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You've got to love these compassionate conservatives...huh? From Think Progress--Steele’s Economic Plan: Take Away Unemployment Benefits:

This morning on NBC’s Today, RNC chair Michael Steele said that in order for banks to start lending to small businesses, the federal government should reduce the unemployment tax:

STEELE: Well, I think, first off, he should recognize that banks aren’t going to lend money to people who can’t pay them back. … So there’s — there’s this whole cycle of not understanding exactly how the economy works with respect to small-business owners. Take that pressure off of them. Let’s — let’s eliminate the capital gains tax. Let’s reduce the unemployment tax.

They have much more on why this is a terrible idea. Tax cuts and more tax cuts and the working class be damned. That's all these guys have got.

Obviously, Jeffrey Immelt feels more than a little pressure to prove that NBC is not the liberal bastion (and messenger of Obama's secret army) that the unapologetic righties like to whinge about, otherwise there's really no excuse for this latest hire:

Journalism continues staggering pushes forward on an otherwise ordinary Sunday! In the great "tradition" of mixing up people like Matt Lauer and Meredith Viera with public drunks like Hoda and Kathy Lee, The Today Show's newest hire? Jenna Bush. Whee!

Absolutely, completely, 100% true. Here's looking at you, NBC, via the AP report:

...a 27-year-old teacher in Baltimore, [Bush] will contribute stories about once a month on issues like education to television's top-rated morning news show, said Jim Bell, its executive producer.

"It wasn't something I'd always dreamed to do," she said. "But I think one of the most important things in life is to be open-minded and to be open-minded for change."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but the spawn of the guy who mangled the English language so often that it was painful to listen to him speak and who is personally responsible for the grammatically-odd statement above is going to cover educational issues?

That's like asking the spawn of Darth Cheney, Liz Cheney, on her opinion about Obama's foreign policy, or lifelong government-paid health insurance recipient John McCain about his opinion on the public option...oh wait.

As Atrios tweeted yesterday:

I look forward to seeing Jenna Bush interview Liz Cheney on The Today Show, being introduced by Luke Russert

Unqualified nepotism: Conservative values at their very best.