On ABC's This Week, Loesch and Will pander to the GOP

As expected, Breitbart crony Dana Loesch and This Week regular George Will were drinking the Koch Bros/GOP Kool-Aid.

The other panelists were Newsweek and Washington Post writer Will, political analyst and former interim DNC Chairwoman Donna Brazile, and ABC News's own Jonathan Karl.

The last time Loesch was on the program, she wholeheartedly endorsed the elimination of Social Security, thought that the Texas Governor Rick Perry was "too weak on illegal immigration," and said that "Obama can be beaten by a generic Republican," which-- depending on the pollster--  might be partially true.

From the 11.13.2011 edition of ABC's This Week:



 Transcript::

AMANPOUR: And now, of course, we now bring in our roundtable. President Obama, though, has called the situation at Penn State "horrifying," "a moment for soul-searching." And as I said, we bring in our roundtable, George Will, Democratic strategist Donna Brazile, Dana Loesch, founder of the St. Louis Tea Party and editor of BigJournalism.com, and ABC senior political correspondent Jon Karl.
George, what have we learned from this?
WILL: Well, first, what we still need to learn is, how graphic was the description that the assistant coach gave to Joe Paterno about what he'd seen in the shower? Because that would tell us the degree of Joe Paterno's culpability.
What we've seen here -- and Christine had it exactly right -- when you graft a multi-billion-dollar entertainment industry anomalously on to higher education, you produce a bubble of entitlements and exemptions, and eventually a simple moral derangement.
AMANPOUR: Donna?
BRAZILE: George, I don't know if explaining the details would have made any parent, any adult just suspect and immediately call the police. My initial reaction, had I witnessed that, would have been to pick up something to stop it, to stop the act itself, to call upon the adult to, you know, stop, to protect that child, call the police, and then inform everybody else later, as -- but, look, this was a moral failure, a human tragedy. And as a former college athlete and high school athlete, I mean, this is just upsetting to many of us.
AMANPOUR: And it happens in other sports, too. ABC News has done investigations on, for instance, the lady's swimming team.
BRAZILE: And that's why it needs to become a teachable moment. I know that's a word that we use a lot in politics, but, no, college football, college sports has gotten out of hand. And it's time that we take a look inside of it.
AMANPOUR: Do you think there will be, as President Obama said, real soul-searching, Dana?
LOESCH: I hope so. I hope so at this point. I just -- I'm trying to get my mind around the fact, as Donna and George were saying, that you see something like this happen right before your eyes and your first reaction is to wait a day, and then go and tell Coach Paterno what had happened, and then go through the process of going to the administration, and so on and so forth. I hope there's going to be some soul-searching. Someone's first reaction, aside from feeling physically ill, should be to physically stop it.
KARL: Well, and if you want to send a message on this, you cancel the rest of the football season. Why are they still playing? Why doesn't the NCAA come out and say, "Done, Penn State's football season is over"? What's going to happen? Are they be playing in a bowl game? I mean, send a message, a clear, unmistakable message that this will not happen again.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you now, let's turn to the other headline in politics, and that are the still unanswered issues and allegations of sexual harassment against Herman Cain. And I want to ask you, Jon, as a reporter, we witnessed on Wednesday night a reporter trying to ask this question at a debate, and he was roundly booed, as if it is not our job to ask these questions.
KARL: Yeah, well, look, Cain's core supporters see this as all the more reason to support him. And, frankly, until -- unless there are more women that come forward and, you know, decide to have a press conference of all his accusers, looks like is not going to happen, it's hard for me to see where the story's going to go.
Cain has made it clear he is not going to answer any more questions about this, even peripheral questions. He's completely done with it. I think, frankly, his bigger concern as a candidate, maybe his inability, as we saw in last night's debate, to talk about some foreign policy questions, you know, to meet the commander-in-chief test. I think that's going to be what we're going to see next with Herman Cain.
AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, George, though, have we seen the end of this story, when it comes to Herman Cain? I mean, this is a gentleman who is running for the highest office in the land and in the world.
