For the second week in a row, Newsweek's Eleanor Clift and National Review's Rich Lowry had quite a battle on PBS's "McLaughlin Group."
This time the fireworks started when Lowry called President Obama classless for the way he treated Congressman Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) at Wednesday's speech on deficit reduction which led Clift to ask, "What else would you expect from a socialist born in Kenya who’s hiding his birth certificate?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
ELEANOR CLIFT, NEWSWEEK: It is perfectly fair politics to point out that Paul Ryan’s plan gets its cuts from taking money away from two-thirds of the public that is poorer, and hands it over in tax cuts to the top class…
RICH LOWRY, NATIONAL REVIEW: It is revenue neutral.
CLIFT: …and to call that classless…
LOWRY: It’s a revenue neutral tax reform…
CLIFT: Who gets…
LOWRY: …it does not cut taxes. That is wrong.
JOHN MCLAUGHLIN, HOST: Don't you think you’re a little pessimistic?
CLIFT: Excuse me! The savings he gets he transfers to the upper class, and you call the President's speech classless? What do you mean by that from a party that's in favor of birther talk.
MCLAUGHLIN: Let him answer, let him answer.
LOWRY: He invited Paul Ryan to sit in there in front of him and tell him he hates autistic kids fundamentally. That is classless, Eleanor. There's no other word for that.
LOWRY: Maybe a little class. Maybe a little class. He’s President of the United States.
MCLAUGHLIN: Wait a minute, there’s too many people talking here. Let's hear from Buchanan. Who’s the demagogue?
PAT BUCHANAN: In the President's speech there were real aspects of demagoguery. He’s talking about kids with autism and the rich getting their tax cuts.
MCLAUGHLIN: You don’t think the American people could see through that and they saw that it was demagoguery.
BUCHANAN: Demagoguery works, John.
Indeed it does, and as Buchanan said during this same segment, such demagoguery might end up getting Obama reelected.
Makes you proud to be an American, doesn't it?
