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What in the hell is Donna Brazile smoking? When asked about George W. Bush being unwilling, like his former Veep Cheney, to attack President Obama, Brazile says he's trying to be an "elder statesman" and put partisanship aside. Well Donna, that's just mighty kind of him not to say too much about the guy left to clean up his mess after he took a wrecking ball to the joint, but "statesman" is about the last word I ever think of when I hear George W. Bush's name.

BLITZER: Let's let to our "strategy session." Joining us now our two CNN political contributors, Donna Brazile the Democratic strategist and Mary Matalin, the Republican strategist. Guys, thanks very much for coming in.

Mary, I'll start with you, talk about your former boss, the former president of the United States, George W. Bush. He was in Naples, Florida, giving a speech, together with his brother, the former governor, Jeb Bush. One of the reporters who covered it wrote this, "George W. Bush said more competitive congressional districts are needed so that politicians have to work harder on their campaigns. That, he said, could help diminish the partisanship as political leaders would be forced to focus more on the issues. He said those who call names shouldn't be elected." All right. So when I read that report, it sounded to me, tell me if I'm going too far, it sounds like he's being critical of the tea partiers.

MARY MATALIN: I didn't read it that way at all. There's been a long discussion about redistricting creating untouchable seats, where there's no competition of ideas and it produces Congress people who can walk their party off the edge, like Nancy Pelosi. No one can touch her seat. I took it as part of that discussion. When I think of name-calling, and I'm sure what George W. Bush thinks of when he thinks of name-calling is being called a Nazi or liar or a warmonger, or names that were thrown at him for policies that have been continued by the Obama administration. I know Donna and I agree on this, name-calling is a far different kind of politics than partisanship. There's nothing wrong with being partisan. There's something wrong with vile, personal attacks.

BLITZER: Which is a fair point. Mary, he also refused to be critical of the Obama administration. It's now more than a year since the president took office. Unlike the former vice president, Dick Cheney, President George W. Bush is still holding back. I guess he thinks it's inappropriate at this point for a former president to be critical of the current president. I guess you think that's the right thing to do, right? Let me ask that of Donna.

MATALIN: Sorry.

DONNA BRAZILE: Well, let me just say this. The think the former president is clearly trying to walk a fine line and demonstrate that he is ready to move beyond the politics of personal destruction, and to become an elder statesman. We need more elder statesmen, more former political leaders willing to use their time and talent to help lead the way to a better future for all of us. I also think that beyond trying to eliminate all of this hyper- partisanship, we need to overhaul our campaign finance system. I didn't get a chance to watch the smackdown between Joe Biden and Dick Cheney. I heard it was an interesting match, but I was more interested in watching Drew Brees.

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Mary Matalin is still putting out the lie that the Republicans have anything to bring to the table on health care reform other than the status quo and that "everybody has access to health care today". Wash, rinse, lie, repeat. And if that doesn't work, repeat it again.

I can't believe she's still running with this notion that emergency rooms equal health care because that's what her statement amounts to.

KING: Mary, how do the Republicans feel that the poor will be involved. How do they get those who can't afford it to get health care?

MATLIN: The notion that you are not for big government take over of health care, that you're for the status quo, you're for no health care reform, is one of those straw men that the Democrats like to employ. Republicans have on the table and will come back to the table with a number of ways to reduce the cost of health care and health insurance, all of which were at various times in and out of the bill from pooling for small businesses, for consumer infusions, for market- based plans, for tort reform (INAUDIBLE), all the rest of these things that control the cost. This is not affording health care to everybody.

By the way, everybody has access to health care today. That is another misnomer, but a tenet of Republican proposal is that there be universal care and the Republicans did contribute to passing CHIP and health care for children. So the notion that the Republicans are out there on some sort of fringe limb or status quo where... it's just another one of those bogeymen that people are not listening to on any level, in any of the races that have been run in the last year.

