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When news came that Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I looked at my husband and said, "just watch, the wingnuts will lose it over this." And sure enough, I was right. But what threw me for a loop was how nakedly partisan CBS's Chip Reid was in attacking Obama for having the audacity to win the Nobel Prize, something even the great St. Ronnie didn't do:

REID: I mean, most Democrats have praised it, and most Republicans have said, you have got to be kidding me -- Ronald Reagan didn't get one, but Barack Obama, nominated 12 days after he was sworn in, gets a Nobel Peace Prize. And the fear among some, even some Democrats, is that this is going to widen the partisan divide and make things even more difficult to accomplish on every front.

Really? Even more difficult than reflexively fighting *every* *single* Obama agenda item now? How is that possible?

It's touching, isn't it, to hear Chip Reid's concern that this will widen the partisan divide? After all, past winners have included Al Gore and Jimmy Carter...obviously the Nobel committee loves them some Democrats.

But here's the thing that all these insulated Beltway Villagers continually forget: Outside of DC, life is more than Republican vs. Democrat, something that Gibbs gently tries to suggest to Reid:

GIBBS: I'll leave the pundicizing to the pundits. The notion that somehow this is going to more greatly divide America, you know, I think it should be mandatory that pundits spend a certain amount of their days each year outside of the friendly confines of the viewership of the Washington, D.C., media market.

Of course, that goes right over Reid's head. For Reid, this is all about dismissing the Nobel committee -- in Norway, mind you, and not subject to the mind-numbing partisan reduction that Reid seems to breathe as oxygen -- as some liberal organization. He just can't get his head wrapped around the fact the Ronald Reagan -- the man who ended the Cold War! -- was never awarded the Peace Prize. As my friend, Steve Benen says:

A few thoughts here. First, when White House correspondents from major news outlets start sounding like members of Grover Norquist's "We Love Reagan" fan club, it's not a positive development.

Second, the notion that Reagan "helped bring the Cold War to an end" is, at best, a dubious proposition.

Actually, I think Chip Reid is unintentionally letting us into his psyche more than he realizes. He's continually been a go-to guy for Republican talking points for years. He routinely criticizes Democrats for things he lets pass by Republicans and uncritically passes on Republican attacks without context or fact-checking. And here again, he mouths the GOP mentality.

But think about it: if the Nobel Peace Prize only supports liberal causes, isn't Chip Reid admitting that peace is liberal? Then we need never look to conservatives again, because they will never bring peace. Right, Chip?

Transcript below the fold

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Chip Reid is taking the mantle of the head zombie press pool reporter for CBS. Fresh off his vitriolic, "Democrats also raising their ugly heads, but ahh, on the hill," comment, he now is Dick Cheney's new defender on the Hill.

Robert Gibbs was responding to a question posed by CNN's Ed Henry about Cheney's attacks on Obama, Robert compared Dick to Rush Limbaugh.

Gibbs: Well, I guess Rush Limbaugh was busy," Gibbs said, prompting of the reporters to laugh out loud. "So they trotted out their next-most popular member of the Republican cabal.

That's when Chipper Reid saw an opening for his hackery about Cheney.

Reid: Can I ask you, when you referred to the former Vice President, that was a really hard-hitting, kind of sarcastic response you had. This is a former Vice President of the United States. Is that the attitude -- is that the sanctioned tone toward the former Vice President of the United States from this White House now?

Gibbs: Sometimes I ask forgiveness rather than for permission, Chip. But no, I hope my sarcasm didn't mask the seriousness of the answer with which I addressed Ed -- that for seven-plus years, the very perpetrators that the Vice President says he's concerned about weren't brought to justice.

Yes Chip, that's the sanctioned tone from just about every American about Dick Cheney. He just came out on CNN with John King, who is quickly moving into FOX News territory and said the Obama administration is making America less safe and with regards to our economy he said: "stuff happens."

Get it? He's one of the most reprehensible politicians of our times. He's among those most responsible for the Iraq war and all the slime and torture that came out of the Bush administration. He used the fear card at every turn, hijacked every agency and issue he could get his hands on from Bush -- including his secret "energy cabal" meeting -- and now we're hearing about that assassination ring he ran out of the White House.

So how is Gibbs supposed to talk about this man? The press room is not the Senate.

Tell us how you really feel? Chip Reid was questioning Robert Gibbs during a presser today about how far transparency will go in the administration and as he switched topics to health care, he characterized Kent Conrad's worries about health care spending like this....

Reid: Democrats also raising their ugly heads, but ahh, on the hill. Kent Conrad, actually he's a very handsome man"

That was just a bowl of laughs, Chip. Do you believe he would have said the same about Republicans during a presser?

