Levin vs. Obama

>>> with us tonight laura flanders , host of grit tv, editor of the book "at the tea party ." and john feehery republican strategist with us tonight as well. great to have both of you with us. i'm on this earmark story. this is mr. cornyn and mr. thune today at a press conference talking about the earmarks. here it is.

>> pardon me? i intend to vote against those earmarks.

>> let me just say this, kelly, and maybe this is the -- i will vote against the motion to proceed to this bill. if we get on the bill i will vote against the bill.

>> laura flanders , what do you make of it.

>> you know did you hear hypocrisy used in relation to the gop recently? i mean let's face it, john thune and his co have not wanted to support the procedural way to get support to even their districts through stimulus. if you don't like earmarks then let's talk about the process without earmarks. they've stood against that. they've opposed that. but earmarks, they're fine with. or even if they're not fine with, they want in this bill. this is just, again, we're going to see a rising tide of people against earmarks right and left, frankly. i don't think that is the way to legislate. but you can't both stonewall progress on stimulus and try to sneak in your own earmarks and then hope that your base is rowled up against earmarks.

>> this is senator reid on the ear marks. he responded to yesterday's press conference.

>> you can't have it both ways. you can all look it up in the dictionary yourself but i bet if you went to "h" in the dictionary and found hypocrite under that would be people who ask for earmarks who would vote against them.

>> what do you think, john? john feehery, where are we at on this? how do you explain this one?

>> it's actually quite tease explain. first of all those requests came at the beginning of the year and now the position on earmarks has taken at the republican conference at the later end the year so it's not hypocritical at all. it's the involvement of the frustration with the spending process. and i would make another point that is you can have provisions in bills -- laura, let me finish. let me finish. let me finish. the fact of the matter is, is that you can have provisions in the bill that you support which democrats support provisions like for example unemployment insurance and be against the bill. we have plenty of democrats who did that on this tax extender bill just yesterday.

>> so is harry reid wrong?

>> you can create provisionings in the legislation --

>> what's happening now is pandering.

>> and oppose the bill. there's nothing hypocritical about it.

>> it's completely hypocritical.

>> no it's not.

>> the point is the whole stimulus spending and the earmarks is insane.

>> laura, go ahead and finish.

>> this is pandering, but reason that we're seeing the discussion now is because you've got feehery on the right and the left, not john but the anger sword. and i in fact hypocrisy began earlier, we're against stimulus but we're for earmarks.

>> john feehery, how come the republicans don't want to do the country's business over the holidays if they have to do it? what's wrong with nease guys?

>> i think that the frustration here, ed is that this is all legislation that should have gotten done months ago. the democrats did no -- they did nothing on the budget, they did nothing on the appropriation bills and now they're trying to jam it all through at the end of the cession. they should have done this tax extender bill well before and created certainty in the marketplace. they've not done their work and they're trying to jam it through. this is a complete dysfunction.

>> the idea of the republicans coming out worried about the spirit of christmas , i mean really, the scrooge gop, tell that to i don't know the dream act denied student who's looking at getting deported after they graduate or the 9/11 responders sick at home looking at their kids, tell it to the gay soldiers or lesbians who are worried about losing their jobs. i mean didn't jesus talk about