WILL: A rule is, when there are four women, there may be 24, that there's a pattern here. He says there's no pattern, because all four are not telling the truth. Well, we shall see.
For Republicans, it is a teachable moment, because Republicans have said, over and over again, character matters in leadership. We have this powerful government. All more power the government has, the more character matters in the chief executive. And this is a test for them.
BRAZILE: Mr. Cain has received a little bit of what I call a martyr status among some Republicans. And that may be the wrong message to send to someone who is a novice at presidential politics.
The truth is, is that he was defiant, he was defensive. Four women, two have come out, and then they went right ahead and start attacking those two women, who are still anonymous. He attacked former Speaker Pelosi. He made fun of Anita Hill. This is not a good sign of a candidate who would like to remain a frontrunner in the Republican race.
AMANPOUR: And he's still top of the polls. Let me ask you, George, about Rick Perry, who as we all know had a very, very, very bad week, not just his first bad week. Why should anyone believe that he can turn it around? And I know you want to take care of some personal housekeeping this week, as well.
WILL: Yes, for more than 30 years, my wife, Mari, has been in the political business. She was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan's campaign and his White House. She was his last White House director of communications. As part of her profession, which is to consult with businesses and congenial political candidates, she has been in the political business off and on for 30 years. Last Monday, she became part of the Perry campaign, specializing in messaging and debate preparation.
AMANPOUR: Isn't she banging her fists against her head then?
(LAUGHTER)
WILL: No, that's what she's there for, is to fix things. Some of the more excitable and perhaps less mature members of the Romney campaign have tried to make this personal. At the Michigan debate, after the debate, Mari waved to Ann and Mitt Romney. They came over and talked. They've been guests at our dinner table. And Romney gave her a kiss on the cheek, and they went their separate ways. They're both mature professionals.
AMANPOUR: You -- you have -- when Rick Perry first started to get in, you were quite optimistic about his chances. Do you feel now that he has a chance? I mean, it's not just his gaffes. It's his poll numbers.
WILL: Well, he's got better advisers. Beyond that, his poll numbers are down. He had a steep climb before Wednesday night. This climb got steeper. But I would remind you that in -- in 2008 campaign, a presidential candidate gave a speech in Oregon in which he said, "I've visited all 57 states and have one more to go."
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: That man is in the White House today.
AMANPOUR: On that note, let us just look at what Rick Perry said at last night's debate, obviously, playing on the -- on the big gaffe he did on Wednesday night.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PELLEY: Governor Perry, you advocate the elimination of the Department of Energy. If you eliminate the Department of Energy...
PERRY: Glad you remembered it.
(LAUGHTER)
PELLEY: I've had some time to think about it, sir.
PERRY: Me, too.
(LAUGHTER)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: Dana, has he neutralized any worries about his weakness as a debater and on the issues?
LOESCH: I think he's coming around. He's -- I think the smartest thing that he did -- and this is sort of interesting, as well, because the week prior to this debate, he and his campaign had been saying that they were considering seeking less media attention and going to less debates. And now it's a complete 180. Now there's not a camera that Rick Perry will not get in front of. He even went on Dave Letterman, which I thought was great, because I think it did neutralize some of the criticism. I think it gives him a little bit more media time, so he can get used to the pressure and the scrutiny. And it helps his perception in the public's eyes.
AMANPOUR: And, Jon, what about the real issue of his poll numbers? And are his donors, fundraisers feeling a little swishy?
KARL: From all I hear is that the fundraising has essentially dried up for Perry. I mean, look, his campaign was in serious trouble before he had his debate performance on Wednesday. I will say, he had a very strong debate last night. It was by far Perry's strongest debate. You could argue -- you saw he was kind of funny at times. He was substantive. He was -- he was strong. You could say that if he had been doing this all along, he'd probably still be the frontrunner. But it's -- it's a really steep climb right now for Perry.
