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Howard Dean, Tim Pawlenty, Politico senior political "reporter" Maggie Haberman, and Todd Purdum from Vanity Fair in today's This Week roundtable with Jonathan Karl in the usual mix of Village conventional wisdom and occasional glimmers of reality -- mostly in the form of Howard Dean:

KARL: Look into the crystal ball here for the next couple of days. And we're going to get your predictions for next year, but just over the next couple of days, based on what you heard here today from the senators and then the raucous discussion with the House members, each of you, do you think that the deal is going to happen? And if it happens, is it going to pass House and Senate?

PAWLENTY: There will be a deal. I'm a little pessimistic, unfortunately, at the moment. I hope they could get over the cliff and avoid this January 1st cutoff, but if they do go over the cliff, my hope is that they can put something together as early as possible in January, but I'm a little pessimistic about whether they can get that done by December 31st midnight.

(CROSSTALK)

HABERMAN: I'm where the governor is. I mean, I think that the -- I understand that Schumer and Kyl are optimistic, but there's not much coming out of the House right now that seems positive. I do think there will be some framework.

DEAN: It's the best thing for the country to go over the cliff right now. It's not a great thing for...

KARL: But will we?

DEAN: Yeah. It's not a great thing for the country, but it's the best of all the alternatives.

KARL: Todd?

PURDUM: Well, they'll have to do something, and the market's reaction on Wednesday morning, if they haven't done anything tomorrow, may be the next wedge that will...

DEAN: It will be, although I predict ultimately that if we go over the cliff and stay over the cliff, six months from now, the Dow will be at 15,000. You know why? The biggest uncertainty in the market is not taxes and blah, blah, blah.

KARL: Size of the deficit.

DEAN: It's the size of the deficit. If you go over the cliff, you've done something for the first time really serious about the deficit. All of a sudden, the financial horizons look pretty good.

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A couple of interesting things in today's This Week roundtable: I agree with Cokie Roberts - and disagree with Howard Dean. The big story, of course, is the Ryan plan to turn Medicare into a 50% off coupon:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, let's talk about that a little bit more, but it's not only today that the Obama campaign has come out with an ad. President Obama has been going after Paul Ryan and his budget for the better part of two years.

ROBERTS: Exactly.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And a year ago, Democrats putting this ad up when trying to shape the congressional debate.

Not subtle, Paul Gigot.

(LAUGHTER)

GIGOT: (OFF-MIKE)

STEPHANOPOULOS: But this is...

ROBERTS: And they won a congressional district that is a Republican district traditionally with this whole line of attack.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And partly because they can go to it, Paul, because there are so many specifics embedded in that Ryan budget that are out there for everyone...

(CROSSTALK)

GIGOT: Actually, I don't think that ad did work, and I don't think this campaign has worked so far, if you think about the congressional race. If they tried to change the congressional polling, it didn't work. Republicans are still even in the polls, despite this -- they've been hitting Medicare and the Ryan budget for a year-and-a-half. I think they -- the Republicans have to be prepared for the Medicare assault, and I hope the Republican -- Romney, if they want to win this, they're going to have to have -- they should have an ad in the can already defending against these attacks.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Is the argument that President Obama cut $700 billion in Obamacare out of Medicare good enough?

GIGOT: It's not by itself good enough, but it's certainly a very good point, and it's also -- he wants to cut more, and he wants to cut -- because he said himself Medicare is unsustainable. But he said the way he's going to do it is with an unelected panel of 15 people, where their -- whose decisions will make the choice about what to cut...

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you go straight back at health care.

GIGOT: And they're going to do it without judicial review, without legislative review.

ROBERTS: It's also intellectually dishonest, because the truth is, as you know, they say they're taking it away from providers. And every year, Congress votes to do what's called the doc fix, to give the providers back the money that has been cut. So, you know, that $700 billion, I won't look for it to be gone anytime soon.

OMG, Cokie the Villager told the truth! Not only that, she said the argument was "dishonest." Wow, Cokie, I didn't know you had it in you.

DEAN: Well, here's the problem with talking about $700 billion that got cut out of Medicare, which was then transferred to Obamacare, which takes care of the same people, so it's -- the problem is that nobody believes it. You can't convince people that a Democrat's going to cut Medicare. They don't believe that.

Here's where I disagree with Dr. Dean. In 2010, a barrage of Republican ads in swing states hammered the Democrats for that very thing. And you know what? People believed them, the ads work. Why did they work? I assume because the Democrats never answered with ads of their own. Voters assumed there must be something to the accusation, because they never heard otherwise. So walk carefully, Dr. Dean. Don't assume too much.

