From GRITtv:

In Max Blumenthal’s book Republican Gomorrah and in his GRITtv appearance, he introduced us to Francis Schaeffer, one of the important figures in the anti-choice and religious right movements in the United States. Frank Schaeffer, Francis’s son, wrote a book about growing up in the religious right, Crazy for God: How I Grew Up as One of the Elect, Helped Found the Religious Right, and Lived to Take All (or Almost All) of It Back.

Schaeffer has a new book now, Patience with God: Faith for People Who Don’t Like Religion (or Atheism), and in it he takes on both the “incipient fascism” of the religious right and what he called “proselytizing” atheism of Richard Dawkins and others. He joins Laura on GRITtv for a fascinating interview about his own journey, and how people, religious or irreligious, are all looking for answers to the same questions.

Newt was the darling of the right just a few moments ago, it seemed, but now he's in a battle with the lunatic fringe of his own party.

Rush Limbaugh zeroed in on Newtie today and took out his rage against Gingrich and the "party bosses" because he supported a moderate conservative over the Palin-Beck-Limbaugh teabagger nominee named Doug Hoffman and Hoffman lost. Sarah Palin has as much egg on her face as the rest of them do. When a district like NY-23 comes up for election, a Republican always wins. Their purity test helped lose them a guaranteed seat. Pretty awesome.

LIMBAUGH: Here is -- these are my thoughts on New York-23. In the first place, I'll have to double check this, but I'm reasonably sure that this was the highest percentage of the vote ever won on the Conservative Party line by a House or Senate candidate. I think Hoffman had a higher percentage of the vote than even James Buckley, who won his U.S. Senate race on the -- against or against this Gooddell guy, Charles Gooddell, in the '70s. So, that's one thing.

But, the right message; we cannot forget how this whole thing happened in the first place. There was not a primary. The right message here would indict the way party bosses, Republican Party bosses and these big thinkers like Newt screwed the whole thing up from the get go.

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Chris Matthews asks Eric Cantor about Bob McDonnell trying to move away from the right and presenting himself as some sort of moderate in the Virginia governor's race and when Cantor tries to say he wasn't running away from his "conservative values" Matthews asks Cantor why McDonnell didn't want Palin to campaign for him.

Matthews: Let me ask you about the big question here for you tonight. McDonnell…let’s put a real prize around him. I think McDonnell’s great claim to fame is he ran a positive campaign. The other guy was going after his term papers from 30 years ago and McDonnell talked about his daughter’s fighting for the U.S. as a servicewoman over seas on Iraq and a Norte Dame graduate, as a R.O.T.C. person—I thought he really sold the positive and that’s why he won.

Cantor: Well, I agree with you that his campaign was incredibly well run and the message was positive and I think it does say something about the voters of Virginia. They want to have a better prospect for the future and Bob campaigned and focused on jobs. It was clearly an economic message that won the day here in Virginia. And when you look at where people’s minds are here 85% of the people are concerned about the economy. They’re looking for another way. They’re rejecting the policies coming out of the Congress and the White House towards the economy. So it was, you’re right, a very positive agenda for the future that Bob McDonnell won the day on.

Matthews: Why did Bob McDonnell keep Sarah Palin out of the state? He let her use the robo-calls but no reference to him personally. Why would you…I have a theory that Virginia may not be a liberal state and certainly never will be probably, but it’s certainly not a whacko right wing state either. And I don’t think it would ever go for a Sarah Palin over a Barack Obama, but I may be wrong. In lousy economic conditions anything’s possible.

You wouldn’t call Virginia a Palin state, would you?

Cantor: Virginia has always bean a common sense, conservative state. There are millions of voters here who embrace Sarah Palin, obviously millions who are embracing Bob McDonnell. You know our state is one that is a center-right state. I think it is reflective of where the nation is and that’s why we are very excited about what this win tonight will mean for our prospects in November of ‘010.

Matthews: I’ve got it. You go home and check with your voters Congressman. A lot of your most trusted voters who like you personally are scared to bejesus out of Sarah Palin. She’s a theocrat. She’s a…she’s so far out in terms of basic American notions of pluralism that your voters would think she was frightening.