AMANPOUR: A quick round for all of you. Look at the new McClatchy-Marist poll. Mitt Romney, with his trusty 23 percent, as ever, but Newt Gingrich, back from the dead, maybe, and in second place. How did that happen, Donna?
BRAZILE: Well, he's had steady debate performance. He understands that, by attacking the media, taking on media during these debates, he wins the day. He's still a darling of the conservatives. Remember, he was a popular speaker for the Republican side.
AMANPOUR: Do we think Newt Gingrich is going to rise, George? Is he the latest anti-Romney or...
WILL: He's the flavor of the week, and he's a skillful campaigner, and he has perfect pitch for certain Republican constituencies. But, again, you've put your finger on the striking number there, which is that Mitt Romney's support fluctuates wildly between 23 percent and 25 percent.
KARL: And the other anti-Romney is like a yo-yo, up and down, up and down. But, you know, look, Romney has got some serious problems in terms of closing this deal. But this race, you could argue, is as wide open as it has ever been.
AMANPOUR: We're going to continue this right after a break.
And up next, crunch time for the super-committee. Will the lawmakers beat the clock and fend off budget doomsday? The roundtable reads the smoke signals when we return.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
AMANPOUR: Repent, the end is near, well, for the super-committee, at least. They have got less than two weeks to figure out how to shave $1.3 trillion off the deficit. Miss that November 23rd deadline, and they'll trigger draconian slate of budget cuts. Let's bring back the roundtable.
So, Jon, is the super-committee going to make this deadline?
KARL: From all of my talks with people on the Hill, the super-committee is on the brink of failure. And barring an 11th minute breakthrough that we don't see any signs of right now, it will fail. It will fail to produce -- now, it may -- my prediction is that they -- that they do something, but it would be a much smaller number than $1.2 trillion. And it will be seen, as it should be, as a failure.
AMANPOUR: Donna, Senator Mitch McConnell thinks that this is all a White House design. Let's just put this up and see what the senator just said this week.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MCCONNELL: It does raise your suspicion that the folks down at the White House are pulling for failure, because, you see, if the joint committee succeeds, it steps on the storyline that they've been peddling, which is that you can't do anything with the Republicans in Congress.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
AMANPOUR: What about your storyline?
BRAZILE: Oh, I don't think so. Look, the White House has put forward a big deal, a big bargain, you know, with more cuts that most Democrats will basically say, "No way, let's not cut so deeply into the entitlement programs."
This is still about the Bush tax cuts. It's still about raising revenue. And the -- the Republicans have not put -- put forward a reasonable plan to -- to really, you know, make a deal with the Democrats. So I -- I see a deadlock. And I also believe they're going to kick this down the road.
WILL: They wanted more revenues, the Democrats did, so Pat Toomey, former chairman of the Club for Growth, tax-aphobic if anyone is, put forward hundreds of billions of dollars in new revenues by largely devaluing deductions for high earners, in other words, making the tax code more progressive, and the Democrats again moved the goal posts and said we're not going to do that.
Now, the real deadline is not the 23rd. It's the 21st. They've already blown past one deadline. They had to get their plan scored. The 21st, they have to have it published for 48 hours before the deadline. What happens if the sequester trigger comes into play? Nothing. Nothing happens on the 24th, because the sequester works in 2013.
Furthermore, you can draw a graph. This is federal spending without the sequester; this is federal spending with the sequester. Tiny difference. It's a tiny difference in the rate of growth of federal spending.
AMANPOUR: What's at stake for you and for your sort of constituents? Is this going to work, do you think? And the sequester that George is talking about, if it does go into effect, it really heavily affects military spending.
LOESCH: Yes. And that's sort of, I think, one of the big problems that grassroots conservatives especially had with this whole situation, is that it really focuses on defense, but nothing is really done so much about entitlement.