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From CNN's State of the Union, Lady McCheney defends Rush Limbaugh's hateful, racits comments about the humanitarian aid to Haiti and claims that poor Limbaugh has his taken out of context and distorted. Sorry Mary but I think the more context you give Limbaugh, the worse he sounds. Kind of like your defense of him. First the behavior is excusable because Limbaugh gives a lot of money to charity, then you claim his words were distorted.

In just what context can the words "Obama will use Haiti to boost credibility with "light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country" ever be taken to mean something positive? Too bad John King or her husband didn't ask her that.

If anyone was taken out of context here it's Keith Olbermann by John King. Here's the beginning of the conversation later in the show with Anthony Weiner where his words are put into context.

OLBERMANN: Continuing our coverage of the second day after the earthquake, the 7.0 earthquake at Port-Au-Prince, Haiti, in which this devastation is so extraordinary, there is not even a reasonable estimate as to the death toll yet, as night has fallen for the second time on a disaster-struck nation.

With Congressman Anthony Weiner of New York—and I don‘t want to turn this into something about domestic politics. But I think it‘s a good frame of reference in terms of the health care issue that we always talk about. We could easily have a natural disaster, if not quite on this scale, at least in the same broad ballpark. A slightly heavier earthquake in California could do extraordinary devastation to San Francisco or Los Angeles.

I was thinking about this—and maybe it‘s inappropriate and tell me if I‘m inappropriate in asking it. But how would survivors of something like this here fair in terms of getting on their own feet economically afterwards, with the health care system we have in place right now?

Transcript below the fold.

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Seems Mary Matalin was doing a bit of history revision on this week's State of the Union on CNN. Think Progress has more--Mary Matalin claims President Bush ‘inherited’ the September 11th terror attacks:

On CNN today, GOP strategist and former Dick Cheney adviser Mary Matalin argued that President Obama is speaking too much about the severe debt, deficits, and economic recession he inherited from the previous administration. Defending her former boss, Matalin charged that President Bush had in fact “inherited a recession” and the September 11th attacks from President Clinton.

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As Lee noted, it looks like Matalin is joining the ranks of Ms. We Did Not Have a Terrorist Attack on our Country During President Bush's Term Perino with trying to whitewash the record of the Bush administration.

KING: The politics of the economy. Do the Republicans have that right? Deficits and maybe giving Congress too much control in writing this legislation? Is that a problem for this president? How has he been as a leader in his first year?

MATALIN: It's not just the deficits. It's the dud. It's incomprehensible. And it's the Bush fashion in perpetuity. Never gives a speech where he doesn't explicitly or implicitly look backwards.

I was there. We inherited a recession from President Clinton and we inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nation's history. And President Bush dealt with it. And within a year of his presidency at this comparable time, unemployment was at 5 percent. And we were creating jobs.

So there are two different ways to deal with this. He's choosing the way that Democrats always deal with it. But doing it at such a magnitude. The spending is unprecedented. The debt is unprecedented. And whatever the recession was that he inherited that was global did not -- the response is such an overkill that we will be settled with this forever.

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Fear monger much Lady McCheney? I'm not wild about this health care bill either, but this is ridiculous. Think Progress has more--Matalin slurs health reform advocates as ‘health care jihadists.’.

Matalin has employed the concept of “holy war” in her political debates before. On Meet the Press in 2006, she attacked David Gregory for going “on a jihad” in covering the Vice President’s accidental shooting of his friend Harry Whittington. Gregory responded, “That’s an unfortunate use of that word, by the way. This is not what that was.”

Transcript via CNN.

KING: Let's start, David Axelrod says we're on the one-yard line deep in the red zone. Mary Matalin, you don't like this bill, but are Democrats going to get it?

