According to his bio on the Fox News website, Hunt is a retired colonel with “over 29 years of military experience including extensive operational experience in special operations, counter terrorism and intelligence operations.” Hunt generally adheres to the conservative line on national security matters. For instance, he was an advocate for attacking Iraq. And instead of encouraging dialogue with Iran and Syria, Hunt said in 2006, “I think we can talk to them when we line them up and kill them.”

This morning, however, Hunt sided with progressives who are advocating repeal of the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Hunt called the discriminatory law “an abject failure” because “we’ve lost somewhere between 11 and 14,000 soldiers.” He continued:

Being brave in the battlefield has nothing to do with how you go to the bathroom or how you have sex. … If you volunteer to serve this great country, we should welcome you, not push you away because of some arcane attitude about sex.

Even Fox host Clayton Morris agreed. “Yeah, it’s like a civil rights issue. I find it absolutely absurd,” Morris said. Then Morris and Hunt took a swipe at Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who claims to heed the views of military leaders (except those with whom he disagrees):

MORRIS: On the campaign trail, then-Sen. John McCain said, look, when I hear from the military brass that they want to end Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, I’ll get right in line with them. That’s what happened — we heard from Admiral Mullen, we heard from Defense Secretary Gates. … Why is John McCain flip-flopping here?

HUNT: It’s just too damn convenient for McCain to be doing this. … He’s just wrong on this. We’re in a war. We’ve got guys deployed for 8 years in Afghanistan, almost 7 years in Iraq. And somebody says, I want to serve this country. And McCain wants to say, if you’re homosexual, you can’t serve. It’s wrong. We need these kind of people. We need all of them.

Hunt said that the repeal of DADT won’t be “easily accepted” by the military because “it’s a conservative organization,” but it’s still the right thing to do in the long-run. Watch it:

Over the past few days, Fox has given ample airtime to those who defend DADT. Bill Kristol called it a “success.” Ollie North derided repeal as a harmful “social experiment.” Bill O’Reilly opposed repeal because “it’s a morale issue.”

A review of Fox News shows over the past month indicates that Hunt – generally, a regular contributor on Fox News – had not been called upon prior to this morning to offer his views on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy. Will Hunt be invited on other Fox News shows to discuss his views?

The opening-night speaker at first ever National Tea Party Convention ripped into President Obama, Sen. John McCain and “the cult of multiculturalism,” asserting that Obama was elected because “we do not have a civics, literacy test before people can vote in this country.”

The speaker, former Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., told about 600 delegates in a Nashville, Tenn., ballroom that in the 2008 election, America “put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House … Barack Hussein Obama.”

Given that the convention is being held in Nashville, Tennessee, Tancredo’s remarks are particularly offensive. For years, literacy tests were used across the South to disenfranchise African-American voters, who generally had illiteracy rates 4-5 times as high as whites due to historical discrimination and lack of opportunity. Unfortunately for Tancredo, the 1965 Voting Rights Act makes literacy tests illegal.

But in a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Tuesday, McCain bristled when the Pentagon’s top military and civilian leaders, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Adm. Mike Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, announced they were in favor of overturning the policy. “I’m happy to say we still have a Congress of the United States that would have to pass a law to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, despite your efforts to repeal it in many respects by fiat,” said McCain.

In an interview on Bill Bennett’s radio show today, McCain claimed “the policy is working” and repeated his opposition to repealing, but claimed that he would “be glad to listen to the views of military leaders”:

MCCAIN: Look, the policy is working. I talk to military all the time. I have a lot of contact with them. The policy is working and the president made a commitment in his campaign that he would reverse it and the president then made the announcement that wants it reversed. And it is a law. It has to be changed. So Admiral Mullen said, speaking for himself only, he thought it ought to be reversed and of course Secretary Gates said that. I do not. I do not know what the other military leadership wants. I know that I have a letter signed by over a thousand retired admirals and generals that said they don’t want it reversed. And so, I will be glad to listen to the views of military leaders. I always have. But I’m not changing my position in support of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unless there is the significant support for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And I would remind you that we’re in two wars. You know that and our listeners know that. And do we need, don’t we need a serious assessment of the effect on morale or battle and combat effectiveness before we go forward with a reversal in a campaigning, carrying out an Obama campaign.

