Axelrod on Fox News Sunday.

Man, was he evasive. I'll put up the transcript later and show you what I mean. Meanwhile, Jim DeMint is on after the break. An excellent opportunity to look brilliant simply by answering the questions asked in a reasonably specific and concise manner. Axelrod seemed robotic and anesthetized. His mustache was cut shorter on one side than the other. Asked whether Obama would accept any of what the deficit commission came up with, Axelrod droned emptiness until he latched onto the topic of Nancy Pelosi, which he blathered about until Chris Wallace cut him off.

ADDED: Transcript. [Analysis coming soon!]

ACTUALLY: It's too boring to pick apart. I've got to give Axelrod that. After the break, you can read the interchange about the deficit commission that annoyed me so much.

WALLACE: ... The co-chairs of the deficit commission, Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, both of whom the president appointed, came out with a plan this week to cut our debt by $4 trillion over the next decade.

Will the president include some of those proposals in his budget in February?

AXELROD: Well, we're obviously very, very interested. The president empaneled this commission for purposes of looking at this very difficult problem, and we're eager to look at all the recommendations once the commission reports. And his commitment to the chairman was to not -- was to refrain from commenting on their work until after December 1st.

But obviously, we're looking for all good ideas to help deal with our long-term debt problem. This is something that is going to affect our economy. It affects our kids. And we need to deal with it.

WALLACE: You say refrain from commenting. Nancy Pelosi didn't refrain from commenting. She immediately rejected the package as, quote, "simply unacceptable." Does the president agree or disagree that this package is simply unacceptable?

AXELROD: Well, I've seen comments from the left and the right on this, Chris, in fairness.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Well, I'm asking about Nancy Pelosi.

AXELROD: ... on the -- on the -- I understand. But I'm telling you that there were comments on both sides about this. And of course, this is something that we have to confront as we move forward.

One thing I know, Nancy Pelosi had concerns that -- and I understand those concerns and I respect those concerns. The truth is that as we move forward, if one side says we can't raise any taxes on anybody or any interest, and the other side says we can't cut anything, we're obviously not going to make progress on this. And our interest is in making progress on this.

Within that, we're going to protect important equities, for sure. I mean, we shouldn't cut without sensitivity to the impact of those cuts, and certainly Social Security, which is something she's concerned about, is a great concern to us.

But we should move forward in the spirit of cooperation, because we're not going to solve this, one party or the other, alone. We have to...

WALLACE: All right.

AXELROD: ... do it together.

WALLACE: All right. I want...

AXELROD: And that's what we want to do.

"Whores. Whores! Whores! Look around you. Look around you. Do you see what's happening?"

"In our town. In our very homes! You know who I'm talking about. You know! You know what's going on in that house! Vice! Perversions! Shamelessness! Cavorting... with that... devil!"

A quote from:

A. Somebody talking to Jerry Brown, who responded "Well, I'm going to use that."

B. David Axelrod, denouncing Christine O'Donnell.

C. Veronica Cartwright, attempting to warn people about what Jack Nicholson is doing.

I'm beginning to understand why that lefty blogger asked Axelrod if he knew the term "hippie punching"?

Tobin Harshaw reviews the incident in the NYT. He quotes me. You may remember that I said I'd never heard the term (and I've been something of a hippie since the original days of the hippie movement). The light bulb went off in my head when I scrolled down to the comments:

Hippy punch is frequently used on many blogs I read: Pandagon, Eschaton, Hullabaloo, to name just three. They've been using it since 2008, at least. They are among the more popular blogs on the left -- it shows that while the White House may have some sense that the so-called professional left is upset, they don't care enough to read what they are writing.

Ah! It's a shibboleth. This is a term used within an in-group. If you don't know the term, you reveal that you don't read those blogs. Here was Axelrod trying to get the lefty bloggers to help Obama out, but — gasp!!! — he doesn't even read their blogs. How devastating for them! LOL. Imagine if Axelrod sat around reading Pandagon, Eschaton, and Hullabaloo?

"[F]or Axelrod to plead with liberal bloggers for their help turning out the base, only to get accused of 'hippie punching,' is an iconic moment in Campaign 2010."

Interesting... but what the hell is "hippie punching"?

That tension burst out into the open when [Susan Madrak of Crooks and Liars] directly asked Axelrod: "Have you ever heard of hippie punching?" That prompted a long silence from Axelrod.

"You want us to help you, the first thing I would suggest is enough of the hippie punching," Madrak added. "We're the girl you'll take under the bleachers but you won't be seen with in the light of day."

