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Nothing illustrates the utter disconnect between conservatives and liberals better than this exchange. It begins politely enough, with Cavuto giving Rep. Johnson about 30 seconds to talk before he simply interrupts her with the flat statement that "we're broke".

From there on, that's all he says. Over, and over, and over again. Screw the poor, we're broke. Screw the sick folks, we're broke. Not only does he repeat it over and over, but he bullies her with it until she finally lets him have it right back.

Transcript via Huffpost:

"But Congresswoman, we're broke," Cavuto responded, adding that it might be time to "dig out." Johnson said that the country needed to invest in the future through education. Cavuto cut in again. "If I die and leave to my kids just a lot of bills and debt...I've screwed their future."

"You're screwing the future now," Johnson shot back. "...I hate to break it to you, but all I do is follow numbers," he said. I am Fox's nerd here, and we are broke...broke broke broke broke broke."

As the two argued more, Johnson lost patience with Cavuto. "You know what?" she said. "Your problem is, is that you just don't listen; you just scream and you're screaming the same thing these fools are screaming here," she said.

"But ma'am, you're saying the same thing," Cavuto said. "I'm just asking you to say something different."

The interview ended with acrimony on both sides. "You can sit there and be as ignorant as you'd like to be, but it's not going to solve it," Johnson said to Cavuto. "...We're going to hell in a handbasket," he replied.

"I think you're already there," she said. "When you refuse to have vision, you're already in hell."

That's it in a nutshell, that glaring difference between conservatives and liberals. Today's conservative message is the equivalent of a parent turning down a job offer for the sole purpose of telling their children there's no money and they're broke, so no, they can't have whatever it is they want. Really, it is.

In the President's speech the other day he said this:

These are the kind of cuts that tell us we can’t afford the America we believe in. And they paint a vision of our future that’s deeply pessimistic.

It’s a vision that says if our roads crumble and our bridges collapse, we can’t afford to fix them. If there are bright young Americans who have the drive and the will but not the money to go to college, we can’t afford to send them.

Isn't that what Cavuto is telling Rep. Johnson in this clip? Sorry, too bad. No money for the bright poor kids to attend college, we have to reserve that for those who can pay. No money for roads, we'll just sell them off and let private companies maintain those roads they think are worth it, leave the rest to crumble away.

Sorry, country, but people don't matter here. Only making sure no person earning over $250,000 per year is not put upon to contribute one extra penny to the well-being of the nation that gave them their opportunity for prosperity.

The scorched-earth conservative writ large. Give me my opportunity so I can block you from yours.

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Neil Cavuto has had enough, and doggone it, we should just quit the introspection and blame the crazy. Because you know, John Wilkes Booth didn't have talk radio, or chalkboards, or Fox News, or MSNBC, but he still shot Abraham Lincoln.

Yes, he really said that, which means to me that he also hasn't cracked a history book in a long, long time.

Forget Cavuto's effort to make us think insanity happens in a bubble outside the world we live in. His John Wilkes Booth analogy falls on its face right out of the gate, because John Wilkes Booth may not have had talk radio, but he did have access to the Secret Service, and the high echelons of the Confederacy.

John Wilkes Booth was a spy for the Confederate cause. As an actor, he had access to people and places others might not have and used his skills to shuttle information back to Confederate generals throughout the war. He wasn't crazy; he was a traitor.

This was what he believed:

"This country was formed for the white not for the black man. And looking upon African slavery from the same stand-point, as held by those noble framers of our Constitution, I for one, have ever considered it, one of the greatest blessings (both for themselves and us) that God ever bestowed upon a favored nation."

Not all that far off from some things we've heard in the past two years, is it?

Booth's association with the Confederacy was not recent, either. He had functioned as a double agent at the hanging of John Brown. He donned a militia uniform and assumed the role of guard, to make sure there were no attempts to rescue Brown ahead of the hanging. That was in 1859. Throughout the war, he was an ardent sympathizer and spy, and when he saw an opportunity, he aimed his gun and assassinated the President of the United States because he (violently) did not agree with him.

Not because he was "nutcase." This wasn't an "isolated incident."

