Bob Schieffer Asks Haley Barbour 'Could You Ever Envision Supporting a Ticket With Palin on Top?'

As no clear frontrunner emerges in the Republican presidential nomination race, the liberal media are in a full-scale panic over the thought that the former governor of Alaska might eventually enter and challenge their beloved president in November 2012.

On Sunday, "Face the Nation's" Bob Schieffer asked Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour with some incredulity, "Could you ever envision yourself supporting a ticket that had Sarah Palin at the top?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BOB SCHIEFFER, HOST: Well, what about Sarah Palin? You say she-- you don’t know what she’s going to do. If she did get in, could you ever envision yourself supporting a ticket that had Sarah Palin at the top?

MISSISSIPPI GOVERNOR HALEY BARBOUR: If Barack Obama was the head of the other ticket, I could.There’s no question about that. I mean, we look at the Obama policies. He wants to raise taxes when raises taxes would hurt the economy. When in fact, what we need in our country is economic growth and job creation. He pays lip service to that but his policies hurt that. Obamacare makes it harder to hire people. How do you hire people, Bob, if you don’t know what your obligations and costs are going to be for health care.

All this government spending, bigger government means a smaller economy. When government is sucking trillions of dollars out of the economy, there is no money on Main Street. I can tell you that. Wall Street may be doing all right but there’s no money on Main Street. That’s where the jobs come from. So policy after policy after policy makes it harder to create jobs and grow the economy in the Obama administration.

What was particularly hypocritical about Schieffer's question was that in the following segment, while interviewing former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the host repeatedly challenged his guest about the awful state of the economy and that Obama's had almost two and a half years to fix it without any success.

Irrespective of who the Republicans nominate, the fact of the matter is Obama has failed to solve the nation's economic woes and Americans are very displeased. A just-released Newsweek/Daily Beast poll perfectly illustrated this:

By almost four to one, Americans say our economy is not delivering the jobs we need, 81 percent to 12 percent.

And Obama isn't helping. 50 percent of respondents think the president has no real plan to balance the budget; 40 percent say he does. [...]

Over half (52 percent) say their personal economic situation makes them nervous. Forty eight percent say it makes them anxious, 44 percent say it makes them upset, and 30 percent say it makes them angry.

These are serious headwinds for an incumbent president regardless of what opponent he'll face in seventeen months.

Yet all the media want to talk about is Sarah Palin, someone who most political observers don't believe will ever enter the race.

She's got to be laughing all the way to the bank.