Cantor: Chris you’ve just said that Bob McDonnell won the day on a positive message.

Matthews: Right.

Cantor: Well here you go again. (crosstalk)

Matthews: No I’m just saying you wouldn’t let her in the state. (crosstalk) Did Bob McDonnell over rule you when you tried to bring Sarah Palin in the campaign for him?

Cantor: Absolutely not. She’s welcome in this state. I’m sure Bob McDonnell would say she is and again it’s that kind of negativity that’s been rejected here in Virginia and I…you said so yourself Chris.

After rightfully calling Palin out for being as extreme as she is, Matthews goes on to kiss Cantor's butt to make sure he gets another interview with him somewhere down the pike. Earlier in the broadcast Matthews did his best to give McDonnell cover for those "term papers" which he wrote when he was 34 years old, hardly a child and tried to pretend he was some kid that can't be held accountable for them now. Matthews threw Palin under the bus tonight but did his best to give McDonnell a bit of a white washing for his extremist views.

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From the great mind that brought us both Sarah Palin and Dan Quayle, Bill Kristol first does his best to build up what electoral successes in Virginia and New Jersey might mean for the Republicans in 2010, even though he claims that’s not what he’s doing. Republicans managing to pick up a Governor’s seat in Virginia or having an unpopular Governor in New Jersey who is a former Goldman Sachs CEO in the middle of this scandal with Wall Street managing to hold onto his seat or barely losing are not exactly bellwether races for what might happen in 2010.

Kristol then tries to downplay the havoc that his girlfriend Sarah Palin is reaping upon the Republican Party with her endorsement of Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 Congressional race.

Kristol: Tim Kaine has said, and this is the favorite mantra now of the Democrats and of the liberal media I would say as you quoted “the divide between moderate Republicans and conservative Republicans” that’s kind of their hope. When was the last time that there was really a big divide between moderate and conservative Republicans? I would say in ’76 when Ronald Reagan ran a primary challenge to go then against an incumbent moderate Republican president Gerald Ford, barely lost, bitterness, divisiveness at the convention, he didn’t even really…give his full fledged, full support to Gerald Ford. In 1978 I remember a friend of mine, a young activist Jeff Bell challenged and beat the liberal incumbent Cliff Case, the Republican primary in Jersey, lost to Bill Bradley, in the general Al D’Amato challenged Jacob Javis in New York, actually won the general election. There was a huge amount of turmoil.

What came out of all of that—Reagan’s victory and a Republican takeover of the Senate in 1980. Turmoil in a party isn’t bad. Obviously it’s problematic. If you’re running a campaign you don’t, you know, it’s easier not to have a primary, it’s easier not to have people grumbling and complaining, but it’s—I think it’s a sign of health, it’s a sign of grass roots activity. It’s a sign of citizens getting involved. I don’t think people are going to go off the deep end. I think you’re going to have…the fact that there were challenges in the 23rd district of New York doesn’t mean that conservatives aren’t going to accept more moderate candidates which they will in Delaware where Mike Castle’s going to be the nominee, where Illinois where Mark Kirk’s going to be the Republican nominee.

The left keeps hoping that conservatives will be suicidal. They’re not going to be I think. But I think you do need the conservative populace’s energy and independence from Washington—and ideas. I think conservatives need that, that Republicans need that. You can’t just be top down, sort of rehashed ideas from inside the beltway, so I’m actually ah…Tim Kaine can console himself with tomorrow’s defeat—it’s going to be a pretty bad defeat and Republicans are going to win all the state wide races and I think pick up six to ten state legislative seats—Tim Kaine can console himself that hoping that the Republican Party will self destruct, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.

Bill, Hoffman wasn’t a primary challenge in case you didn’t notice. He’s a third party candidate propped up by a bunch of outsiders that are not from the state. And if you think this is going to stop with this NY-23 race and that “people aren’t going to go off the deep end”…you might want to go read this--Uncivil War: Conservatives to challenge a dozen GOP candidates.