I personally have zero faith in the super-committee. I don't have any faith in a smaller version of Congress doing what Congress couldn't do already. So because of that -- and just because we've watched Democrats walk away last week from the plan that Republicans -- that Toomey put forward just last week. It threw them a curveball, $300 billion in revenue -- revenues raising.
But I think it comes down to an ideological difference. They want Bush tax cuts to be made permanent. They want to increase revenues by adding to the tax base, as opposed to just jacking up the rates, which I think is valid, especially when you look at tax receipts for the last six decades. And so there's an ideological difference here, but in terms of how this is going to affect us and -- and whether or not we have faith that -- I don't know how it will. We'll wait and see. And I have zero faith.
AMANPOUR: Jon, is this going to be something that we're just going to have to wait for the next election, this whole idea of cutting the spending and getting the deficit under control?
KARL: Well, George made a really critical point I think a lot of people don't really realize, which is these automatic cuts that take place if the super-committee fails don't happen until 2013. What are the odds of them really happening? I mean, Congress can simply vote them away during the lame-duck session after the 2012...
(CROSSTALK)
AMANPOUR: So what is this, just an exercise in futility?
KARL: Well, it's -- it's profoundly disappointing. And I think that, if they fail, the cost will be borne by incumbents everywhere. This is an indictment of Congress. It's an indictment of both parties. And it's an indictment of the White House.
WILL: That's the crucial point, because Harry Reid's interest diverged from Barack Obama's interests here. Harry Reid is defending 23 Senate seats. And he does not want his -- his Democratic candidates for Senate to be out there while the president is campaigning against a do-nothing, failed Congress.
LOESCH: Right.
BRAZILE: Well, I just want to go back to Toomey's proposal. While it was a modest recognition that revenues need to be...
KARL: Five hundred billion dollars is not modest.
BRAZILE: But, look, compared to allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire, $800 billion? I mean, come on. We're looking at, you know, a proposal that would cut entitlements, cut Medicare, cut programs on people who can least afford them.
KARL: You know the Republicans weren't going to go along with allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire. I mean, this was the first significant movement forward for Republicans on revenue, besides what John Boehner did with the president in their secret discussions.
BRAZILE: Well, the Democrats have already moved on entitlements, so why can't we just find a one or two billion -- trillion dollar more that -- that will allow us to achieve balance (ph)?
AMANPOUR: Let's talk a little bit about mood, which inevitably governs all these kind of debates and discussions. We saw over this last week, with elections in various different states, you know, various conservative ideas pushed back, whether it was anti-union measures in Ohio or other such things elsewhere. And some have called it a reaction to conservative overreach. How much can one read into this?
KARL: Well, I'd be careful reading too much. Clearly, conservatives lost in those two initiatives you mentioned, but look at the health care mandate in Ohio. Ohio voted overwhelmingly -- every county in the state -- to reject the centerpiece of the president's health care plan, and by a bigger margin than the referendum that put away Kasich's plan on collective bargaining.
So I would be careful in reading much. In fact, if anything, this was an incumbent election. I mean, incumbents did pretty well across the board. And that's a troubling sign for conservatives and for the Tea Party movement, because it means the momentum has waned.
AMANPOUR: So the momentum, George, right down to the latest Quinnipiac poll is basically saying that -- the new state poll out of Iowa is showing President Obama defeating all Republican comers in that new poll. Shift of mood? It's a swing state, isn't it?
WILL: It's a swing state. It's a purple state.
AMANPOUR: I actually meant Ohio. I hope I didn't say Iowa.
WILL: You did...
(CROSSTALK)
WILL: Well, Ohio's important to Republicans.
AMANPOUR: (inaudible)
WILL: No Republican has ever won the presidency without carrying Ohio. Republicans always spend something like the gross national product of Brazil to carry Ohio, and that puts them across the finish line.
The real problem for Republicans is they have to have a candidate who can carry the white, non-college-educated, blue-collar vote, Hillary Democrats, if you will. It used to be called Reagan Democrats. They're in play, and the Republicans need a candidate who can carry them. They lost them in Ohio last week.
BRAZILE: Well, let me just say this. More people turned out to vote against Governor Kasich's proposal than voted for Governor Kasich in 2010. This is a sign of things to come. Voters are sick and tired and frustrated of politicians overreaching, you know, basically doing things that they did not elect them to do.
They want jobs. They want to protect the economy. They're not interested in all of these side issues, whether it's the personhood amendment in Mississippi or the voter proposal in Maine and the anti-worker proposal in Ohio. And, also, remember, in the Hawkeye State, in Iowa, they also rejected one of the Tea Party-backed candidates who had proposed -- was against the marriage initiative. So this was a good day for Democrats.
AMANPOUR: All right.
On that note, up next, the Iran crisis boils over, as U.N. inspectors find new evidence that Iran is working on a nuclear device. The big question: Can America do anything to stop it now? Answers from the Republican presidential field when we return. Stay with us.
AMANPOUR: Last night, the Republican presidential candidates took on the chief foreign policy crisis facing the United States today, nuclear Iran potentially. This week, weapons inspectors said they finally have enough -- the most strong evidence, they say, to see that Iran is still working on a nuclear device.
So can it be stopped at this point? The candidates said yes.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ROMNEY: Well, it's worth putting in place crippling sanctions. It's worth working with the insurgents in the country to encourage regime change in the country. And if all else fails, if after all of the work we've done there's nothing else we can do besides take military action, then of course you take military action.
CAIN: I would not entertain military opposition. I'm talking about to help the opposition movement within the country.
PERRY: The issue that has not been raised is that this country can sanction the Iranian central bank right now and shut down that country's economy.
SANTORUM: We should be working with Israel right now to do what they did in Syria, what they did in Iraq, which is take out that nuclear capability before the next explosion we hear in Iran is a nuclear one and then the world changes.
(END VIDEOTAPE)

