Even the media is starting to call out republicans over their seriously ridiculous protests against President Obama--who dared to give a back to school speech to the children. Usually the teabagger brigade compares Obama to Hitler or a socialist, but Joe Watkins (former Bush 41 guy) came up with a new and even more stupid argument than usual. Parents can't compete with his charisma----ergo he shouldn't speak to the kids. Huh?

Watkins: This president is not an ordinary president. He's one of the most gifted speakers that the world has ever seen. He's gifted, he's charismatic and when he speaks he speaks with tremendous authority and great conviction and with tremendous persuasion. And it's one thing to talk to adult who maybe have the ability to discern between right or wrong or whether they agree or disagree. The challenge becomes the parents when he talks to their kids about the present, he's so persuasive, he's campaigning for the hearts and minds of the kids. Today's speech was fine....but what moms and dads are afraid of is that what happens when kids who can't distinguish what moms or dads can when the Defense of Marriage is repealed or the act comes up to...

Dr. Nancy: Joe, Joe, he didn't slip, there was no gotcha in this speech, you know that, there was nothing like that here.

Watkins: No, but we know they'll be other times when the president will make very strong and compelling arguments for issues that moms and dads don't agree with.

Usually, this would be the perfect trait that American appreciate in a president, so he could be a positive influence on the kids of America. Telling them that cutting class and to study hard is what they need to hear, but not to republicans. And Watkins turns it into a gay bashing segment. Is Joe saying that the president will schedule a speech to school kids in favor and talk about the Defense of Marriage Act? Is he kidding me? Even Chuck Todd looked at Watkins like he had an alien brain.

Todd: Joe, it sounds like you're worried the president's going to be too popular with kids. I guess...is that the concern that if he were less charismatic you'd be OK with him speaking to children?

Watkins: No, not at all....he's so popular and persuasive that parents don't want to compete with that

Say, what? Liar, liar, Watkins' pants are on fire. As long as the president is conservative then that president can speak to the kids every single day. I'm waiting for conservatives to ban their children from ever watching an Obama speech or interview. Republicans have become freaks since they've let the teabaggers take over their party.

(The Shoes of Billy Sol Estes - no doubt the Alligator had other plans.)

What had to be one of the biggest scandals of the 1960's centered around one Billy Sol Estes whose influence and fraud wandered through many high places in Washington, allegedly all the way up to the office of Lyndon Johnson. Estes was the subject of a Senate Sub-committee investigation on political corruption which led to a startling number of discoveries and an even more startling number of "suicides" in the process. Although Estes was convicted of fraud and corruption charges and sentenced to prison, his conviction was overturned by a Supreme Court decision that ruled the massive amount of publicity the investigation garnered made a fair trial impossible.

Still, the allegations were serious enough about LBJ to force Kennedy to consider dropping him as running mate in 1964. And he probably would have, had fate not intervened.

On July 2, 1962, at the height of the investigation, ABC's long-running Sunday talk show Issues and Answers featured a dialogue between Texas Attorney General Will Wilson and Senator Edmund Muskie, who was a member of the Senate Subcommittee investigating the Estes scandal.

(Sen. Sam Irvin (left) - Bill Sol Estes (right))

Mary Matalin thinks having a few more "conviction conservatives" like Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh out there would be a winning formula for the GOP in future elections. I wonder if she actually thought this one through ahead of time.

I don't think it bodes well for Republicans to be using phrases which include the word convict and Dick Cheney or Rush Limbaugh in the same sentence. The only thing that magnifies for me is a reminder that if they were both treated like most Americans who aren't rich or well connected, they would both have already served some time in prison.

KING: So, James, what do the Republicans need to end this personality, Rush versus this guy? They need an election, I guess.

CARVILLE: Yeah they do. And, you know, my friend and my mentor Mark Shields once said that political parties are like churches. Figure out what party is trying to drive out the heretics and which party is trying to get the converts. And all of the people that they drive out that they say are heretics, we're glad to take them as converts.

And I think that's part of the problem here is, I'm not the member of a movement, I'm the member of a political party that I'm glad to say that embraces people of some different ideologies and tries to get things done.

And the Republicans, right now, consider themselves -- a lot of them consider themselves part of a movement more than a part of the Republican Party. Senator Jim DeMint said he would rather have 30 real conservatives than 52 -- or 51 that are not that conservative.

As one commentator very briefly observed that if they continue their policies, he'd be lucky to have 30. I think they're going through a time where they're trying to figure out what they are and they have some that want to start up an inquisition and they have some that want to start up a -- you know, a bunch of missionaries. We'll see which way it goes.

MATALIN: John, if we had 30 good conviction conservatives, they'd have a magnifying force. Look what Dick Cheney has done in just a couple of weeks with one strong cogent voice.

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