(h/t Jon)

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I just loves me some Paul Krugman. In a just world, a man of his credentials (hello?!?! Nobel Prize in Economics?) would have far more weight than the bozos on the business channels still touting Friedman economics as the iceberg crashes into the bow and the water rises to their necks. But sadly, the media still gives equal weight to the failed policies that got us in this predicament as if the recession occurred in some vacuum, devoid of any consequences of the Republicans hard-on for "free" market de-regulation.

Guest host Chip Reid asks Krugman if the recession is actually a blessing in disguise, because it opens the door for a 21st Century New Deal. Krugman agrees, but only if we let go of the myth of "bipartisan agreement":

He’s [..] not going to get bipartisan consensus. He may be able to get some moderate Republicans votes. He may be able to get the moderate Republicans in the Senate – both of them -- to go…vote with the Democrats. The point is, you look at what John Boehner is doing in the House right now, the House Republican Leader. He’s dead set against doing anything constructive right now. He’s actually soliciting on his website, saying if there are any credentialed economists who are willing to you know, say negative things about stimulus plans, please contact me. So no, it’s not going to be bipartisan, in the sense that leaders of both parties are going to get together. Reaching out across the aisle, trying to find some sensible people on the Republican side is not the same thing.

I find it hilarious that after all of the petty partisanship of the last eight years that somehow it's incumbent upon the Democrats to be the grown-ups in Washington and reach across the aisle. Where was all the talk in the media circles of bipartisanship for the last eight years? Is it that the media knows that Republicans aren't mature enough to do so? And where, in all their history, have the Republicans shown themselves to be able to do anything for the good of the country instead of their party, as Krugman so aptly describes?

Krugman is dead on right. There will be no bipartisan consensus. The Republicans' agenda will be to obstruct and hobble as much of the Obama plans as possible to regain the majority in 2010 with the argument that the Democrats couldn't do anything. Boehner has all but admitted it. So let's let go of the notion of "bipartisanship" and get the majorities necessary to get things done.

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I try very hard to be tolerant of others' beliefs. I don't pretend to have all the answers and I certainly don't want to begrudge others answers that work for them. However, I draw the line at the whole false equivalence of the Intelligent Design/Evolution argument. In fact, even though I recognize it goes against the Constitution, I'm not sure that shouldn't be a test for elected office: If you feel that the idea of Intelligent Design (which can not be proven in any kind of scientific way) should be taught alongside with evolution (which is as much a theory as gravity is), then you do not belong in a position where you can make that decision.

Which makes Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal all that more frightening for being on the short list for the Republican Veepstakes. On Face the Nation, Jindal tells guest host Chip Reid that even though we should teach our kids at the highest levels of science, it's wrong to "withhold" from them the concept of Intelligent Design.

As a parent, when my kids go to schools, when they go to public schools, I want them to be presented with the best thinking. I want them to be able to make decisions for themselves. I want them to see the best data. I personally think that the life, human life and the world we live in wasn't created accidentally. I do think that there's a creator. I'm a Christian. I do think that God played a role in creating not only earth, but mankind. Now, the way that he did it, I'd certainly want my kids to be exposed to the very best science. I don't want them to be--I don't want any facts or theories or explanations to be withheld from them because of political correctness. The way we're going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also let them contribute to that body of knowledge.

Really? Should we also let students "decide" on whether the theory of gravity makes more sense to them than the notion of a benevolent God moving us around on puppet strings? Does that contribute to the body of scientific knowledge?

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Stevens broke down after his latest attempt to drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge was defeated. Ted tried to use the defense spending bill to force through a home-state oil drilling provision.

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Stevens: "This has been the saddest day of my life It's a day I don't want to remember, and I'm sorry to see it come to an end -cause I am drawing a line with a lot of people I've worked with before. I really am--I say goodbye to the Senate tonight. Thank you very much."

Chip Reid notes: "Our senate producer stayed here until the wee hours last night to try to find out if senator stevens was saying he was going to resign. Ken asked are you coming back? Stevens said, quote, 'I don't know."

The MSNBC host felt so bad for Ted at the end of the segment that he said: "It has been his life for many years."

I guess he shouldn't have tried the slimy act of attaching his provision onto the defense spending bill.

Digby writes:

Because the beltway press corps has conditioned itself to respond only to Republicans. They've trained themselves not take Democrats seriously, either the rank and file who inconvenience them with e-mails they do not want to read, or the leadership they simply disdain. Unpopularity obligates them to criticize Bush at least mildly, but the relief they feel when his numbers edge up a bit is palpable. They don't seem to know this about themselves.