This time, Loesch defended Rick Perry's infamous 53-second gaffe at the CNBC Debate Wednesday night. She praised his appearance on CBS's The Late Show With David Letterman. She also stated that she has zero confidence in the Super Committee.

On ABC's This Week, Dana Loesch lies to a national audience

ABC has decided to put on serial liar Dana Loesch on This Week with Christiane Amanpour. Hasn't ABC learned their lesson from the November 2nd, 2010 election coverage debacle that ultimately booted off Andrew Breitbart, but Loesch was still on.

The other panelists for the political roundtable were former Bush 43 speechwriter Michael Gerson, Chicago Tribune's Clarence Page, and ABC News' own Jonathan Karl.

From the 09.04.2011 edition of ABC's This Week:



Green Room:


Transcript:

AMANPOUR: And we'll certainly be watching his candidate forum tomorrow. And so, no doubt, will our roundtable. With me today, Michael Gerson, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush and a columnist for the Washington Post; Clarence Page, who writes a column for the Chicago Tribune; Dana Loesch, editor at BigJournalism.com and a founder of the St. Louis Tea Party; and ABC's senior political correspondent Jon Karl.

Jon, let me turn to you first. You know, tried to get some sort of determination out of Senator DeMint, but keeping his powder dry. Given that, what do Governor Perry and Governor Romney have to do to break out of the current situation?

KARL: Well, frankly, you've seen the polls that show that Perry has just shot to the top. We don't know how real this is. This is the month we'll find out whether or not he is truly the front-runner.

We have three debates over the next three weeks. Perry has taken off because he's got this record as the jobs governor in Texas and he speaks the Tea Party language, but there is the biggest oppo file on Rick Perry than of all the other candidates. He's got the longest record. You alluded to his book. He's got the most that can be attacked. We'll see over the next three weeks whether or not he can survive it.

AMANPOUR: Well, you just alluded to polls. Let me just put them up. The latest Quinnipiac poll has Rick Perry six points ahead of Mitt Romney. The CNN poll shows an even wider gap.

Michael, good news for Rick Perry, but the Republican establishment, as Jon alluded to, because of all that oppo, must be quite worried about it.

GERSON: No, I think there are some worries. This is a remarkable rise. He has gotten support not just from the Tea Party, but actually from a lot of establishment Republicans in these polls.

But they're just getting to know him. The Tea Party people could have questions of their own. He supported TARP. You mentioned some of these other issues. And the establishment is already having questions about his book and other things, with views that seem odd or extreme. He opposes the direct election of senators, apparently, which is, you know, a interesting position to take.

KARL: Big populist issue, yes.

(LAUGHTER)

GERSON: Right, exactly. But I would say that every front-runner has to be wary of the Giuliani fate. Giuliani led in all the polls the last time. He ended up with one delegate at the convention. You know, this can change very quickly.

AMANPOUR: You said it's a remarkable sort of rise. Is it remarkable like Michele Bachmann was remarkable when she entered? Or is it beyond that?

GERSON: Well, I think it's a little bit beyond that. I think he has a serious governing record. I think his appeal on jobs is a real advantage in this case. I don't think this is necessarily a bubble. I think he's going to be serious.