Ha ha. Long silence. Axelrod did exactly what I think I'd do. Keep silent, because I don't know what it means, and I don't want to be embarrassed by admitting it. But now that I've worked a bit Googling and searching Urban Dictionary, I'm not embarrassed to say I don't know what it means. And I don't know what it has to do with under-bleacher sex, but that's a creepy metaphor to throw at Axelrod. I don't much like the man myself, but when you get access, ask some good questions in plain English. Don't be weird.

"Was it a mistake for Elena Kagan when she was Dean of the Harvard Law School to oppose allowing the U.S. military to recruit law students because of the Pentagon's Don't Ask/Don't Tell policy?"

Wolf Blitzer asked on "The Situation Room" today:

AXELROD: Well, that's not -- that's not exactly what happened. The fact is that there was recruitment on the Harvard campus at the time that she was there. She maintained the policy that existed before she came there -- not allowing the career placement office ts -- to -- to host that. Because there was a policy relative to discrimination. When the law was passed and upheld banning that, then she changed the policy.

So she -- she tried to conform to the policy of the school, and the law. And yes, she expressed herself on the law. But she's always been very hospitable to military recruitment and to young people campus who wanted to serve their country. In fact, the irony of this discussion, Wolf, is her objection to the Don't Ask/Don't Tell law was she wanted everyone who wanted to serve their country -- every young person -- every young person who wants to serve the country to have that opportunity.

BLITZER: Because Jeff Sessions, the ranking Republican on the Judiciary Committee -- he's concerned. He says this is a significant issue he wants to discuss with her -- especially her -- her comments back in 2003 that the Pentagon's policy, in her words, was "A profound wrong. A moral injustice of the first order."

AXELROD: Well, again, I think her concern was that every young American who wants to serve their country should have that opportunity. But Senator Sessions should and will have that opportunity to discuss it with her. And I hope that he also talks to the young men and women from Harvard who have served in the military who -- who -- who came into contact with -- with Dean Kagan when she was there, and who got her full support. Because she is -- she -- she was very close to veterans on campus. And they were very supportive of her.

"The president is a person, not a product. We shouldn’t be referring to him as a brand."

What Axelrod supposedly said to Desiree Rogers, the former WH social secretary, after she talked to much about "the Obama brand."

The notion that Rahm Emanuel has been the voice of reason — and Obama should have listened to him.

Jason Horowitz writes in WaPo:

Emanuel ... could have helped the administration avoid its current bind if the president had heeded his advice on some of the most sensitive subjects of the year: health-care reform, jobs and trying alleged terrorists in civilian courts.

... [Emanuel] was not aggressive enough in trying to persuade a singularly self-assured president and a coterie of true-believer advisers that "change you can believe in" is best pursued through accomplishments you can pass.

By all accounts, Obama selected Emanuel for his experience in the Clinton White House, his long relationships with the media and Democratic donors, and his well-established -- and well-earned -- reputation as a political enforcer, all of which neatly counterbalanced Obama's detached, professorial manner....

... Obama went for the historically far-reaching, but more legislatively difficult, achievements that he and his campaign-forged inner circle believe they were sent to Washington to deliver.

Read the whole thing. There's some great detail about closing Guantanamo and trying KSM. I don't know who the sources are for Horowitz's article. It reads like PR for Emanuel. Eric Holder is portrayed as stuck on abstract principle, while David Axelrod is blinded by his "strong view" of Obama as a big "historic character."

[A]n early Obama supporter who is close to the president and spoke on the condition of anonymity... blamed Obama's charmed political life for creating a self-confidence and trust in principle that led to an "indifference to doing the small, marginal things a White House could do to mitigate the problems on the Hill. Rahm knows the geography better."

Hmm. Does Rahm talk about himself in the third person?  It rings true though! This does sound like what history will record as Obama's tragic flaw: overconfidence and attachment to abstract principles (borne of the great good luck of fitting the template others had so much hope for).

Do we Americans really want our President doing "Question Time"?

I wonder how that would go. Should the President be spending his time like that? Would it undermine the independence of the second branch of government? This isn't Britain, you know. I think we should be careful about getting too jazzed up about Obama's performance at the Republican retreat last week.

"The thing that made Friday interesting was the spontaneity," Axelrod said. "If you slip into a kind of convention, then conventionality will overtake the freshness of that."

Yes, the Prez would get unfresh. That is: tired. And we need him to be doing things that are not done in front of cameras. American politics is already too much of a show. That's why we ended up with Obama as President in the first place! 