It's the same problem Mitt Romney has with all his Swiss bank accounts and his Cayman Islands. People just don't think Mitt Romney cares about ordinary people. They just don't believe he does. And I don't think the addition of Paul Ryan is going to help that any. That's the problem. That's the core problem. People vote on whether you care -- this candidate cares about people like me, and I don't think this is going to change that very much in the Republican side.

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On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, it's a veritable free-for-all over Rush Limbaugh and the contraceptive debate. You got to see the full range of Villager conventional wisdom - from A to B! Let's listen as they discuss Rush Limbaugh's non-apology apology to college student Sandra Fluke:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Fair to say, I think, George, we're going to see her picture in Democrat ads as well. I can only imagine the pressure that Rush Limbaugh was on yesterday to force that apology. You know, the advertisers came out and started to pull their ads. I would imagine also Republican leaders are calling and saying, get this issue off our backs.

WILL: Well, it would have been nice if they had shared that with the larger public, the Republican leaders. Instead, Mr. Boehner comes out and says, Rush's language was inappropriate. Using the salad fork for your entrée, that is inappropriate.

Points for style to Mr. Will! Good one, George! As we know, using the proper fork is an important Beltway tool.

(LAUGHTER)

WILL: I mean, and Rick Santorum says, well, what he said was absurd but an entertainer is allowed to be absurd. No, it is the responsibility of conservatives to police the right and its excesses, just as the liberals unfailingly fail to police the excesses on their own side.

And it was depressing because what it indicates is that the Republican leaders are afraid of Rush Limbaugh. They want to bomb Iran, but they're afraid of Rush Limbaugh.

"Excesses" of the liberals? I would be so happy to see some. Where are they?

NOONAN: Look, what Rush Limbaugh said was crude, rude, even piggish, it was just unacceptable, he ought to be called on it. I'm glad he has apologized. I guess there will be a debate now about the nature of the apology. But what he said was also destructive.

It confused the issue. It played into this trope that the Republicans have a war on women. No, they don't, but he made it look they that way. It confused the larger issue which is the real issue, which is "Obama-care," and its incursions against religious freedoms, which is a serious issue. It was not about this young lady at Georgetown.

So what he said was deeply destructive and unhelpful and he ought to be called on it.

Oh, Nooners. Surely you're not drinking this early in the day? There are no incursions into "religious freedoms," no matter what those voices in your head tell you. That nice Dr. Dean tries to explain it to you:

DEAN: War on religious freedom is an important thing inside the Beltway among elite people, it's like the Fourth Amendment. It's a good argument for elite people. An attack on whether women can buy birth control pills or not, and have their insurance pay for it, every woman in America understands that.

This is a war on women. They've been warring on woman on abortion rights, now they're going after them on birth control rights. There's not a woman in the United States of America that doesn't get what the Republicans are doing.

And Mitt Romney is going to have to live with this. And he can't get out of it until the primary season is over. And that is his problem.

Donna Brazile jumps in:

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Howard Dean's speech from Netroots Nation.

Sounds like Howard is trying his best to warn the Obama administration that they have to actually do something about the economy if they want a second term. Since he's been nothing but supportive of the president, I hope this sinks into the minds of Obama's campaign advisors, who seem to think it's simply a matter of repeating the same uplifting rhetoric that worked the first time:

Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman who helped Democrats capture the White House in 2008, warns that Sarah Palin could defeat President Obama in 2012.

Dean says his fellow Democrats should beware of inside-the-Beltway conventional wisdom that Obama would crush Palin in a general-election contest next year.

“I think she could win,” Dean told The Hill in an interview Friday. “She wouldn’t be my first choice if I were a Republican but I think she could win." Dean warns the sluggish economy could have more of a political impact than many Washington strategists and pundits assume.

“Any time you have a contest — particularly when unemployment is as high as it is — nobody gets a walkover,” Dean said. “Whoever the Republicans nominate, including people like Sarah Palin, whom the inside-the-Beltway crowd dismisses — my view is if you get the nomination of a major party, you can win the presidency, I don’t care what people write about you inside the Beltway,” Dean said.

Dean says, however, that Palin is unlikely to win the nomination:

Dean thinks former Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jr. (R), who recently finished serving as the Obama administration’s ambassador to China, would be the president’s most dangerous general-election opponent in 2012, a view shared by many Democrats.

“He is an independent. He is a moderate on some social issues and has a strong record as a governor and also has international experience that I think is lacking in every other candidate,” Dean said, comparing Huntsman to the rest of the GOP field.

I agree with Dean that Huntsman is the most dangerous candidate. I don't know if Huntsman could make it with his moderate bona fides intact after a grueling primary ruled largely by the GOP's far right wing, but if he can somehow thread that needle, I think he can win. He has the most important edge of all: The Beltway media mavens like him.