And I think that Romney may want people like Palin getting in the race, in order to divide and create an inter-Tea Party rivalry, you know, going forward. But I think Perry's been very good at marginalizing Bachmann. It shows that he's a savvy politician. And, you know, that's a real achievement so far.

AMANPOUR: We'll get to Palin in a second, but, Dana, I wanted to ask you, again, alluding to some of the things that Governor Perry has said. And he is a Tea Party favorite, and yet he's talked about Social Security, he's talked about it as a crumbling monument to the failure of the New Deal. But we know and the polls show that 87 percent of Americans believe, of course, Social Security has been good for the country. Does that not put him completely out of step with the rest of the country on this major issue?

LOESCH: Not really, because I think that what he wants to do is reform Social Security and hopefully take it out of the hands of the government and allow people to be able to decide what they want to do with their own money.

And that's something that grassroots has always been supportive of. We trust ourselves more than we trust the government. And the government has done a horrible job. They said this money was supposed to be there for people who are my parents' age, who are my aunts' and uncles' age. This money was supposed to be there for them when they retired. It was supposedly put in some sort of lockbox. And then when you open the box, when these people hit retirement age, it's not there anymore.

So I think that this is something that grassroots has pushed for. I think Perry is beginning to speak to that. That's not to say, though, however, that there are other issues that I think that he, over the next -- the course of the next several weeks, he's going to have to answer to, to grassroots.

AMANPOUR: Such as?

LOESCH: Well, I think -- well, for one, his stance on immigration. He's spoken out against building a fence at the border. And I think there's also, too, a lot of people want to talk about Reagan during this political time, but some of Perry's stances on immigration, frankly, aren't all of that different from where Reagan stood on immigration.

We have to remember the immigration bill that was signed into law by Reagan in '86. Reagan was very proud of that, but the difference is, is that Reagan wanted to support a strong border, not just amnesty. And Perry doesn't match up on that. So he's got a lot of answering to do.

AMANPOUR: Clarence, you've written today's column on the Social Security issue. You just heard what Dana said, take it out of the hands of government, and it's just a way of Perry saying he wants to reform it. But how difficult do you think his record, his written record on what he thinks about Social Security is going to be for him?

PAGE: Actually, his written record, he's been very consistent about -- more consistent than his own press spokesman who told us in the media a week or so ago, don't take that book seriously. He wasn't planning on running for president then. And then Perry came out across Iowa, stopped saying, "Oh, yeah, read my book. That'll show you how I feel."

His book is very explicit. Dana's right. He wants to take Social Security out of the hands of federal government, put it in the hands of the states. As Michael wrote eloquently this week, he spoke with great admiration of a temporary program that for a couple of counties in Texas that were able to -- to opt out of Social Security program.

This will not go well with regular Americans. Now, with all due respect, the term grassroots, I had a city editor years ago who said never use the term grassroots, because it is meaningless. Everybody has their grassroots.

The fact is, most -- well, President George W. Bush went around campaigning for a program that would just offer us the option of investing part of our Social Security contribution in the stock market. The more he talked about it, the less popular it became. It died on Capitol Hill.

And Perry calls it a "Ponzi scheme." You know what a Ponzi scheme is? Bernie Madoff, wizard of Wall Street.

KARL: Well, he invokes Bernie Madoff in the book. But, you know, I've got to say...

PAGE: He wants to put more money -- well (inaudible) he wants us to put more money in Wall Street, where Bernie Madoff is. The average American I don't think right now is ready to go for that kind of a radical move.

KARL: But -- but -- but to Dana's point, I think that some of this rhetoric may actually help him with the base that he's trying to excite.

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: But -- but he's going to have some problems. You know, at some point during one of these debates, one of the candidates, maybe it'll be Mitt Romney, will stand up and say, there's only one candidate on the stage here who has voted for tax increases, including the biggest tax increase in the history of Texas. Now, that was Rick Perry. It was a long time ago. He was a Democrat. But this will be an issue. There will be issues that the Tea Party, that hard-right conservatives will go at Rick Perry over.