MATALIN: They are and they're going to get something more, a big loss in the midterms. We've been saying this all along. The more they get, the rougher it's going to be for them in the midterms. And they've made that political calculation that their sacrificial lambs are going to be the blue dogs and they're going to lose all those blue dogs and they may even lose their majority and so be it. They've been on this jihad for 70 years, and they're going to throw over all competitive seats to do it.

And I don't know what kind of party that is. That leaves left and the Democratic Party, the urban centers, this is tyranny of the minority. Two-thirds of the country don't want this. And one-third of these jihadists, these health care jihadists do. I guess that's how democracy in the Obama era works.

[...]

KING: Do you have any doubt Senator Nelson gets a good deal from Nebraska? Senator Landrieu got a good deal for Louisiana? You were both here a couple of weeks ago, said the Republican governor wanted that so it's not this horrible Democratic thing. Could you have any doubt that if there's six or eight or 10 of these deals, that two or three years down the road, when that money kicks in, that senators from Arizona and Illinois and Iowa and anywhere else are going to say where's mine?

MATALIN: Remember this. There are no red states. There are no blue states, there are only the United States. No, it's every state for himself. The country is more divided. It is less transparent, less accountable. Of course all these other states are going to get -- which just makes it a bigger piece of what it is which is wealth transfer. Essentially what's happening and what Senator Nelson can speak for himself when he comes out is he's never going to have a Medicaid increase. Well no other state is going to stand for that.

And this is worse, and the American people have said that this is worse than doing nothing, and the White House actuary said it will raise costs to the premium -- raise premiums, raise the debt. It will not cover everybody. It does not bend the cost curve. And furthermore this is the worst thing. They're going to strip out all the few good things that are in there and the entrenched things will stand. That's what's happened with every entitlement jihad from the '30s and the '60s and that's what happened.

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From AC360, Mary Matalin does her best to spin the GOP's new purity test as a good thing for the party and not a move by the RNC to drag the Republican Party even further to the right.

HILL: In "Raw Politics" tonight, the GOP's purity test. A group of conservative Republican National Committee members is working on a resolution that could radically alter the party's look and its message and also risk to drive out moderates.

The proposal sent out new rules, a checklist really, that candidates must meet in order to secure both support and funding from the GOP.

Now many are expected here: smaller government, a smaller national debt. The checklist also includes opposition to the president's stimulus and health plan, as well as opposition to gun control, cap-and-trade-based energy reform, same-sex marriage, and amnesty for illegal immigrants.

It also mandates support for troop surges in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the containment of Iran and North Korea. So what does this list say about the party, and most importantly, perhaps, about its future direction? We're going to talk about that now with Democratic strategist Paul Begala and Republican strategist Mary Matalin. Both, of course, are CNN political contributors.

Good to have you both with us.

And Mary, I want to start with you, because this is your party here. The draft resolution written, basically, as a tribute to President Reagan. But frankly, even he wouldn't meet all these qualifications. He raised taxes. He grew the deficit. And he really was the big-tent guy who grew the Republican Party.

Is it wise at this point for the RNC to be in the business of potentially excluding people in what seems like a categorical way?

MARY MATALIN: Not excluding anybody, except Nancy Pelosi Democrats. I applaud these members who have taken the initiative to come up with these ten points, all of which -- and I defy my friend Paul to find me any blue dog Democrat that wouldn't agree with at least eight out of ten of these mainstream principles.

And if you look at your own -- our own CNN polls, all of these issues and these policies are received majority mainstream support. So there's not -- they're not going to move out any moderates. It's going to pull back in people who left the party because we became liberal light.

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This morning my crazy thing locator pointed to this pro-Palin oped by Mary Matalin, who pooh-poohs complaints in Palin's book about the rough, nasty and foul-mouthed staffers inside the McCain campaign:

Time is the most valuable commodity on a campaign and you just can't waste it thinking about how to choose your words carefully or get your job done more diplomatically. If someone isn't in tears every day, that day wasn't all it could be advancing the campaign. I once witnessed an experienced (big) man slap a professional female colleague across the face over an ad buy... and no one thought anything of it, starting with the woman. In fact, she would have been insulted if anyone told her she should have been insulted.