Listen here:

On Fox News last night, McCain also said that he was hoping “to get the opinion from our military leadership,’ saying that “If they can show me the evidence that it needs to be changed, obviously, then I would give that serious consideration.” McCain says that he has “respect” for Mullen’s view, but he dismisses it as simply an “individual opinion.”

But McCain has previously said that the “individual opinion” of military leaders for whom he has “respect” influenced his views on military policy. In June 2009, he told Ana Marie Cox that he originally supported the policy because General Colin Powell had “strongly recommended” it and he hadn’t “heard General Powell or any of the other military leaders reverse their position.” Powell released a statement yesterday saying he now opposes the continuation of DADT because “attitudes and circumstances have changed.”

So basically, McCain is willing to “listen” to military leaders on DADT — he’s just not going to let their expert opinions get in the way of what he already thinks.

Transcript:

BENNETT: You, you know, we’re very proud of you for a lot of reasons, but not least your lonely vigil the other day — it looked to me lonely — on the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, you were strong, you were tough and looked to me to be pretty much by yourself. I know a lot of Americans are with you, but what’s the story with the Senate?

MCCAIN: Well, I, there are members who obviously agree with me, but look, the policy is working. I talk to military all the time. I have a lot of contact with them. The policy is working and the president made a commitment in his campaign that he would reverse it and the president then made the announcement that wants it reversed. And it is a law. It has to be changed.

BENNETT: Yes.

MCCAIN: So Admiral Mullen said, speaking for himself only, he thought it ought to be reversed and of course Secretary Gates said that. I do not. I do not know what the other military leadership wants. I know that I have a letter signed by over a thousand retired admirals and generals that said they don’t want it reversed. And so, I will be glad to listen to the views of military leaders. I always have. But I’m not changing my position in support of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell unless there is the significant support for the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. And I would remind you that we’re in two wars. You know that and our listeners know that. And do we need, don’t we need a serious assessment of the effect on morale or battle and combat effectiveness before we go forward with a reversal in a campaigning, carrying out an Obama campaign pledge.

BENNETT: Yeah, let me ask you quickly. Some things I want to get to too. Gay serve in the military now, but you know, don’t ask, don’t tell, keep your mouth shut. Keep, mind your own business.

MCCAIN: They’re not precluded from serving in the military and…say that they have.

BENNETT: Right. But what changes?

MCCAIN: And what this would do, would obviously have openly gay individuals serving and that could, I want to emphasize could, in the view of many have an effect on both retention, re-enlistment and morale. And there was a Military Times, Army Times, Navy Times, Marine Corp Times survey that showed there was significant resistance to repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell within the ranks of the military. So we need to carefully examine this before we take any action in my view on a policy that is working.

BENNETT: Yeah.

Both then reminisced about the days when a president was in office who was “far more in touch” with regular folks: President George W. Bush:

HANNITY: George Bush who you worked for did not play golf while this country was at war. He didn’t want the families of loved ones serving, well, that they may have lost the loved ones seeing him on a golf course.

WALLACE: Yes, I mean…

HANNITY: He seemed to be far more in touch.

Watch it:

Toward the end of his presidency, Bush said that he had given up golf to show “solidarity” with the troops. But Hannity’s assertion that Bush never played golf “while this country was at war” just isn’t true:

Bush claimed he quit playing golf on Aug. 19, 2003, when U.N. envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello was killed in Iraq. Yet, the AP reported two months later that Bush had spent a “cool, breezy Columbus Day” playing “a round of golf with three long-time buddies.” And during the 2008 presidential campaign, Bush attended a high-dollar golf fundraiser for John McCain to “greet the foursomes.”

Then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice wasn’t willing to give up her golf game for the troops. Perhaps Hannity thinks she’s also out of touch.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Republicans are stepping up their campaign to win donations from Wall Street,” following the industry’s increasing turn against the Democratic Party. House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) reportedly met with J.P. Morgan chief and Democratic ally James Dimon last week to try to persuade him to support his party.

Health care spending grew to be 17.3 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2009 — a 1.1 percentage point rise — despite the economic recession. The increase was the largest in a single year since 1960, according to the new report by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. By 2019, health care spending is anticipated to be represent 19.3 percent of the economy.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) is “preparing a series of gun rights amendments that he intends to offer to must-pass Senate bills this year, hoping to force Democrats to take tough votes and draw clear distinctions between the two parties heading into the midterms.” “We’ll see gun amendments if we see appropriations bills,” Coburn said.