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When asked by CNN's John King about the Republican Party in-fighting in the NY-23 race and if the party can survive in the Northeast region of the country if there is no room for moderates in their ranks, John Boehner tries to blame the “rebellion” going on now on “people who really have not been actively involved in the political process”. Oh really?

While that may be true of those out protesting, it’s certainly not true of the ones organizing them. Dick Armey and Tim Phillips are hardly people that could be called “not active in the political process”. Quite the opposite. And Sarah Palin who has interjected herself into that race was the Republican Vice-Presidential nominee the last election.

John Boehner has a bigger mess on his hands than he’s willing to admit which is evident by his response at the end of the segment when he says this:

KING: Let me ask you, lastly, though, but sometimes does the party need to draw a line?

What's the point of having a party if people in your party will attack your own nominees? I mean, where do you draw that line?

BOEHNER: Listen, I'm a big believer in Ronald Reagan's 11 commandment -- 11th commandment. Never talk ill about another Republican.

KING: That was not followed in this race.

BOEHNER: I know.

Yes and so do the rest of us who have been watching this John.

Transcript below the fold.

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Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe weighed in on Meet the Press on the role Sarah Palin is now playing in the Republican Party and her interjection into the NY 23 District Congressional race. This was before the news broke that Scozzafava endorsed Blue-Dog Democrat Owens over the Conservative Party candidate Hoffman today.

GREGORY: You talk about Palin. Let's put up what you wrote about her. "It was early morning, Denver time ... when my cell phone erupted with calls." This is when she was selected. "Palin--it took me a moment to place the name. ... Palin was a bolt of lightning," you wrote, "a true surprise. She was such a long shot; I didn't even have her research file on my computer. ... I started Googling her, refreshing my memory while I waited for our research to be sent. ... I thought it was downright bizarre, ill-considered, deeply puzzling. ... [McCain] had been shouting from the rooftops that Obama lacked the experience to be president. ... With the Palin pick, he had completely undermined his core argument against us. ... `I just don't understand how this ends up working out for McCain. In the long term, I mean ... when voters step back and analyze how he made this decision; I think he's going to be in big trouble. You just can't swing--wing something like that--it's too important.'" That was then Senator Obama speaking. What about Palin now? Is she a force to be reckoned with in 2012?

PLOUFFE: Well, I think we should thank John McCain for picking her, in terms of how it helped us win in 2008, but I think we should doubly thank him now. What's going on in the special election in New York 23 I think is a remarkable phenomenon and could affect our politics for years to come.

GREGORY: She endorsed the, the independent, more conservative candidate.

PLOUFFE: Yes.

GREGORY: And now we've got the Republican candidate who's stepped aside.

PLOUFFE: So a centrist Republican has been ridden out of that race. And I think what you're going to see in the coming months, if not years, is Sarah Palin--you know, by the way, she kind of playing the role as pied piper in the Republican Party, which is something I'm quite comfortable with.

So Sarah Palin, the other Republican candidates who are likely to run, the Limbaughs and Becks of the world are basically hanging a "moderates need not apply" sign outside the Republican National Committee headquarters. And for a party that has historic lows right now, because centrists and moderates are leaving them in droves, they have catastrophic problems with younger voters, Hispanic voters and African-Americans, it's a various curious strategy to kind of repair this damage. So I think they're becoming more a very motivated corps, but a small corps of about 23 percent of the country.

Steve Singiser has more over at Daily KOS on the latest turn of events in that race--NY-23: Did Doug Hoffman Throw The Democrats A Lifeline?

With the battle between Democrat Bill Owens and third-party insurgent candidate Doug Hoffman within the margin of error, Hoffman should have picked off the bulk of the Republican vote from Scozzafava's remaining core group of supporters, and that should have been the ball game.

Few people suspected that in an historically Republican district, Owens could survive without split opposition.

But, then, by virtue of his own gracelessness, Doug Hoffman complicated matters...for himself. [...]

