I wasn't expecting much from Bill Daley, but for once I'm not afraid to admit I was wrong. The lone Democrat on Face the Nation's panel, Daley was faced with a ridiculous discussion about how the president has been unable to tame Congress and get them to do anything at all. Fellow panelists Bob Woodward, Peggy Noonan and Bill Kristol were happy to follow their host in painting a fiction about today's atmosphere in Washington, DC.

During the discussion, Schieffer kept bringing up Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act as a shining example of how Johnson got divided Democrats to actually pass it.

Does anyone besides me see the irony in that analogy? Daley let the racial implications slide right by, but he did give them some lessons on why Johnson's tactics won't work in today's climate, reminding the panel that the kinds of "deals" done by Johnson in the 60s and Abraham Lincoln a century before would lead to impeachment or indictment.

Not that it fazed these people in the least, you understand. Bloody Bill Kristol compared the "If you like your insurance, you can keep it" to the kinds of battles Johnson undertook to get the Civil Rights Act passed. The panel's memory was also completely blank when it came to the fact that Johnson would not have rammed that through without capitalizing on the collective grief over JFK's assassination.

Daley repeated his assertion about impeachment or indictment twice during this panel discussion, for all the good it did. Do these people actually believe there's any will in the House to pass anything at all?

Planet denial is the name of the game on these shows. From Ted Cruz and his pathetic effort to strut his faux populi credentials all over the airwaves to this panel's sense that Congress is just aching to get things done were it not for the guy holding them up in the White House, Daley's words ring true: That is not reality.