Yes, politics is a hard job full of lots of pressure, long days, and high-stakes high-stress decision making. And many of the personalities attracted to that kind of work are narcissistic, most to the point of tantrums, and more than a few to the point of violence, and think it's no big deal. Matalin isn't just dishing about a specific instance here; she's pimping her insider importance--you bet she can remember just exactly the specific "ad buy" mistake that "deserved" the workplace assault and battery--and contrasting that insider importance to Palin's relative political naivete.

Matalin should be ashamed of herself, her politics, and her "professionalism" on a daily basis. That she actually points to an instance of physical assault of a female employee by a male superior as "the way it is in a campaign--get over it" just puts everything that's wrong with her argument in high relief. Does anyone wonder what would happen if that kind of thing happened in the private sector, or the outrage if a former corporate employee reported such physical assault as "acceptable in the business we're in" hearsay on the pages of CNN's website?

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Argh, there's so much wrong with this clip that it's all I can do to keep typing and not smacking my head against the desktop. First of all, they ask on Krugman to discuss his NY Times column talking about how GOP obstructionism has reached cartoonish levels and they decide to frame the segment on whether Obama lost his "MOJO"? Seriously? A major news organization ignores the absurdity of the GOP overarching need to find things with which to smear Obama and instead frames the issue for the President of the United States as an Austin Powers plot? And no one but a hyper-partisan conservative "party before country" cheerleader thinks that the IOC selecting Rio for the 2016 games has something to do with a failing on any kind on the part of Obama. Cheers to Anderson Cooper for validating what Krugman so aptly described as "bratty 13 year old" behavior and using a Nobel Laureate to do it. Way to keep on top of the issues of the day, Anderson.

And there's that issue of media's bizarre notion of balance again. Sweet Jesus, why on earth would anyone need Mary Matalin's opinion on Obama's "mojo"? The woman has spent years advising Dick Cheney, fer cryin' out loud, what exactly is her expertise in mojo? As would be expected, Matalin never answers anything directly, resorting to the familiar GOP projection and mean-spritied insinuations, saying she's never drunk the kool-aid on the messiah-like qualities of Obama.

Watch as Krugman acknowledges that Obama hasn't done everything perfectly and that there's still far to go, but that the level of discourse from the right prevents any actual adult-level dialog. And Matalin proves him right by devolving into fingerpointing and bringing in one non sequitur after another. Of course, everything that Obama has been hit with has an equivalence in Matalin's mind to that poor, misunderestimated George W. Bush. If you believe Matalin, the Democrats did nothing but screamed "Liar!" and "Loser" to Bush. Constantly. Hmmm....funny that, I don't remember it that way, but maybe that's because I'm part of the reality-based community.

But hey, how much honest analysis can you get from someone who openly admits she reveres the Fat Bastard himself, Rush Limbaugh? For that alone, she should be laughed off camera.

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Paul Krugman writes an excellent column on the mental state of the Republican Party and compares their collective glee over the United States losing our Olympics bid to that of a "bratty 13-year-old", and who better to make him go up against but Lady McCheney who's never found someone she could not bully on the set of CNN? If CNN wanted to have an honest discussion about the points he was trying to make in his column, they wouldn't have put him up against this Cheney hack who represents everything that's been wrong with the last nine years plus of our politics in this country.

COOPER: In "Raw Politics" tonight: the mounting pressure on President Obama, under attack from his critics and on the defense about his policies. The shocks are not just coming from the right anymore. Check out who "Saturday Night Live" chose as their newest target over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE")

FRED ARMISEN, ACTOR: On my first day in office I said I would close Guantanamo Bay. Is it closed yet? No.

I said we would be out of Iraq. Are we? Not the last time I checked.

