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Ah, the bold hackery of This Week's Matthew Dowd, former Democrat and born-again Bush-Cheney campaign strategist! He regurgitates the exact same argument spewed by NRO's "The Corner" earlier this week about the Komen foundation and quickly replicated throughout the right-wing and corporate media: Namely, how dare those liberals try to bully the Komen Foundation out of giving money to whoever they choose?

DOWD: I think that this demonstrates -- to me demonstrates the corrupt nature that's happened in politics has now bled into the privates, but (inaudible) view as the private sector, which is...

STEPHANOPOULOS: What do you mean by that?

DOWD: That there is now -- a private foundation can give and dispense money any way it wants. It can choose to give money -- people could have said when they first gave the money to Planned Parenthood, was that a good idea? Nobody sort of screamed and yelled. But all of a sudden they say we're going to take $700,000 back of private donations, which most people that gave money to Susan Komen Foundation had no idea they were going to go to -- be going to Planned Parenthood.

And so now what we see in Congress, this bitter response any time somebody does something, everybody screams and yell. Whether or not Congress should be investigating Planned Parenthood we can have an argument over. I don't think they should be in the middle of that. But I don't think Planned...

(CROSSTALK)

STEPHANOPOULOS: ... who say this is democracy at work...

(CROSSTALK)

DOWD: I think this is a -- this is a corrupt, poisonous part of democracy at work. I think foundations should be able to make a decision, and if Planned Parenthood wants to go out and raise the money...

Ah, yes. The "corrupt, poisonous part of democracy." The part where the peasants finally rise up and say, "You want our money? Don't screw the organizations that do useful work." Boy, they really do hate it when the hoi polloi gets uppity, huh? The wingnuts blame the Komen backlash on "Big Abortion" because they're so very disconnected from the women who, at some point or another, know that Planned Parenthood was there for them when they needed help. I guess it's just unthinkable that a young girl needing birth control doesn't go with Mummy to Mummy's OB-GYN, and then it's off to a nice lunch where Mummy twinkles at her daughter over the quiche and salad while she hands over Nana's antique pearls: "Now that you're so grown up, it's time that you had these."

Or maybe Mummy's personal assistant drives Bitsy to the doctor because Mummy's out swilling gin with the rest of the Republican fundraisers. I'm not really sure how the upper classes live these days, but at least I know I'm just making things up. The talking heads of our corporate media? They so frequently confuse their fantasies with real life.

Honestly, there are so few nuggets of genuine wisdom in Washington that watching the Sunday talk-show hackery is a form of psychological torture. If only I could afford to throw a brick through my television! The only one who ever seems to notice the real stories behind the stage sets and dramatic speeches is Krugman, and no one listens to him but us DFHs.

Instead, we can sit back and listen to the Villagers explain that attacking the deficit is the biggest priority, that Obama has been governing from the left and not the center-right, and thank God he's back to the "center" (which is actually the right), and that the country voted for the Republicans because they wanted even more right-wing policies, not because they were frustrated by an administration who seemed to put their needs last.

Are we all clear now?

Here's the roundtable discussion from This Week with Christiane Amanpour:

AMANPOUR: That was President Obama delivering last year's State of the Union address. Welcome back. Joined again by our roundtable.

George, I know that you have a great, great regard for watching the State of the Union on television.

WILL: A, they're overrated. The next morning, the country is still a complex continental country with muscular interests (ph) and politics is its own momentum.

Between Jefferson and Woodrow Wilson, no one delivered this in person. They sent their report to Congress in writing. But now we've turned this into this panorama in which -- in an interminable speech, every president, regardless of party, tries to stroke every erogenous zone in electorate.

AMANPOUR: Oh, my goodness.

WILL: And it becomes a political pep rally, to use the phrase of Chief Justice Roberts last year. If it's going to be a pep rally, with the president's supporters or whatever party standing up and braying approval, and histrionic pouting on the part of the other, then it's no place for the judiciary, it's no place for the uniformed military, and it's no place for non-adolescent legislators.

BRAZILE: It's a once-a-year opportunity to talk to the American people to remind us who we are and where we're going. This is an opportunity for the president to use scripture to give us a vision, because the Bible says, without a vision, a people will perish, and we didn't have that over the last...

(CROSSTALK)

AMANPOUR: So what is the vision? Because now or never.

BRAZILE: It's about jobs. It's about rebuilding America, making America competitive and strong again, and taking care of all our issues, both on the domestic front, as well as international.

DOWD: To me, the State of the Union -- and I'll agree in part with George and disagree in part with George on this -- they don't affect the American public. If you look at like approval numbers going into State of the Unions over the last 35 years and coming out, they do not move the numbers. Even Ronald Reagan, who was lauded as one of the best communicators in the history of this country, never moved the American public.

Barack Obama, another great speaker, did very well in Tucson. In last year's State of the Union, didn't move the numbers. But what is important I think in this is for him to continue to connect the dots with the audience in the Capitol and the people that surround people in the Capitol that he is going to keep doing what he's been doing since Election Day.

It's not the event in itself that matters, but it's how -- the cumulative effect of it. And if he continues to, one, talk about jobs and the economy, and then tie to it an increase in making our discourse better and talking to each other across party lines, if he does those two things, he will continue to rise in the polls.

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I watch many of the Sunday talk shows, and have been doing so for over five years. My brain is developing soft tissue on my frontal lobe, and after viewing this week's installment, the damaged tissue is spreading fast.