President Bush briefly “considered — and rejected — a military response to Russia’s 2008 invasion of Georgia,” according to a new history of the conflict. Bush’s national security aides outlined possible responses, including “surgical strikes,” but rejected them as “too risky.”

Some prominent Republicans are soon launching “a center-right version of the Center for American Progress.” Former senator Norm Coleman and former McCain adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin are leading the effort, while Haley Barbour, Jeb Bush, and Ed Gillespie are also involved. “Let them have at it,” said CAP President and CEO John Podesta, “and we’ll be happy to debate them.”

“The Obama administration is aggressively pushing back against Republican criticism of its handling of terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.” Attorney General Eric Holder sent a letter yesterday “to Senate Republicans in which he said the legal decisions in the Abdulmutallab case were consistent with the strategy used during George W. Bush’s administration.”

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said yesterday that his agency is “widening its probe” of accelerator issues in Toyota vehicles “to look at the possibility of electromagnetic interference” with the cars’ throttles. He also said he “wants to talk directly” with the company’s CEO.

State Farm Florida announced that it will cancel “the policies of 125,000 of its most vulnerable customers beginning Aug. 1, halfway through the 2010 hurricane season.” A spokesman for the company told the press the “decision was the direct result of its failure to win a 47.1 percent rate increase from state regulators.”

Iran’s two leading opposition leaders, Mir Hussein Moussavi and Mehdi Karroubi, “are urging protesters to defy the government and take to the streets in an antigovernment rally on Feb. 11″ in a challenge to the increasingly violent tactics used by the Iranian regime to control the population. Karroubi called for free elections, the release of political prisoners, and an end to what he called the “police state.”

And finally: Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) says he’s “all for full disclosure,” but he has turned down Cosmopolitan invitation to show the “full monty” in the magazine.

Follow ThinkProgress on Twitter.

MCCAIN: My opinion is shaped by the view of the leaders of the military. The reason why I supported the policy to start with is because General Colin Powell, who was then the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the one that strongly recommended we adopt this policy in the Clinton administration. I have not heard General Powell or any of the other military leaders reverse their position, just like when on other issues, that people are expert and knowledgeable of, I rely on their opinion. But this is unique. These military leaders are responsible for the very lives of the men and women under their command, and that’s why I am especially guided, to a large degree, by their views.

Today, in a statement released from his office, Powell officially announced that he now opposes the continuation of DADT because “attitudes and circumstances have changed.” Now that Powell no longer supports the DADT policy, what other excuses will McCain offer? (HT: Andrew Sullivan)

MULLEN: Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.

Watch it:

As early as May 2008, Mullen told graduating cadets at the U.S. Military Academy that the military was ready to accept gay servicemembers if Congress repeals DADT. Last month, Gen. John Shalikashvili, who implemented DADT while serving as Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman under President Clinton, said that it is time to repeal the policy.

Transcript:

MULLEN: Mr. Chairman, speaking for myself and myself only, it is my personal belief that allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly would be the right thing to do. No matter how I look at this issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy that forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens. For me, personally, it comes down to integrity — theirs as individuals, and ours as an institution.

I also believe that the great young men and women of our military can and would accommodate such a change. I never underestimate their ability to adapt.

But I do not know this for a fact, nor do I know for a fact how we would best make such a major policy change in a time of two wars. That there will be some disruption in the force, I cannot deny. [...]

Sen. Sessions, I think it is approximately correct, but it does, again, go to a fundamental principle with me, which is, everybody counts. And part of the struggle back to the institutional integrity aspect of this —

SESSIONS: I know, I’m privy to your views —

MULLEN: — and putting individuals in a position that every single day, they wonder whether today is going to be the day, and devaluing them in that regard just is inconsistent with us as an institution. I have served with homosexuals since 1968. Sen. McCain spoke to that in his statement. Everybody in the military has. And we understand that. So it is a number of things which cumulatively, for me personally, get me to this position.

I think stimulus was key to the 4th quarter. It was really critical to business fixed investment because there was a tax bonus depreciation in the stimulus that expired in December and juiced up fixed investment. And also, it was very critical to housing and residential investment because of the housing tax credit. And the decline in government spending would have been measurably greater without the money from the stimulus. So the stimulus was very, very important in the 4th quarter.