What an unfortunate analogy for Cavuto to make. I can't think of one more inappropriate than that one, given Booth's role and attitude toward Lincoln. Booth was as sane as the rest of us. He was simply angry that the North had prevailed -- so angry he plotted and succeeded at assassinating Lincoln.

And why did he choose Booth? Because there was talk radio and hate talk when JFK and RFK were assassinated? Because there is talk radio and hate talk now? Because there are many, many similarities between the toxicity of today's airwaves and those of the 1960's?

But no. Instead he chooses one of the most sane and rational assassins in American history to argue his case that Saturday's shooting was just another lunatic gone crazy.

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A couple of weeks ago, when Harvard University withdrew its invitation to Minuteman founder Jim Gilchrist to speak at a forum on immigration, Gilchrist could be heard whining that he was being unfairly smeared for his incendiary rhetoric.

Neil Cavuto, for instance, hosted Gilchrist on his Fox News show Oct. 16, and mostly blew sunshine up Gilchrist's butt, talking about how he was a war hero, and didn't those mean students know he had fought for their free-speech rights, blah blah blah. Then he added:

Cavuto: What the kids were saying in those pre-law classes was that you were going around, rounding up at the border illegal immigrants, was tantamount to, uh, physical abuse, some of them were saying. And that you were advocating violence. Now, I know that's not your schtick, or what you're saying, and it's a gross exaggeration of what you do -- that was the kids' position. What do you make of that?

Gilchrist: Ah, the kid is, obviously he's stupid. And if anyone should be banned and barred from Harvard University, it should be a student that stupid.

Somehow, that level of discourse is about the kind of reply we've come to expect from Jim Gilchrist. Because the problem isn't, as Cavuto put it, that Gilchrist is "advocating violence". Rather, as we've explained, the problem is that his rhetoric creates permission for violence, and his real-life activities help produce real-life violence -- including the murders of a 9-year-old girl and her father. That, as we reported, was the key reason for Harvard declining its invitation.

What may have been the deciding factor, it turns out, may have been Jim Gilchrist's history of bad judgment catching up to him -- namely, his long association with Shawna Forde, the leader of a gang of "tacital" Minutemen who, in a failed effort to finance their activities through robbery, shot and killed a 9-year-old girl and her father late at night in their home in cold blood.

Of course, we're already noted Fox's extreme allergy to reporting this story. So it's not surprising that Cavuto was utterly unaware of this dimension of the story. And it's a far more substantial matter than Gilchrist has been willing to admit.

My friend Scott North at the Everett Herald recently published a riveting account of just how deeply Gilchrist and Forde were intertwined. Indeed, he was working to help promote her "work" on the border intensely during the two weeks between the murders and Forde's arrest -- and may have tipped her off that she was being sought by federal SWAT teams:

Jim Gilchrist counts himself among those fooled by Forde.

He stuck with her when some questioned her methods. He stood by her through the blood and tumult in Everett that started last December. He remained her ally right up until the day she was arrested in connection with the two murders in Arivaca, Ariz.

"If she hadn't been able to use me she would have used somebody else," Gilchrist said. "It is so unfortunate because I really thought this person, in spite of her checkered past had, in lieu of a better term, 'found Jesus' and really wanted to be a do-gooder."

Gilchrist said he was oblivious to the behind-the-scenes drama at his 2007 speech in Everett. He'd never met Forde before she e-mailed to arrange his travel. He was impressed by her and her fledgling Minutemen operation and donated the money he was paid to cover his travel expenses to Everett -- cash that actually came from Parris.

Gilchrist gave that money to Forde.

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Well, we wondered why the "Tea Party Express" was bothering to advertise so heavily on Fox, when the network was certain to give them all the free advertising in the form of "reportage" from the likes of Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. And sure enough, Neil Cavuto came through Friday with the first of what will certainly be many Fox News "reports" on the exciting cross-country tour.

But CNN did the real honors Friday, featuring a couple of segments on the tour. The first was a fluff piece about what a cool bus the people on the tour get to ride in. Awesome, dood.

Then Tony Harris did an interview with Mark Williams, the chief spokesman for Our Country Deserves Better PAC, the organization behind the "Tea Party Express." And while Harris did try to ask Williams some skeptical questions, it was a very congenial segment.