Anyway, there's this petition, "Demand Question Time." David Corn, Mother Jones' Washington bureau chief, says:

"None of us are naive and believe that implementing Question Time will cure what ails our country and our political process. We do realize that if QT does become a Washington routine, politicians and their aides will do what they can to game it to their advantage. But even though there are problems with the presidential debates — which have been taken over by the political parties and a corporate-sponsored commission — those events still have value. If you want more Question Time — even if only for its entertainment value — you can saddle up with dozens (and maybe it will turn into hundreds, thousands, and millions) of your fellow Americans in calling on our elected representatives to show us their best stuff on a regular basis."

That's an endorsement? It has some value. Bleh.

"Every senator uses whatever leverage they have to help their states. That’s the way it has been. That’s the way it will always be."

David Axelrod expects us to deal with the nasty aspects of American federalism.

Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Utah and Wyoming...

Did your state win?

"We're not here to husband our poll numbers like a trophy on a shelf."

Wacky quote by David Axelrod, who is "not professionally qualified to judge insanity."

When Axelrod starts yammering inapt polysyllabic "e" words, you know he's lying.

"That is not endemic to the kind of reforms that we are proposing... We're not into symbolic expedition here."

That really jumped out at me, from an interview with Wolf Blitzer, who asked Axelrod to explain why health care reform can't permit private insurers to sell their policies across state lines:

AXELROD: Because we are trying to do this in a way that advances the interests of consumers without creating such disruption that it makes it difficult to --

BLITZER: Why would that be disruptive if Blue Cross and Blue Shield or United Health Care or all these big insurance companies, they don't have to worry about just working in a state, they could just have the opportunity to compete in all 50 states.

AXELROD: But insurance is regulated at this time --

BLITZER: But you could change that --

AXELROD: State by state.

BLITZER: The president could propose a law changing that.

AXELROD: That is not endemic to the kind of reforms that we are proposing or that --

BLITZER: Why not, why not?

AXELROD: We're proposing a package that we believe will bring that stability and security to people, will help people get insurance, and will lower the cost impact and pass the Congress. And that has to be the test. We're not into symbolic expedition here.

What a strange way to talk. And what a good question from Blitzer.

David Axelrod looks like Mr. Whipple.

From reader K. Hill.

Is there a political message here?

"And ultimately everybody on the economic team knows that at the end of the day we’re going to hold hands and jump together."

David Axelrod, describing how Obama's economic team works.

Now, Obama has the Special Olympians taunting him: "That's not very good. It wouldn't beat us. He needs to practice."

The life of a President is not easy. All the criticism. Now, even the mentally disabled are taking their shots.

So much good will squandered:

[David] Axelrod's daughter, Lauren, is a longtime Special Olympian who has competed in swimming and track and field events. His wife, Susan, was part of a delegation led last month by Vice President Joe Biden to the Special Olympics World Winter Games in Boise, Idaho.

One punchline tossed on Leno far overshadows all that real connection that his administration had here. And it's especially sad because (I don't think) Obama was just spouting a new joke that sprang into his head. I think it was a scripted punchline.

Was the Special Olympics wisecrack scripted?
	Yes
	No
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AND: He gave Sarah Palin a big opening:

"This was a degrading remark about our world's most precious and unique people, coming from the most powerful position in the world," fumed former GOP veep pick and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, whose youngest son, Trig, has Down syndrome.

"These athletes overcome more challenges, discrimination and adversity than most of us ever will," she added.

Axelrod: "It’s surreal, so much of this is... It’s kind of hard to absorb and get your hands around all we’re trying to do."

Oh, yeah, it's really trippy — all that power.

God help us.

AND: I'm picturing:

David Axelrod, circa 1975.

(Via Ben Smith.)

IN THE COMMENTS: Palladian said:

"He gazed up at the enormous face. Forty years it had taken him to learn what kind of smile was hidden beneath the dark moustache. O Cruel, needless misunderstanding. O stubborn, self-willed exile from the loving breast..."

ricpic said:

Oscar Wilde lives! Sans wit. Sans soul. Sans everything.

Love all that literariness, but Psychedelic George hits what I was searching for:

Separated at Birth from

Chuck Negron

3 Dog Night's lead singer.

(Idle Chuck Negron rumor.)

He also bears a resemblance to Mickey Rat of comix fame.

Lem said:

If you put a moustache on this man you will not be able to tell them apart.

Actually, he looks more like Rasputin than the Son of Sam....

David Crosby....