Watch it:

Sarah Palin is also billed for a keynote speaking slot at the event. She will reportedly receive $115,000 for the appearance, and last night on Fox News, Palin said she has no intention of abandoning the convention:

VAN SUSTEREN: Do you intend to speak? And there’s the controversy about you getting paid. What’s your thought?

PALIN: Oh, you betcha I’m going to be there. I’m going to speak there because there are people traveling from many miles away to hear what that tea party movement is all about and what that message is that should be received by our politicians in Washington. I’m honored to get to be there.

Palin said she won’t “personally gain from being there” and will donate the speaking fee to “the cause” (although she did not say if her PAC is part of that “cause”). Later in the segment, Palin argued that the GOP and the Tea Party movement “need to merge” in order to prevent “divisions” and “divisiveness.” Watch it:

Perhaps Palin thinks the Tea Party and the GOP “need to merge” because far right wingers and teabaggers alike have attacked the former Alaska governor for endorsing Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) re-election campaign.

But it’s unclear whether such a merger can ever take place. Just yesterday, RNC chair Michael Steele said he does not want to “co-opt” the movement. And one controversial Tea Party leader recently complained that the RNC is ignoring him. “I’ve called them, lots of times. I called them this morning. I called them yesterday. It’s like they ignore you as they try to figure out a strategy on how to defeat you,” he said.

Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) and Susan Collins (R-ME)

Today, the Senate followed through, and considering all of the deficit fearmongering that has been going on in Congress, you’d think that it would have passed by a fairly wide margin. But no. Instead, the rules passed on a party line vote of 60-40.

And the blanket Republican opposition is particularly interesting considering that some Senate Republicans used to support PAYGO, even when it was opposed by their own party. For instance, in 2004, three current Senate Republicans — Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), and Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) — joined 47 Democrats in adopting PAYGO, against the majority Republicans’ wishes (although the rule was ultimately scuttled when Congress failed to pass a budget). The next year, the same three senators were joined by Sen. George Voinovich (R-OH) in a failed attempt to implement the rule.

Yet all four of them opposed the rule today. Here’s what they’ve had to say in favor of PAYGO in the past:

VOINOVICH: I just don’t understand how we can continue to go this way. We’re living in a dream world. This deficit continues to grow.

COLLINS: [PAYGO is] much-needed restraint for members of Congress as we wrestle with fiscal decisions.

SNOWE: I believe now is the time for both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue to commit to pay-as-you-go rules for both revenues and spending.

Just last year, Snowe approved of Obama’s advocating for PAYGO. And in the last few weeks, all of these Republicans have voiced concerns about the deficit and spending. So what changed? And why did all the supposed deficit hawks in the Senate — like Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH) — vote against it as well? Could it be that they’re actually deficit peacocks, who “like to preen and call attention to themselves, but are not sincerely interested” in addressing deficits?

In last night’s address, Obama chided Senate Republicans, saying that “just saying no to everything may be good short-term politics, but it’s not leadership. We were sent here to serve our citizens, not our ambitions. So let’s show the American people that we can do it together.” They’re not off to a good start.

Cross-posted at The Wonk Room. DJ Carella contributed research to this post.

But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives. And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country. It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development. It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies. And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America.

Watch a compilation of Obama’s address and the Republican reaction:

Although Republicans lauded Obama’s praise of heavily subsidized, polluting industries, they scoffed at energy legislation that would address climate change. Unlike Rudy Giuliani, Rep. David Dreier (R-CA), Mitt Romney, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Obama’s actual supporters were dismayed.

About 12,000 MoveOn members participated in a “live online dial-test of President Obama’s State of the Union speech.” While Obama’s mentions of clean energy innovation were some of his most popular moments, his paean to polluters was by far his worst moment with progressive activists:

Nukes, oil, and coal just aren’t clean. If Obama really is committed to “tough decisions,” he’ll take on the coal companies who are tearing up the Appalachian mountains, the nuclear companies who want taxpayers to take all the risk for accidents and waste, and the oil companies who are burning up the planet for their own profit. And that’s something the people who put him into office could support.

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program. On top of that, the effects of the recession put a $3 trillion hole in our budget. All this was before I walked in the door.

The camera then cut to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who leaned over to Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and appeared to whisper, “Blame it on Bush.” The two men then laughed. Watch it:

Stating facts is not blaming Bush. A CAP analysis concludes that 41 percent of the source of increased spending in 2009 is attributable to the financial rescues begun by Bush.