To give a succinct recap: Owens praised Scozzafava and promised to work for upstate New York. Hoffman cackled a quick "I told you so" before returning on the attack.

That might explain why a large number of Scozzafava supporters, from the head of the state's Independence Party to several voices within organized labor, immediately turned to the Democrat Owens rather than her fellow Republican, Hoffman. This morning, one of the more prominent newspapers in the district, The Watertown Daily Times, followed suit, switching its endorsement from Scozzafava to Owens.

And then, in the second shocker from her in as many days, the Republican nominee endorsed the Democratic nominee. [...]

In the final analysis, it might not matter, of course. Owens is still fighting upstream in a GOP district against what is now for all intents and purposes a single GOP opponent. But Hoffman's own lack of class might have made this a lot of harder on him than it could have been.

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Rush Limbaugh isn't endorsing Sarah Palin for president in 2012 but he says she's ready for the job now.

"One thing I do not do is follow conventional wisdom, and the conventional wisdom of Sarah Palin is "She's not smart enough. She needs to bone up on the issues. She's a little unsophisticated. Alaska, Where's that?, [She] doesn't have the pedigree,'" Limbaugh told Fox News' Chris Wallace. "She's the only thing that provided a spark for the Republican Party. This is not an endorsement, but i do have profound respect for Sarah Palin. There are not very many politicians who have been through what she's been put through and still able to smile and be ebullient and upbeat. This woman, I think, is tough," he said.

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Looks like the Club for Growth/Sarah Palin wing of the Republican Party has prevailed in this race. DeDe Scozzafava suspends her campaign:

Dede Scozzafava, the Republican and Independence parties candidate, announced Saturday that she is suspending her campaign for the 23rd Congressional District and releasing all her supporters.

The state Assemblywoman has not thrown her support to either Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party candidate, or Bill Owens, the Democratic candidate.

"Today, I again seek to act for the good of our community," Ms. Scozzafava wrote in a letter to friends and supporters. "It is increasingly clear that pressure is mounting on many of my supporters to shift their support. Consequently, I hereby release those individuals who have endorsed and supported my campaign to transfer their support as they see fit to do so. I am and have always been a proud Republican. It is my hope that with my actions today, my party will emerge stronger and our district and our nation can take an important step towards restoring the enduring strength and economic prosperity that has defined us for generations."

Ms. Scozzafava told the Watertown Daily Times that Siena Research Institute poll numbers show her too far behind to catch up - and she lacks enough money to spend on advertising in the last three days to make a difference. Mr. Owens has support from 36 percent of likely voters in the poll, with Mr. Hoffman garnering 35 percent support. Ms. Scozzafava has support from 20 percent of those polled.

The Gouverneur resident said she thinks she will receive more than 20 percent of the vote, based on several factors, including her performance during a Thursday debate.

See the Watertown Daily Times' "All Politics is Local" blog to read Ms. Scozzafava's complete statement or for more information on today's Siena poll.

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Bill O'Reilly is "fascinated" with Sarah Palin, and has been featuring segments on her a lot of late. He had Glenn Beck on The O'Reilly Factor on Thursday night to talk about her prospects.

They agreed that her upcoming book tour is a "make or break" situation regarding her political future -- but that if she fares well with the media, she'll be well positioned for 2012. They also agree that resigning as governor before had even completed her first term was a "smart move."

Which gave Beck a launching pad for his prophesying mode:

Beck: Smart move. And I think she's also positioning herself for a third party. By the time this election runs around for the president, I'm sorry, but unless the Republicans and the Democrats wake up, a third party will win.

Presumably, by "wake up" Beck means "embrace the tea party philosophy of small government and big wingnuttery". The Democrats won't, but most likely the Republicans will. But I don't think it's going to be the recipe for victory Glenn Beck thinks it will be.

MyDD : The worries of Joe Lieberman

MOMocrats: A cry for help

Amygdala: Let's burn all the Bibles!