ARMISEN: I said I would make improvements in the war in Afghanistan. Is it better? No, I think it's actually worse.

ARMISEN: How about health care reform? Hell no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COOPER: The sketch then went on to lampoon Mr. Obama for Chicago losing the 2016 Olympic Games.

Now, some of the president's conservative critics literally broke out in applause when the news broke that Chicago had been rejected.

Today, "The New York Times"' Paul Krugman said the GOP has become a party ruled by spite, eager to see the president fail, even if it's on something that is good for America. His latest book is "The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008."

Paul Krugman and political contributor Mary Matalin, who's -- who was a counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, joined me earlier.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: There is a narrative right now that -- that President Obama has lost his mojo. There was a couple people saying that the last couple days, "Saturday Night Live." Do you -- do you buy that?

KRUGMAN: No.

I mean, I think there are -- there are a lot of problems. And he -- you know, it's very difficult to be a strong, successful president when the employment picture is still worsening. And the employment picture is still worsening. And the stimulus law, while it has helped, isn't big enough to turn that around any time soon. So, he's got some problems.

But, look, health care, the -- the mood I get from the people who are really working on health care legislation is that this thing is now going to happen. A few weeks ago, there were real doubts about whether it was going to happen. But now it looks like it is going to happen. And that is going to be a huge thing.

Regardless of exactly what happens in the midterm elections, if we come out with legislation establishing universal health care by the end of this year, which I now believe we will, My God, that is transformational. We will be a different country. So, that is mojo in -- in the space that matters.

COOPER: Mary, do you believe that he has lost his mojo? I mean, there's people saying: Look, health care has not worked out. He's been weak on. He hasn't been out in front of it enough. The situation in Afghanistan, certainly, and other issues. The Olympic thing is just the -- the latest.

MATALIN: I don't -- I don't know if he lost his mojo. I never drank the Kool-Aid in the first place.

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John King asks Mary Matalin what she thinks about Lindsey Graham's statement that Glenn Beck does not represent the Republican Party and Matlin does her best to distance Beck from the party as well. This is looking like a new theme her from them. He may not be willing to call himself a Republican but he sure as hell is doing their dirty work for them.

KING: All right. One more. One more before I let you go. Glenn Beck works for another network here in town. I believe it's the FOX News network. And there's been a great controversy about some of the things he said about the president. It was put to Lindsey Graham, a conservative senator from North Carolina, this morning on another program. Does Glenn Beck speak for you and the Republican Party?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GRAHAM: No. I'm not saying he's bad for America. You've got the freedom to watch him, if you choose. He did a pretty good job on ACORN.

What I am saying, he doesn't represent the Republican Party. When a person says he represents conservatism and that the country is better off with Barack Obama than John McCain, that sort of ends the debate for me as to how much more I'm going to listen.

So he has a right to say what he wants to say. In my view, it's not -- it's not the kind of political analysis that I buy into.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: This is the political analysis I buy into. What do we make of this?

MATALIN: Well, full disclosure, Glenn is a threshold author, Simon & Schuster imprint, of which I'm associated with. Glenn has two best-sellers. This has never happened before. Two No. 1 best-sellers in hard cover and paperback, non-fiction. All right. Somebody out there is listening, what Glenn Beck says. I know he doesn't listen and Lindsey doesn't listen.

Glenn Beck is unequivocal in saying he's not a Republican; he's not a Democrat. He possibly has libertarian leanings in a vacuum. So what he has tapped into is really, really what I think is going to be the dispositive future for us. Maligned mothers.

He did not -- it wasn't just ACORN. He did the czars. He was instrumental in these tea parties and this rising opposition, again, of people who aren't typically listened to. He doesn't affiliate with either party, or any party, but he has tapped into this mainstream of America who feels otherwise not listened to.

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From John King's State of the Union, James Carville cites the tobacco industry using Betsy McCaughey to plant a story at The New Republic as an example of the "vast right wing conspiracy" that President Obama is facing. Of course Mary Matalin pretends she has no idea who Betsy McCaughey is.