If you tuned in to the Villagers, they practically called for Obama's resignation.

Digby and Heather noticed the same thing.

In case you were wondering, the consensus on all the Sunday gasbag shows is that Obama is an abject failure because of his radical leftist ideology and that his only hope of even maintaining the presidency, much less winning a second term is to take a sharp turn to the right and enact the Republican agenda. Several commentators, including such luminaries as political cross dresser Matthew Dowd on ABC, insisted that the first thing the president has to do is pick a huge fight with the Democrats to show the country that he isn't one of them. Cokie said he should have asked John McCain from the beginning what he was allowed to do.

The historians and expert political observers on Fareed Zakaria's CNN show all agreed that Obama is no Reagan, a president who never governed ideologically and always worked across party lines. Oh, and he needs to be a president or a prime minister, but nobody could agree on exactly what that means except that he should try to be more like Scott Brown, the white Barack Obama, except without all the liberalism.

Oddly, the Republicans weren't mentioned, although Robert Caro did note that Obama inherited something of a mess. Peggy Noonan said he ran to win not to govern and they all agreed that was a brilliant observation. Zakaria did point out that Obama had a higher approval rating at this stage than both Reagan and Clinton and that the two Bush's were higher at this point because of wars and they all stared for a moment and then went on about centrism and prime ministers again.

The Village has officially turned. I'm guessing they'll be calling for his resignation by July.

The Republicans can do no wrong. I'm not saying Axelrod has done a good job, but the conservatives filibustered everything they could. And then they lie about it. Mr. Waterloo shouldn't be allowed back on TV until he admits he lied.

OK, here's what he said:

And now he lies:

I'm waiting for the Beltway media elites to tell Obama that he must appoint a Republican to the White House so Obama can learn how to govern.

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Damn it, it's a center-right nation, and don't you forget it!

I swear to you that is the editorial slant taken by pretty much all the bobbleheads, but none so nakedly as This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Note the make up of the panel is basically four Republicans to one Democrat (with all their concern trolling, I generously figure that Brazile and Stephanopoulos together equal just one Democrat). What's with that ratio? The American public has soundly and decisively voted against the GOP policies and the Bush doctrine, so what are frightened little Villagers to do but put on some former Bushies, Matthew Dowd and Torie Clarke, along with conservative stalwart George Will.

George Will, the sagest one of all, metaphorically pats Donna Brazile on the head and suggests that perhaps all the doom and gloom on the economy is unnecessary, as if Donna Brazile is the one to blame for the bearish outlook. He suggests that the foreclosure rate isn't as bad as everyone seems to think, that the unemployment rolls aren't that bad (WTF? 94% of the people who want to work are working? WANT to work?) and that this is strictly a financial sector problem, ignoring the fact that if the financial sector cannot lend money, it becomes a disaster to the consumer and small business owner as well. Typical Republican missing the forest for the trees.

Meanwhile, former Pentagon spokesperson Torie Clarke rings the warning bell that all these bailouts (not questioned when AIG and BearStearns came a-calling, mind you) are going to cause us to "out-France France"! Quel horreur! And Matthew Dowd insists that if Obama really wants to represent change from how things are done in Washington, he's going to have to reject a Democratic party-led program.

Um, huh? The logic of this escapes me. The American public has rejected GOP policies and rule and so therefore, Obama must reject a Democratic program? I have an idea for you, Matt (along with all of the ABC news bookers): how about we give a Democratic program (and a Democratic panel) a try for once? THAT would be a change.

Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, recently broke ranks with his White House buddies and denounced Bush’s leadership. He said he sees a president who only hears what he wants to hear, from those who know not to challenge him with competing ideas. “I think he’s become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in,” Dowd said.

But what about the rest of the White House? It’s one thing for an insecure leader to block out news that might upset him, but surely the president’s team knows not to insulate themselves, right?

Wrong. The Bubble hasn't gone away, it's gotten bigger.

DownWithTyranny:

(Y)ou probably read about Matthew Dowd's duplicitous and self-serving mea culpa in yesterday's NY Times. Dowd is a repulsive character but his turnaround on Bush must be even all the more painful because he really and truly has been one of them, heart and soul. Today's rat jumping off the sinking ship is Vic Gold, a personal pal of Lynne Cheney's who spills the beans to the Washington Post. Actually all the beans are coming in his soon-to-be-published (this month) book, Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP.

Until then we'll just have to be satisfied with what Gold, a close associate of Bush's father and a true believer from the Barry Goldwater days of conservatism, had to say to the Post:

"For all the Rove-built facade of his being a 'strong' chief executive, George W. Bush has been, by comparison to even hapless Jimmy Carter, the weakest, most out of touch president in modern times," Gold writes. "Think Dan Quayle in cowboy boots."

Gold is even more withering in his observations of Cheney. "A vice president in control is bad enough. Worse yet is a vice president out of control."

For Gold, Cheney brings to mind the adage of Swiss writer Madame de Stael, who wrote, "Men do not change, they unmask themselves." Cheney has a deep streak of paranoia and megalomania, Gold suggests -- but he says he did not see it at first.

He was hiding who he really was," Gold says. "He was waiting for an opportunity."

In many ways, Gold's tale of disillusionment is a familiar one. There are plenty of veterans of Reagan and Bush 41 around town who believe Bush and Cheney trashed the institutions and party they helped build from the wreckage of the Goldwater campaign.

According to USNews, we're just one month from the next spiller of the beans: George Tenet.