MATTHEWS: Are you as far right as the birthers? Are you one of those who believes that the President should have to prove that he’s a citizen of the United States and not an illegal immigrant? Are you that far right?

HAYWORTH: Well, gosh, we all had to bring our birth certificates to show we were who we said we were and we were the age we said we were to play football and youth sports. Shouldn’t we know exactly that anyone who wants to run for public office is a natural born citizen of the United States and is who they say they are? [...]

MATTHEWS: Should the Governor of Hawaii produce evidence that the President is one of us, an American? Do you think that’s a worthy past time for the Governor of Hawaii?

HAYWORTH: No, look…I’m just saying the President should come forward with the information, that’s all. Why should we we depend on the Governor of Hawaii?

Watch it:

However, Obama has in fact, presented a digitally scanned image of his birth certificate that includes a raised seal and the signature stamp of Hawaii state registrar. During the 2008 presidential election, the McCain campaign investigated and dismissed claims that Obama is not a natural born citizen. Nonetheless, stubborn right-wingers have continued incessantly demanding Obama provide a long-form version of his birth certificate. Mother Jones reports that birthers are spending exorbitant amounts in legal fees to pursue this conspiracy.

On Friday, Paul Streitz, the co-founder of the 2012 Draft Sarah Committee — a group trying to get Palin to run for president in 2012 — sent out an e-mail slamming Palin for supporting McCain:

She has now chose to align herself with several bad actors. What should this be called, the Rinoization of Sarah Palin. [...]

She is certainly entitled to write a book and make money for her and her family, but other than what has she has done to support Republican and patriotic candidates. … Perhaps, Sarah was too busy talking to her agent about her Fox deal. Where the hell was Sarah?

Streitz is no longer involved with the Draft Sarah Committee, which condemned his e-mail, but he is not alone in his view. Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin wrote on her blog that “Tea Party activists are rightly outraged by Sarah Palin’s decision to campaign for McCain, whose entrenched incumbency and progressive views are anathema to the movement.”

On his radio show yesterday, Fox News host Glenn Beck told a caller upset by Palin’s move that “This Sarah Palin thing really bothers me.” “I am absolutely no fan of John McCain,” Beck said. “I want to have another sit down with her. How does she believe he is a good man when everyone in his organization trashed her?”

Thomas Lamb at Red Country called the endorsement Palin’s “political Waterloo.” He added that “by Palin supporting McCain, she is supporting an enemy to [the Tea Party] movement and by de facto, becomes the enemy.” In a post titled “Yes, Sarah Palin is a RINO” on the Christian-right blog RealityCheck, ZbigniewMazurak called McCain “a despicable traitor” and wrote that by endorsing him, “Palin has proven that she IS for sale.” “I was a fan of Palin myself,” he added. “But I’m now convinced that she’s not a conservative, nor is she a politician qualified for the Presidency of the United States. … No real conservative would ever endorse McCain for the Senate.”

Moreover, nearly every comment on Palin’s Facebook post announcing her endorsement of McCain is negative. Some examples:

– Sarah has made it clear that her loyality to a Liberal RINO Duck McCain, is more important then her loyality to the Stability of the country and the Conservative Folk.

– I am so sorry to hear that you are supporting John McCain. He is the ultimate RINO that the Tea Party movement is trying to expose. How can you accept $100k from the Tea Party movement and support John McCain?

– I would NEVER vote for John McCain. Why are you endorsing him, Sarah? I like you, but on this, I must question your motives.

– YOU had my FULL support, but now – NO!!! ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!! If you support [McCain] – forget about it!!!!

Will Palin bow to the right-wing fringe and cut and run from the man who plucked her from relative obscurity?

So it seems that Sen. Evan Bayh’s (D-IN) estimate that “there’s a fighting chance” of Obama proposing a freeze has been proven correct. Of course, during the Presidential campaign, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) proposed a similar spending freeze, which Obama repeatedly condemned as an “example of unfair burden sharing,” and “using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.” Here’s a compilation placed on YouTube yesterday of Obama scoffing at a spending freeze in all three presidential debates:

The administration’s contention is that, unlike McCain’s proposed freeze, this operates more like a spending cap, with some programs’ funding going up and others down. As Matthew Yglesias put it, Obama is “aiming for what you might call a ‘cut and invest’ strategy — slashing certain programs and boosting others. And I think anyone who looks at it would have to admit that there is, in fact, a lot of discretionary spending on programs of little value.”