KING: All right. Let's stay for a moment on the -- because I said we would mention it after the break, and Mary brought up that term that we came to know during the Clinton years -- the Clinton presidential years, the vast right-wing conspiracy. It was on his mind.

Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY: Your wife famously talked about the "vast right-wing conspiracy" targeting you.

GREGORY: As you look at this opposition on the right to President Obama, is it still there?

CLINTON: Oh, you bet. Sure it is. It's not as strong as it was because America has changed demographically, but it's as virulent as it was.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CARVILLE: Again, this week, there was breathtaking proof that there was a vast right-wing conspiracy. It was revealed in Rolling Stone that Philip Morris paid -- paid a woman named Betsy McCaughey to plant a piece in The New Republic, all right?

This was -- this is not -- in other words, this was a tobacco company paying for a piece printed in a so-called respectable magazine.

Now, I don't know that, in The New Republic in 2006, that, oh, gee, the whole thing was, kind of, a mistake after they went through all of that. I don't know if The New Republic has called the president to apologize, but I suspect, as we go through, we're going see more and more instances of this.

And every Clinton person, when the president told us the stuff with Taylor Branch, it felt good. And you know what really made us feel good, is Bill Clinton's doing a whole lot better than The New Republic is. They're sitting there at the CGI, and everybody went "Yes." That was a great moment to be a Clinton person.

MATALIN: I don't even know what he's talking about, but I'll say...

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From The Situation Room Sept. 24, 2009. Lady McCheney Matalin is still out there trying to say that George Bush's foreign policy made the world a safer place to live. What a completely ridiculous thing to say. Walk is what keeps peace in the world. No, "walk" is called starting wars Mary. Why CNN feels the need to continue to give this woman air time as though she has anything credible to say is beyond me.

BLITZER: Mary, let's talk a little bit about the substance, though. Do the folks and the leaders in Iran or North Korea or the Taliban for that matter or al Qaeda, do they fear President Obama?

MATLIN: Well, absolutely not. And what Paul just said is emblematic of how the Democrats think about foreign policy in general. That's demean our strongest friends our greatest allies, like the Australians, like the Polish, like the Czechs, like the central and eastern Europeans who are working so hard at democracy and just demean any kind of opinion.

Look, this is not some sort of partisan or right wing or Murdoch thought. Since the beginning of time the history of the world is that weakness invites provocation. And we have -- and talking is good and relationships are fine. But our allies need to know that they can rely on those relationships and that there will be consequences for the bad guys when the talk runs out and they're not doing the walk.

As for proliferation and chairing a U.N. committee, great. Oh, isn't that wonderful? It's the U.N. that wouldn't enforce 17 of its resolutions against Saddam in the first place, so big deal. He's chairing and talking in another instance.

But the proliferation security initiative of the Bush administration was responsible for quantum leaps in the reduction of proliferation and including the disarmament of Libya, the capture and detention...

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From Fox's Wall Street Journal Editorial Report, the panel recites the latest GOP talking point that any abuse of prisoners has already been investigated. Scott Horton does a nice job of debunking this in his article at Harpers Magazine, Seven Points on the CIA Report:

The “prior investigation” canard. It looks like the favorite talking point emerging for torture apologists (like David Ignatius) is that the CIA cases were already examined by career prosecutors who decided not to take any action. But this claim is false. Although these cases were enshrouded in extraordinary secrecy from the outset, I closely studied their management and conducted a number of interviews with Justice personnel who were involved; I also worked with the House Judiciary Committee in its review of the matter. The cases were referred by Helgerson to the Justice Department, which in turn passed them to the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, Paul J. McNulty. (This U.S. attorney’s office was the most highly politicized in the entire U.S. attorneys system, and McNulty was ultimately promoted to the office of deputy attorney general and then resigned amidst accusations of misconduct involving the politicization of the Justice Department.)

