in the paper today the way it did.

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Arthur: She's become too entangled with the story. She knew it, we knew it.

Watch what you say Arthur! Judy might have been listening. Maybe Charlie missed that reference?

Rose: What does "too entangled" mean?

Next question please.

Arthur: I shouldn't have used the word "entangled."

Yea-you should have!

George Clooney challenges Bill O'Reilly

On Charlie Rose, George was talking about the Daily Show, Fitzgerald and a few other topics when he threw down the glove and demanded a duel with Bill. (I'm overstating it as you can see from the video, but Clooney is up for the debate) Rose said that Falafel Bill called him up.

Rose: Bill calls me up and I told Clooney-neutral ground-Charlie Rose...

Clooney: No, he's never said that.

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Clooney then said: "Anytime anywhere...I'll be happy to debate all those issues..

George then wondered why Bill settled his case with Andrea Mackris. Will O'Reilly debate Clooney? I'd like to see that. There's more here and from Night Light.. Bill is hiding from Media Matters-so who knows.

Viggo Mortensen on Charlie Rose

Viggo hammered the Bush administration Friday night on Charlie's show. His arguments were well thought out and sincere whether you agreed with him or not.

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I didn't know that he was that politically engaged.

James Wolcott

Forget it. Fineman will never obtain a lasting clue about anything. His translucent shell of professional narcissism is impregnable.

Monday morning I saw him on Chris Matthews' weekly show--the one where Matthews doesn't sound as if he's bouncing off the walls of his own brain--and Fineman was talking about the excitement on the Democratic side. He said that thousands were turning up at rallies all "pumped up."

"Are they pumped up about Kerry?" he asked. "No. His job is to come across as normal and acceptable to--"

At which point I changed channels.

First of all, how does Fineman know the crowds aren't pumped up for Kerry? Did he attend these rallies? Did he ask anyone? No, he's assuming, as most of the media elite do, that no one could possibly be "up" for a Kerry event because the media narrative is that Kerry is a stiff hunk of bark.

As reflected in Adam Nagorney telling Charlie Rose that heck he has more charisma than poor Kerry.

Really, Adam? You think you could hold the interest of 12,000 people, as Kerry did at a recent rally in Reno, Nevada?

You're the kind of putz people walk away from at cocktail parties!

Forgive me for shouting, but this stuff burns my waffles. It's the same junk we heard from Chris Matthews' crew and all the other clique queens in the press about Al Gore as Gore was wowing crowds and closing in for the kill in 2000.

That's why Jon Stewart's takedown of Tucker Carlson was greeted with gratitude and joy everlasting.

Russ talks to Charlie Rose about his censure motion.
(Click here for the video)

Feingold: "The President got out and said basically, "tough luck," I'm going to do what ever I want to do here, whether it's within the law or not. That to me demands a response and I decided that we had to look at the possibility of letting the President know on the record, that what he has done here is illegal and wrong. And that's why I proposed censure."

Way to go Russ. That's holding Bush's feet to the fire and exposing the Republicans for supplying that good old fashioned-rubber stamp of approval that he's been used to since 2000. They might hoot and holler occasionally, but when push comes to shove they side with Bush every time when it matters most. Even PNAC's Bill Kristol agrees. Who would have thunk it?

Update: Digby has more of the transcript:

"How can we be afraid at this point, of standing up to a president who has clearly mismanaged this Iraq war, who clearly made one of the largest blunders in American foreign policy history? How can it be that this party wants to stand back and allow this kind of thing to happen? And then add to that the idea that the president has clearly broken the law --- and a number of Republican senators have effectively admitted that, by saying "you know, we need this program so let's make it legal,"- so they are admitting it's illegal.

The idea that Democrats don't think it's a winning thing to say that we will stand up for the rule of law and for checking abuse of power by the executive --- I just can't believe that Democrats don't think that isn't something, not only that we can win on, but it does, in fact, make the base of our party, which is so important, feel much better about the Democrats...read on