But still, many economists have blasted the plan for its potentially anti-stimulative effects and its focus on spending that is not the root cause of the country’s long-term deficits. Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman wrote that the freeze is “appalling on every level…shifting attention away from the essential need to reform health care and focusing on small change instead.” Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich said that the freeze “will make it impossible for [Obama] to do much of anything for the middle class that’s important.” U.C. Berkeley economist Brad DeLong added “this is a perfect example of fundamental unseriousness: rather than make proposals that will actually tackle the long-term deficit…come up with a proposal that does short-term harm to the economy without tackling the deficit in any serious and significant way.”

And at its core, Obama’s decision cedes to the right-wing both the idea that blanket cuts are necessary and the notion that cuts should be focused on domestic programs while defense spending goes untouched. And already, the right-wing is claiming the freeze as a victory, with the National Review’s Jim Geraghty writing, “if the arguments in the coming years are between spending freezes and spending cuts, then we’ve already won.”

Cross-posted on The Wonk Room.

In an interview on Connecticut’s Face The State program this weekend, Lieberman once again said that it was “possible” he could run for re-election as a Republican. Noting that “it would be harder, to be honest, to get the nomination in the Democratic party,” Lieberman said that while he is “most likely” to remain an independent, he could see himself as a Republican:

HOST: Could you see yourself being a Republican or is that…

LIEBERMAN: It’s possible.

HOST:…far-fetched.

LIEBERMAN: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s possible. A good old-fashioned New England moderate Republican.

Watch it:

Lieberman has also suggested that he would “support some Republican candidates for Congress or Senate in the elections in 2010.” In a separate part of the interview, Lieberman suggested that he was open to endorsing Republican Linda McMahon in a Senate race against Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal if she wins her primary with former Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT).

It’s not clear, however, how helpful Lieberman’s support would be for any candidate in the Senate race. A recent Public Policy Polling (PPP) survey found that Lieberman had “a 25 percent approval rating with 67 percent of his constituents giving him bad marks.” To demonstrate how disliked Lieberman is by CT Democrats, PPP notes that “Barack Obama’s approval rating with Connecticut Republicans is higher than Lieberman’s with the state’s Democrats.”

Transcript:

HOST: Should you run again, there are three routes you could take. You could be an independent again.

LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

HOST: You could be a Democrat or even a Republican.

LIEBERMAN: Yeah.

HOST: Let’s talk about these three possibilities.

LIEBERMAN: Right.

HOST: Where do you see yourself going? Is there a way back to become a full-fledged Democrat or is that a bridge burned.

LIEBERMAN: No, I don’t think it’s burned. You know, I’ve been a Democrat all my life. I mean there is a way in which — look, at the beginning of the ‘06 campaign, it was really at the end of ‘05, people working my campaign, interestingly said to me in a private meeting after some polling, you should think about running as an independent. Because it’s going to be real hard in the Democratic primary based on the position I was taking on the Iraq war, which I know it was an unpopular position in the Democratic party, but I felt, it was what I felt was right for our country. So I said, no, you know, I’ve been a Democrat all my life. The party on this issue really doesn’t agree with me, but I’m going to put my confidence in the people and the party and I’m not going to leave, walk away from the party. If they want to kick me out, that’s there decision. That’s obviously what happened. At least they decided not to nominate me again. So, and let me come back to you question. I’d say, I haven’t really focused on it, but I’d say from the get go, anyone of these…it’s good, to paraphrase Mel Brooks, it’s good to be an independent. It gives me latitude. I could run possibly on any of the three. Probably it would be harder, to be honest, to get the nomination in the Democratic party. Not impossible, it’d be harder. But I must tell you that at this moment in our political life, which is so partisan and almost tribal, you know. And it’s not good for the country, not good for our state. I like being an independent, so if you ask me, I’d say that’s probably the most likely of the choices.

HOST: Could you see yourself being a Republican or is that…

LIEBERMAN: It’s possible.

HOST:…far-fetched.

LIEBERMAN: Yeah, yeah. No, it’s possible. A good old-fashioned New England moderate Republican.