McNulty’s office acted as a sort of “dead letter office” for troublesome torture allegations. The suggestion that there was an active investigation is laughable. No grand jury was impaneled or testimony taken, and contrary to Ignatius’s claims no decision was taken not to prosecute. What happened instead was inaction. Why? If the cases had been pressed, the CIA personnel involved would have immediately implicated high-level Bush Administration officials. The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility has examined the handling of these cases and has confirmed that no serious investigation ever occurred. So the suggestion that Holder is now somehow undermining or second-guessing the decision of career prosecutors is preposterous.

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It looks like Mary Matalin, Chris Wallace and Bill Kristol all got their talking points from the same place for the Sunday shows this week. Matalin, like Wallace claims that we haven't been attacked since 9-11 and then names anthrax attacks as something that was prevented by the CIA after they tortured prisoners.

Uuummmm.... Mary, I hate to break this to you, but we were attacked by anthrax. But then you're fully aware of that already, aren't you? I doubt there's a single person in the Bush administration that has forgotten the event that was enough to scare some Democrats into voting for the invasion of Iraq.

I'm also wondering how many of the "attacks" she rattled off are on the list from Keith Olbermann's The Nexus of Politics and Terror? My guess is more than a few if she was forced to give specifics and maybe had someone besides her DINO husband and that hack John King sitting across the table from her.

As our own Jon Perr pointed out to me, Matalin is doing a good job of carrying water for Dick Cheney and his strategy to assure that torture is never investigated.

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Lady McCheney and professional turd polisher Mary Matalin takes playing the victim card to a whole new level on Campbell Brown's show on CNN. I know when the chips are down these guys love to portray themselves or those they're shilling for as martyrs, but this is really just over the top even for Matalin.

BROWN: Sarah Palin's got some very good reasons to keep her options open right now -- 72 percent of Republicans in a recent poll said that they would consider voting for her for president in 2012.

So is quitting the new winning? Joining me to answer that, Republican strategist and CNN contributor Mary Matalin with us tonight, the "Daily Beast" editor-in-chief, Tina Brown with me as well, and NPR contributor John Ridley also here. Welcome everybody.

Mary, let me start with you, because you're a little bit out of lock step with some of your Republican friends about this decision and sort of how she handled had. Karl Rove called, said he was rather perplexed by it, Ed Rollins calling it a disaster. But you disagree.

MATALIN: Well, it was unconventional, to be sure, in the veracity and the -- velocity rather, with which the opinion class -- and I'm excluding Karl, they took it as unconventional, and they were asked to give an opinion more quickly than it needed to be digested.

What I find more interesting is it the resistance to which everybody in the chattering classes refuses to accept her at face value. She couldn't do her job anymore. Her family was under assault. She was receiving the political equivalent of a stoning. And she could not function in her job.

So the reason I thought it was smart was that she can continue to be a strong voice, build political capital out there in the next two years, and get her equilibrium reset, the word of the week, and do what she does well, which is communicate a conservative message.

[....]

BROWN: But Mary, what does she do next? Now, if this was such a brilliant move, how does she capitalize on it.

MATALIN: It's brilliant in the sense of, if have you two bad options, you take the least bad option.

I want to speak to what Tina said. This is still an unfortunate situation that women are judged differently in politics. So it would be great if she could say, and she did say a version of, no family has been treated like this. I need to get with my family.

But if she had said it the way Tina said it, which was quite eloquent, she would have been wiped out. She would trying to do some, say it in some conventional way.

And everyone is discarding the fact that her saying she did this for Alaska, there's something false about that. She put in place a system to finish what she started there, and she literally, for the past six months, could not get work done, and it was costing lots of money.

And a small state like that, I don't know why anybody rejects it as an authentic answer. But it's sad that you couldn't say it the way Tina said it, because I think that was a huge big part of it.