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[h/t PoliticsUSA]

Howard Dean appeared on Face the Nation today to discuss anger on the left, the tax deal, and why primarying Obama is a bad deal. Yes, there is anger, but it's still a bad deal for a number of reasons. History proves it and the polls don't support it.

From the transcript (PDF):

HOWARD DEAN (Former Presidential Candidate): I don’t think he’s going to face an opponent in the democratic primary. I think that would be bad thing for the country and I think it would be a bad thing for the Democratic Party. The history of people running against Presidents in their own party as the challenger, you loses and then the President is weakened and loses. Now the President has done some things that I think are terrific. This is not one of them. But I-- I think he will not get an opponent.

This is not to say that Dean endorses the tax cut idea. He doesn't.

BOB SCHIEFFER: What do you think is going to happen here, governor? Do you think in the end the House Democrats like Congressman Nadler will come around, just looking--

HOWARD DEAN: Well here’s the-- here’s the big problem with this, Bob. This is terrible for the country long term and it’s not just the things that Jerry was talking about. First of all we’re going to find out if the Republicans are serious about the deficits. This tax cut’s not paid for. And the biggest part of the deficit in-- as-- if you project out until 2018 is the Bush tax cuts. That is what causes sixty percent of the deficit. Second of all the two percent payroll tax sounds great but in fact they take it out of the Social Security Trust Fund. Now here we are complaining about the Social Security Trust Fund going broke and we take a hundred and twenty million dollars of rev- - a billion dollars of revenue out and use it for a-- a payroll tax mitigation. This is a short-term Washington fix. It does nothing about the biggest long term threat to America which is the deficit. I don’t hear Republicans or Democrats talking about the deficit. There is no pain in this agreement. This is the easy way out for everybody. Much as everybody is complaining and hooting and hollering, this is an inside the beltway fuss and somebody needs to do something about the long term problems in this country, it’s not in this bill.

Later in the transcript Dean discusses the political cost to the President as a result of his deal with the devil Republicans:

The truth is I don’t think this is all that bad for the President politically because he-- he is going to be seen as acting presidential and bringing both sides together and all that stuff. The thing that bothers me about it is we have yet to deal with the biggest problem that is facing this country, which is the size of the deficit and nobody is doing anything about it.

Dean almost got to why this deal really does put Obama at a political advantage in 2012 when he addresses the deficit issues. There have been rising signals from the White House that this bandage (or punt, or Hail Mary pass or whatever you want to call it) on the tax cuts doesn't come without another price: A call for both sides to sit down and overhaul the tax code. Republicans have responded by promising cuts of an immediate $25 million by slashing Congressional staff budgets. Ooooh, a whole $25 million? Sheesh, $25 million doesn't even cover John Boehner's green fees, much less make a dent in the budget.

If you want symbolism, that $25 million is it, right there. The new Republicans in the House and Senate are hiring lobbyists as their chiefs of staff, so count on a fight over pork -- with the GOP taking the lead. Suddenly the party running on fiscal responsibility in 2010 will be held to that promise in 2011, and they'll surely break that promise right away, leading to disappointment and anger in the Tea Party ranks. Over the next two years, they and their corporate masters will be forced into the position of having to defend their porky ways, their penchant for deficit spending, and their empty rhetoric.

Will we capitalize on that? To me, a fight worth having is the one that hurts the other side, not our own side. We have shameless corporate hacks in charge of the budget and appropriations process now. They've promised to try and de-fund the health care bill, which will not be progress in any form if they succeed. They want to undermine Medicare and Medicaid while continuing outrageous corporate welfare to multinational corporations who currently pay no tax.

When viewed in that frame (and by the way, please read this George Lakoff column for more on how we've all failed to frame this debate properly), aiming our ammunition at the right wing seems like a more sensible thing than assuming the mantle of the minority and the aggrieved.

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It's hard to imagine a greater irony than Glenn Beck whining about his critics supposedly quoting him all out of context, since they only run small sound bites and leave out the context, blah blah blah. Because, you know, Beck has quite a track record when it comes to that practice himself. Indeed, Jon Stewart recently had some fun at Beck's expense over his fondness for truncated video quotes.

Still, that was what Beck was doing yesterday. And it was all because Howard Dean said something mean about Fox News:

I would bring back the Fairness Doctrine so you couldn’t have a spectacle of a Fox Flooze, which just makes stuff up and is a propaganda outlet. You would actually have to have some sanctioned human beings talking to the other side. And MSNBC would have to do the same. They would have to have some conservatives on there too. I think that’s much better for the country. ...Americans don’t know what’s going on and therefore the media can have their way with them intellectually.

To which Beck responded:

BECK: I would ask Mr. Dean to help me out. What is it that we make up?

