[h/t Heather at Video Cafe]

This week while everyone in the news media was obsessing on Hilary Rosen's remarks about Ann Romney and making them seem far more important than they were, the North Koreans had a disastrous attempt at a missile launch, Mitt Romney lied and fearmongered in his NRA speech, President Obama launched a full-court press on the Buffett rule, a landmark study was released by the USDA showing that the food stamp program is critical to alleviating poverty, the jobs report caused worries that the economy may be slowing down, the CFPB announced its consideration of new rules to help homeowners manage their mortgages before they melt down, even as federal funds for jobless training run out. In other news, Bobby Jindal is poised to gut public education even more in Louisiana with his "education reform" efforts, and a looming student debt crisis casts a dark shadow on students entering and graduating from college. Oh, and lots of corporate sponsors dropped their sponsorship of ALEC.

These all happened this week. They all matter to most of us on one level or another. As a parent of an about-to-be University of California student, the costs frighten and frustrate me, and will mean some kind of change in our lifestyle to get her through college without piling up the student loans. Others are dealing with health crises, job insecurity, and other very real, deep issues of concern. But here's what George Stephanopoulos wants to talk about:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Before we leave this [mommy wars] issue, I tend to agree with you all that this particular dispute is going to flare up and flame out, but, Melody, I wonder if the president has a -- has a continuing problem with Bill Maher? You know, you saw those comments he made on Friday night. He's given $1 million. He's the biggest single contributor to the super PAC aligned with the president. This has now happened a couple of times. Do you think the president is going to have to cut ties?

BARNES: Well, you know, I listened to those comments, and my grandmother's voice came in my head. I thought about the phrase, "Home training." You know, the language, the sentiment are problematic, and the campaign has -- and the president has said, look, the civility is -- it matters. The way we talk to each other matters. And they're going to have to, as you said, make a decision. I saw David Axelrod in earlier situations when comments have been made by Bill Maher say, I'm not going on your show. I'm backing away. I'm distancing myself. So it's a conversation...

Now last time I looked, Bill Maher was not an influencer in Democratic politics. He wasn't someone who could just pick up the phone and get right through to the White House. But to George Stephanopoulos, this is so important he actually has to spend time on his show "wondering" whether the President should cut ties with Maher. What ties?

Thank heavens for Katrina Vanden Heuvel and her level-headed, polite response. It was much nicer than I would have been.

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So yeah, David Vitter is a scumbag. Not because he slapped on a diaper to play Baby Huey with a bunch of hookers, but because he voted yes on the GOP plan to kill Medicare.

In the wake of the Weiner fiasco, wounded outraged liberals have stormed the Internet to demand their own eight inches of flesh: What about Vitter!? #VitterMustGo!

But there is a reason some wise person named Mahatma once said: An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Blind serves the GOP as they goose step about demolishing Planned Parenthood and unions, plundering jobs and any hopes for the survivability of an American middle class. The more they can saturate the airwaves with noise about penises and diapers, the easier it is for them to murder everything liberals hold dear.

Why do you think Fox News deliberately slings nonsense after nonsense—Ground Zero Mosque, Don’t Touch My Junk, terror babies, socialists, Mau Mau, birth certificates, NPR, some guy named Common, Death Panels, Weiner, Weiner, neener-neener Weiner?

Because every time the media takes a breath to spotlight what the GOP is actually doing—i.e. killing Medicare—the public wises up and smacks them with a huge defeat like last month in NY-26.

Yelling Vitter Vitter Vitter instead of Boehner Where Are The Jobs, instead of End Big Oil Tax Giveaways, instead of Quit Your War On Uteri, instead of The GOP Killed Medicare, actually abets Fox and the corporate Koch machine.

Sure demanding a scalp in return for Weiner's feels good. Maybe it is even just. But so what? Weiner was pushed out by his own reckless lies, an irresponsible tabloid media and the political calculations of his own party. You’re angry about that. Fine. But don’t retaliate by aiding the side Weiner vehemently railed against. Don’t help the GOP generate more obfuscations for their devious schemes. Weiner is gone. And maybe a better response would be for us to take up his work ourselves: the brash and relentless calling out of each and every policy cruelty of Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Michele Bachmann and the rest of the GOP.

Vitter’s constituents voted him back into office last year. And no matter how much you spit his hypocritical name on Twitter, a jobless America is not going to vote on hookers & diapers in 2012 unless it is their own hookers but more likely diapers that they can no longer afford. They will vote, however, against a party that killed Medicare. IMHO.