PERRspectives: Broun joins Palin in backing GOP plan to privatize Medicare

Lean Left : Dumbest painfully serious political metaphor of the day

cab drollery: A top cop gets it

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Chris Matthews cites a recent Gallup poll in the beginning of the segment—Conservatives Maintain Edge as Top Ideological Group—which shows those who would describe their political views as conservative at 40%, moderate 36% and liberal 20%. He goes on to take this leap about just what that poll means later in the segment which Bob Herbert rightly calls him on.

Matthews: There’s a big disconnect here in the polling and I’m looking at the NBC poll, we’re going to have it more here tonight, I’ve looked at the Gallup numbers—here’s the disconnect—the Republican Party is a lousy brand name right now. It is way down below one in five, but on every issue from semi-automatic weapons to traditional values to abortion to every…regulation of business…

Buchanan: Immigrants…

Matthews: …every issue the country is lurching to the right in ideological terms at the same time as the base of the Republican brand. How do you explain that Rob?

Herbert: Are you saying the country’s lurching to the right?

Matthews: On every issue—look at the Gallup polls.

Herbert: I completely disagree with you on that.

Matthews: Ugghh…

Herbert: You’re giving too much credence to this poll. Pat just said a moment ago…

Matthews: Why don’t you look at the polls?

Herbert: …that the Republicans can unite behind all these issues for the off year elections—they can’t even—they haven’t even been able to unite in this upstate Congressional district in the Congressional election that’s coming up next week. You’ve got Republicans lining up behind the Conservative Party candidate who’s putting the knives in the back of the Republican candidate. So where’s the unity?

Never one to let logic get in the way of his preconceived notion Matthews asks if this means the conservatives are more “powerful than ever” if they’re the spoilers in Republican elections. Herbert reminds him that turning the Republican Party hard to the right is not good for them winning elections nationally. Earlier in the segment he also reminded Matthews that Republicans are not leading in a related poll about who Americans trust to run the country.

Of course Pat Buchanan, ever the staunch Sarah Palin fan-boy thinks the party needs more ideological purity and goes on to call the Republican candidate from NY-23 a liberal. As Herbert notes, Buchanan's got a pretty strange notion of who should be called a liberal these days. I would imagine the false memes continually put out by or MSM has a lot to do with people's perception of whether they are liberal or conservative or not, as was reflected in that poll. When people continually hear unions bashed and liberal treated as though it were some sort of dirty word, it's little wonder they might shy from the label.

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From Meet the Press, Joe Scarborough and Dan Senor think it's just fantastic that the GOP is running their "moderates" out of the party. Great game plan guys. Keep this up and maybe the GOP can get down to 15% instead of 20% of Americans that want to identify themselves as Republicans.

GREGORY: All right. Let--I've got about a minute left here. I want to talk politics here. Joe Scarborough, there seems to be, within the Republican Party, a litmus test going on. You had Sarah Palin on Facebook endorsing the conservative independent candidate in New York for that congressional seat in the 23rd district.

SCARBOROUGH: Mm-hmm.

GREGORY: Is this what's going on inside the Republican Party, this sort of run to see who can be the most conservative as a means of retaking power in 2010?

SCARBOROUGH: Well, it, it depends. How could any Republican, how could--let me strike that. How could any conservative be against the person that the Republican establishment in D.C. is for if they're conservatives? This woman, this Republican candidate, is for card check. She was for the Obama stimulus package. She has voted for taxes. I mean, she's been one of David Paterson's best allies. Why would a conservative support that Republican? This is, this is just one more example of how the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., is so disconnected from conservatives.

SENOR: You're seeing a revolt all over the place. In Joe's state, in Florida...

SCARBOROUGH: And, and I'm saying...

SENOR: ...Marco Rubio, who's running against Charlie Crist for the U.S. Senate...

SCARBOROUGH: Yeah.

GREGORY: Right.

SENOR: ...the Republican establishment in Washington rallied behind Charlie Crist because he was supposed to deliver the general election. Suddenly the polls in the Republican primary are closing, all the Republican primary conservative support is getting behind Marco Rubio, who's the start-up candidate.

SCARBOROUGH: And by the way, people love...