I would ask you to just take a moment here. Do you really believe that I could or anybody here at Fox News could just make things up and remain on the air?

Ummmm .... YEAH!!!!! How about on a 24/7/365 basis?

And it isn't just Beck, who of course has a nearly unbeatable track record when it comes to making crap up. Just this morning we got another fine example of Fox News making crap up:

Fox & Friends reported that a school in central Florida had banned the "traditional Christmas colors" red and green from classrooms. In a statement to Media Matters, the school's district spokesperson, Regina Klares, has denied this, stating, "There is not a ban on the colors red and green at Heathrow Elementary."

This is not the exception, it is the rule at Fox News. There are simply no standards for truthfulness there; otherwise Beck would be right -- he wouldn't have been able to go on air and lie day after day, week after week, unless it was his job to lie. Which tells you everything you need to know about Fox News.

Jim Dean has a message for Crooks and Liars readers.

Philadelphia progressives turned out last night at the South Philadelphia Taproom to support Democracy for America, and to hear Gov. Howard Dean rally the troops for this year's congressional midterms.

The former Vermont governor told activists he understood that they were angry, "but you can be as pissed off as you want after Nov. 5th." He also talked about how important it was for young people to stay involved, pointing out that Obama's election was the first decided by voters under 35, "not voters over 65."

DFA President Jim Dean worked the crowd, telling fundraiser attendees how much DFA needed their support.
Both brothers made it clear they understood people's anger, but urged them not to give up and to keep on fighting.

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The conventional wisdom is that whichever party is in power during a down economy will suffer great losses come election time. Certainly, we can look at the '94 and '06 elections as verification of that rule.

But I would argue that we're not in an era of politics as usual. For all the rhetoric the corporate media pushes about anti-incumbent sentiment, special elections between 2008 and now have not borne out those theories. And as former DNC head Howard Dean points out, when the alternative is the insubstantive platform of the Republican Party, it's hard to justify electing them over the Democratic Party, no matter how ineffectual we find them.

I think this is the time to put that stuff behind us. We've got to win this election. And we're going to have -- after the election is over, we'll go back to having our policy fights, but this is about winning. You cannot get anything done unless you have a Democratic president and a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House.

And the Republicans have proved it. They are the party of no. They haven't had a single constructive -- name one -- anybody who's watching this show, name one single constructive political initiative that the Republicans have put forward.

And when, finally, somebody did put forward one, Paul Ryan, he was lionized for three days and then abandoned by the Republicans because he wanted to privatize Social Security and Medicare. Name one thing that you could hope for from the Republicans if they should win this. That is not a winning strategy.

Transcripts below the fold

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I don't see how DFA could avoid breaking with Dr. Dean's position on the construction of an Islamic community center in downtown NYC. But Dr. Dean does have a point:

The grassroots political organization founded by Howard Dean after the 2004 presidential election has made a dramatic break with the former DNC chairman over the construction of an Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero.

Democracy for America, a million-plus member organization that is active on a host of legislative fronts, formally endorsed the controversial Cordoba House on Thursday, one day after its founding figure called for the project to be built elsewhere.

In a letter sent to members, the group's executive director, Arshad Hasan, weaves together his personal history with a detailed explanation of the project's lofty and noble objectives. In a direct but diplomatic touch, he addresses Dean's opposition only by explaining that "well-intentioned" Democrats are "getting caught up" in the anti-mosque hysteria. "It's not helping," writes Hasan.

[L]et's be clear, the subject of the highest profile Muslim structure, 51 Park in New York City, will have a basketball court and a culinary school. Two floors will have a prayer room. The other eleven will host movie nights, performances, group dinners, etc -- it's basically a Muslim YMCA, open to everyone. These moderate Muslims are doing everything we could ask of them. They're trying to build a bridge in the communities they live in, trying to show the world that Muslims are cool and interesting and diverse, and proving that being a Muslim does not equal being a terrorist.

But they're being thrown under the bus by our elected leaders, egged on by some of the ugliest elements of the right-wing. Well-intentioned leaders of the Democratic Party are getting caught up in the fray as well, some of them seeking to find common ground with an implacable opposition. It's not helping.

This isn't just a Manhattan problem. Right now, there is opposition to mosques in Staten Island, Brooklyn, Southern California, Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, Illinois, and dozens of other locations across our nation. Where would they move? If public pressure can be brought to bear to take down the most high-profile Muslim community center in liberal NYC, then these other places don't even have a chance, Ground Zero connection or not.

Frankly, this isn't about Ground Zero. This is about America. This is about freedom. This is about people and there seems to be no place that Muslim people can go without being harassed.

The harassment has to stop, and that starts with you and me.