“They are effectively insulated from failure,” says Stephen Walt of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, one of the neocons’ most frequent antagonists. “Even if you’ve totally screwed up in office and things you’ve advocated in print have failed, there are no real consequences, either professionally or politically. You go back to AEI and Weekly Standard and continue to agitate or appear on talk shows as if nothing has gone wrong at all.”

One such prominent neocon is Bill Kristol, whom Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart once asked, “Are you ever right?” But it hasn’t just been Kristol’s ideological opposites that have criticized him. According to Newsweek, neocons, other Republicans, and even his own late father have criticized him:

“He would rather take an interesting wrong position than a dull correct one,” says a longtime neocon who did not want to be named because the two are friendly. Several people who know Kristol describe his Palin boosterism—his very public campaign to persuade John McCain to put her on the Republican ticket—as a schoolboy-like infatuation, sparked when a Weekly Standard cruise docked in Juneau. [...] “Bill’s a very close friend of mine, but he does an awful lot of things just to get publicity,” says one prominent Republican who also did not want to be named for fear of offending Kristol. [...]

Even his father had his qualms. “My poor son has got it wrong again,” he sometimes lamented to an old family friend.

Even far right-wing hawk and Fox News analyst Ralph Peters took a jab at neoconservatives. “These are men for whom too much came too easily in life, so it was all too easy for them to view our troops as mere tools to implement their visions,” he said, adding that he doesn’t consider himself a neocon. “I served in the military, didn’t go to a prep school, didn’t go to an Ivy League university, and didn’t have a trust fund. And I’m physically fit.”

We can do something right here, right now, starting next week. The President can say in his State of the Union address, ‘I’m going to include in my budget a freeze on discretionary spending, I’m drawing the line in the sand, and I’m willing to use my veto pen to enforce that’…I think there’s a fighting chance that he will. That’s what I’m looking for.

Watch it:

Bayh is the signature model of a “deficit peacock”: someone who likes to harp on deficits, while at the same time voting for budget-busting expenditures like a $250 billion tax cut for the heirs of wealthy families. So his approval of a spending freeze fits right in.

What’s more troubling is that the administration might take this seriously. This all stems from Office of Management and Budget Director Peter Orszag asking every executive department to submit three budget proposals, including one that freezes spending and one that reduces spending by five percent. The administration has also made other noise about serious deficit reduction in fiscal year 2010 being under consideration.

There’s obviously something to be said for identifying programs that don’t work or that overlap with other programs. But a straight spending freeze is a blunt instrument that has no place in responsible budgeting. When the Republicans proposed various versions of a spending freeze during the debate over Obama’s first budget (and when Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) had the same idea during the presidential campaign), they were correctly regarded as being in right-wing fantasy land.

Not only is a freeze a poor way to budget that doesn’t take into account priorities or the effectiveness of a particular program, but it will also have an anti-stimulative effect while the economy is still struggling through a middling recovery. Bayh analogizes the federal budget to a family’s checkbook, but the truth is that there is a lack of demand in the economy — an output gap between what the country could produce and what is is actually producing — that only the government can fill. “We cannot invite a W-shaped recession, or an M-shaped recession,” said Rep. John Olver (D-MA), when asked about a spending freeze.

“Do you think we could have a 5 percent reduction in [Low-Income Home Energy Assistance]?” asked Rep. Robert Andrews (D-NJ). “Do you think we could have a 5 percent reduction in food stamps?” The real long-term issues in the budget have little to do with discretionary spending and everything to do with health care costs, entitlements, and plummeting tax revenue in the wake of an economic crisis. A blunt spending freeze sounds nice, but only real reform in those other areas tackles the actual problems with the federal budget.

Cross-posted at The Wonk Room.

Today’s decision is backwards in many senses. It elevates the majority’s agenda over the litigants’ submissions, facial attacks over as-applied claims, broad constitutional theories over narrow statutory grounds, individual dissenting opinions over precedential holdings, assertion over tradition, absolutism over empiricism, rhetoric over reality. Our colleagues have arrived at the conclusion that Austin must be overruled and that §203 is facially unconstitutional only after mischaracterizing both the reach and rationale of those authorities, and after bypassing or ignoring rules of judicial restraint used to cabin the Court’s lawmaking power. … At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt. It is a strange time to repudiate that common sense. While American democracy is imperfect, few outside the majority of this Court would have thought its flaws included a dearth of corporate money in politics.