MAYER: This can't be good for the Republicans that have their own base being fractured, is it?

SCARBOROUGH: No. It's great for the Republican Party because...

SENOR: It's fantastic for the Republican Party.

SCARBOROUGH: ...when I, when I ran in 1994, the Republican Party on the state, national and local level tried to run against me a moderate Republican. And I'm not talking, I'm not talking abortion or gay marriage, I'm talking taxes and spending, small government. That's great to reinvigorate the base.

GREGORY: All right. And the president's out there for two big governor's races in New Jersey and Virginia this week, which a lot of people will see as some kind of referendum. We're going to leave it there.

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In recent days, Republican leaders have scored a series of political victories in their eternal quest for tort reform. Last week, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) told Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) that an onerous package of malpractice curbs he championed could save the government an estimated $54 billion over 10 years. That came on the heels of President Obama's latest offer to support limited tort reform as an olive branch to recalcitrant Republicans balking at his health care proposals, including funding for a $25 million pilot program.

But largely overlooked in the heated discussions of damage award caps, special health courts, expert panels and national compensation schedules is the inescapable truth that the medical malpractice system has only a negligible impact on overall American health care costs. Republican horror stories of a torrent of baseless malpractice suits producing "jackpot justice" that fuels rising premiums for physicians and patients alike while driving doctors from practice simply don't comport with reality. The overstated, overblown, over the top and often outright false GOP claims suggest that the Republicans' real target is not the flawed American malpractice system, but instead the nation's trial lawyers whose campaign contributions help bankroll the Democratic Party.

Here, then, is a look at Republican Malpractice Myths:

1. An Explosion of Malpractice Litigation
2. A System Plagued by Frivolous Lawsuits
3. Rising Damage Awards Key to Higher Malpractice Premiums
4. Rising Malpractice Insurance Rates Driving Doctors from Practice
5. Medical Malpractice Reform Would Save U.S. $200 Billion Annually
6. Defensive Medicine Costs $200 Billion a Year

For the details and data behind each, continue reading.

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We've wondered how long it would be before John Ziegler -- Sarah Palin's favorite braying jackass and America's least favorite bachelor -- would turn his loudmouth schtick on members of his own side who fail to live up to his worshipful worshipfulness of Sarah Palin.

Sure, he's good for a Glenn Beck episode or two, but sooner or later he was going to be dealing with conservatives who have a somewhat less-than-adulatory view of Palin.

So he attended this past weekend's Western Conservative Political Action Conference in Los Angeles with the express purpose of trying to interview David Keene, president of the American Conservative Union, which oversees the National CPAC gathering every year. Ziegler was actually a sponsor at this year's Western CPAC, where he set up a booth to hawk his "how the media screwed Sarah" video that no one either believes or wants to waste the time watching.

When he sat down with Keene, though, he went into his usual attack-mode schtick (the only person I've ever seen him interview who he didn't treat like this was Palin), and finally pushed Keene over the edge when he basically asked him why he was corrupt. Keene got up and tried to walk away, but Ziegler pursued him through the hallways, still haranguing. At one point, Keene tells him he'd like to hit him, but won't.

Finally, Keene told Ziegler exactly what everyone who's ever watched him is forced to conclude:

Keene: You're a scumbag.

Ziegler: I'm a scumbag?

[Chases Keene through another doorway]

Ziegler: Why won't you answer the question?

Keene: Because you're an a--hole. Got that? An a--hole.

Ziegler: I'm an a--hole?

Keene: Yes, you are. Now, go.

Ah, comedy gold. Especially when he tries to explain himself:

"I often get accused of being one of those who only craves personal attention and has less than pure motives."

"This entire episode has greatly furthered my already strongly held belief that the vast majority of the conservative 'movement' is 'led' by fakes, flakes, freaks, frauds, phonies and sell outs who are far more interested in protecting their own little thiefdoms than promoting the cause."

Hahahahaha.

[Via Digby.]

The Freedom Toast presents a parody of the GOP. Theme--the "Addams Family".