Most of all, Williams was able to flatly deceive the CNN audience about their purpose and intent. Harris asked him whether or not the entire thrust of the "tea parties" was to attack President Obama's policies -- a reasonable point, since these "partiers" were nowhere to be found when George W. Bush was busily busting budgets and running up massive deficits in the name of tax cuts for the wealthy.

Harris, though, pretended throughout the segment that they were purely a nonpartisan outfit only angry about overtaxation. Which is a large wagonload of hooey.

The "Our Country Deserves Better" PAC, in fact, was founded in August 2008 -- before the election -- specifically to oppose Barack Obama and his policies. (They called it "drawing contrasts between Senator Barack Obama and John McCain".) In October 2008, for instance, Williams was out on the stump campaigning against Obama as a "socialist" on a previous bus tour called the "Stop Obama Express". They've also runs ads comparing Obama to Hitler.

That's a nice bit of track-covering. Too bad none of these cable anchors are sharp enough to catch on to it.

I think we should support him, but only during the upcoming Petraeus/White House report week. TPM's commenter has it right with this one:

If Sen. Larry Craig reconsiders and steps all over Gen. Petraeus' week of surge, Bill Kristol's head will explode. That Pentagon media war room they set up will be useless in the face of this cable TV zoo.

This is a bobble-header's wet dream. I remember when Neil Cavuto blamed Michael Jackson's court case with destroying Bush's social security plan. I kid you not.

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Cavuto: He’s had a tough sell. I tried to relate that the intense coverage of the Michael Jackson trial was being a bit of a distraction for him.

UPDATE: Talkleft may have an angle that Larry Craig can use...

If you're visiting with family over Thanksgiving, and you see children being entertained by a popular animated movie, be sure to remember that, in all likelihood, conservatives believe the cartoons are part of some nefarious liberal plot.

CNN Headline News' Glenn Beck, for example, railed against the animated film Happy Feet this week, calling it "propaganda" and an "animated version of An Inconvenient Truth." Discussing the movie with Bob Thompson, director of the Center for the Study of Popular Television, Beck went on quite a tirade.

Similarly, Fox News' Neil Cavuto whined incessantly about the movie this week, calling Happy Feet "offensive," "big-time objectionable," and "far left" political propaganda.

Of course, it's not just this movie. From Tinky Winky to Shrek, Shark Tale to SpongeBob, conservatives seem to have an unhealthy fixation on the alleged dangers lurking in animation.

Note to the right: they're just cartoons. It's probably time for a priority check.

-Steve Benen

Cavuto and Dean

(Did Howard Dean Threaten the entire Religious community?)

Another Neil Cavuto show, another distortion. Dean was talking about taxes. I especially like the graphic that has Howard bathed in a red light. He sure looks like "the Devil" to me.

The Carpetbagger Report: The 'un-explainer-in-chief'

Media in Trouble: Looks like Krauthammer needs a psychiatrist. He and plenty of other whining wingers have been wringing their hands over the movies, while claiming to speak for Joe Public.

Raven's View: More on the Colorado teacher suspended for liberal commentary

The Saturday Cartoons

How Appealing: Is Chertoff toast? The guy who oughta be fired is being defended by the usual cultish groupies.

News Hounds: Is Cavuto running a Christian Family hour or a business show?How Appealing: Is Chertoff toast? The guy who oughta be fired is being defended by the usual cultish groupies.

News Hounds: Is Cavuto running a Christian Family hour or a business show?

Does Hollywood treat Albinos worse than conservatives?

Cavuto is the king of the weird.

I've pretty much stayed away form this story like most of us. Who needed to feed the Jackson frenzy right? I mean Neal Cavuto even suggested that the Micheal Jackson trial was the reason that President Bush's Social Security plan has tanked. Now we see that some jurors actually think he was innocent:

Two jurors who acquitted Michael Jackson of child molestation charges now say they think the pop star was guilty - and they are penning tell-all books about the jury's deliberations, the Daily News has learned...read on

Way to go you cowards. I was just getting into sharks and run-a-way husbands.