The majority, for its part, claimed that corporate political spending must be protected to prevent “taking the right to speak from some and giving it to others,” but they are simply wrong to claim that this is a case about free speech. Prior to Citizens United, no law prohibited anyone from saying anything they wanted. Corporate CEOs and other wealthy individuals could spend their own massive salaries to run political ads on TV. People who are less rich than corporate CEOs could pool their money together via organizations. The only thing that wasn’t permitted before Citizens United is that the CEO of Bank of America could not tap into Bank of America’s massive, multi-billion dollar treasury to defeat any lawmaker who thinks that TARP banks should pay back the federal government after it took expensive and unprecedented steps to prevent a total collapse of the U.S. banking system.

Ultimately, however, today’s decision does far more than simply provide Fortune 500 companies with a massive megaphone to blast their political views to the masses; it also empowers them to drown out any voices that disagree with them. In 2008, the Obama and McCain campaigns combined spent just over $1.1 billion, an enormous, record-breaking sum at the time. $1.1 billion is nothing, however, compared to the billions of dollars in tax subsidies given to the oil industry every year, or the $117 billion fee President Obama wants to impose on the Wall Street bankers who created the Great Recession. Indeed, with hundreds of billions of dollars of corporate profits at stake every time Congress begins a session, wealthy corporations would be foolish not to spend tens of billions of dollars every election cycle to make sure that their interests are protected. No one, including the candidates themselves, have the ability to compete with such giant expenditures.

The good news is that lawmakers are already considering ways to mitigate the damage caused by Citizens United, and a number of options exist, such as requiring additional disclosures by corporations engaged in electioneering, empowering shareholders to demand that their investment not be spent to advance candidates they disapprove of, or possibly even requiring shareholders to approve a corporation’s decision to influence an election before the company may do so. At the end of the day, however, many extremely well-moneyed corporations will still succeed in unleashing their treasuries on the electorate, and drowning out opposing voices.

One Republican attorney said that the new ruling basically turns the political landscape into the “Wild Wild West.” Another GOP election lawyer said that the ruling represents “a huge sea-change in campaign finance law. The Court went all the way. It really relieves any restrictions on corporate spending on independent advertising.”

As Common Cause noted, the ruling “will enhance the ability of the deepest-pocketed special interests to influence elections and the U.S. Congress.” U.S. PIRG called it a “shocking burst of judicial activism” that treats corporations “in the same manner as ordinary citizens.” Fred Wertheimer of Democracy 21 said the ruling will “create unprecedented opportunities for corporate ‘influence-buying‘ corruption.”

The ruling is a giant win for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the big corporations, which tend to donate heavily to Republicans. Many Republicans have therefore come out and praised today’s decision:

– Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX): “It is about a nonprofit group’s ability to speak about the public issue. I can’t think of a more fundamental First Amendment issue. … [The ruling could] open up resources that have not previously been available [for Republicans].” [NYT]

– Rep. Steve King (R-IA): “The Constitution protects the rights of citizens and employers to express their viewpoints on political issues. Today’s Supreme Court decision affirms the Bill of Rights and is a victory for liberty and free speech.” [Statement]

– Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN): “If the freedom of speech means anything, it means protecting the right of private citizens to voice opposition or support for their elected representatives. The fact that the Court overturned a 20-year precedent speaks volumes about the importance of this issue.” [Statement]

– Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY): The court took a step toward “restoring the First Amendment rights [of corporations and unions]. … By previously denying this right, the government was picking winners and losers.” [AP]

– RNC Chairman Michael Steele: “Today’s decision by the Supreme Court in Citizens United v. FEC, serves as an affirmation of the constitutional rights provided to Americans under the first amendment. Free speech strengthens our democracy.” [Statement]

– Senate Candidate Marco Rubio: “Today’s SCOTUS decision on McCain-Feingold is a victory for free speech.” [Statement]

The Court’s ruling also struck down part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform legislation “that barred union- and corporate-paid issue ads in the closing days of election campaigns.” Sen. Russ Feingold called the Court’s ruling a “terrible mistake,” but pointed out that it “does not affect McCain-Feingold’s soft money ban, which will continue to prevent corporate contributions to the political parties from corrupting the political process.” “The Supreme Court chose to roll back laws that have limited the role of corporate money in federal elections since Teddy Roosevelt was president,” he said. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) reacted similarly, saying he was “disappointed” in the decision.