AMANPOUR: Well, you just mentioned Mitt Romney, who, of course, was the front-runner until Rick Perry jumped in. Where does he need to go now? He's sort of been coasting on his record and being the presumed front-runner. What does he need to do tomorrow and in the coming days and in these debates?

KARL: They know that they've got an issue here. Look, for three years, Christiane, Mitt Romney has been essentially the front-runner in this race. Before he officially declared, he has been the front-runner. He has been the guy, but suddenly this has changed.

And like I said, we'll see over the next month whether it really has changed, but they know that they're going to have to go after Rick Perry. They could sit back when Tim Pawlenty was the big threat. They could kind of let it play out. You can't do that when you're running against Rick Perry. And they know it.

AMANPOUR: And, Michael, I mean, again, let's get to primaries versus general election. Can Rick Perry -- or is it dangerous for the Republican Party to -- to sort of let Mitt Romney slip behind?

GERSON: Well, I think that there's a serious amount of discontent with the field. I don't think Republicans regard this as a strong field. So there is still talk of people getting in the race, not just Palin, but last week, Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey was in Chicago, had two meetings with serious Republican groups from the Midwest.

AMANPOUR: Even though he's said no, no, no, no, no?

GERSON: He's actively, I think, considering getting in this race, which would throw things open once more. But the desire for that to happen, for people like Paul Ryan, who are pushing this to happen, it shows that they're not happy with the current field. They think that it needs to be filled out in important ways. But I don't know if that's going to happen, but the desire for many Republicans to expand this field shows that they're not content with the field.

AMANPOUR: All right. Well, let's play something that Sarah Palin said at her rally in -- yesterday when she was out talking. Let's see what she said about this race.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PALIN: The challenge is not simply to replace Obama in 2012, but the real challenge is who and what we will replace him with, because it's not enough.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

AMANPOUR: So, Jon, conventional wisdom is that maybe she's left it too long, but you're hearing different, right? Do you think she's going to jump in?

KARL: I think it is more likely that she jumps in than most of us have thought for a long time. We really don't know.

But I will tell you this: For months and months and months, it has been accurate to say that Sarah Palin has been teasing publicly, but has done nothing behind the scenes to prepare for an actual presidential run. I do not believe that is still the case. I think that she is -- she is laying the groundwork to decide, yes.

AMANPOUR: Where do you see that?

KARL: I -- I -- I think that she's beginning to look at what she would have to do to staff up the campaign. I think she's looking at what she'd have to do to actually establish a campaign organization, which she has done absolutely nothing until now.

AMANPOUR: So would that bring you great hope if she jumps in? I mean, look at her negatives. They're very, very high.

LOESCH: I think that she does have a little bit to overcome, in terms of -- I know that there was the Fox News poll which came out, and there was also an independent study which was done in conjunction with that, that also looked at Republican voters to see who they would or would not choose.

I think -- but we're still -- I mean, we're still really early on into this race, so anything is possible. I mean, and when I say anything is possible, I mean, when you look at the polls right now, the last poll that was released showed generic Republican candidate was beating this president in the polls.

KARL: That's who they should nominate.

LOESCH: So I think that we do -- I think that we do have a strong field. I do really think that we do have a strong field. But whether or not we're going to end up with someone that is speaking to the base -- because I think not only is this election going to be a referendum on Obama's first term, but this is also going to be a referendum on the Republican Party.

This is the Republican Party's decision right now. Who are they going to put forward? Are they going to keep going with the same Bush policies that helped create the Tea Party? Or are they actually going to put forward a real conservative, real Republican candidate, and actually unite the right once and for all? That's the question.

AMANPOUR: We're going to get to President Obama in our next panel, but thank you all very much for joining us. And the roundtable will continue in the green room at abcnews.com.

She claimed that the "government is doing a horrible job about Social Security" and supports Rick Perry's effort to eliminate Social Security (which she endorses). She falsely claimed that Texas Governor Rick Perry panders to "illegal immigrants" and wants "amnesty."

She also was cheerleading for Palin.

She stated that "the generic Republican is beating Obama in a recent poll." That poll in question that Loesch was referring to came from the biased as hell Repubmussen. The most recent Pew and Gallup polls have Obama winning. And if she thinks that any old conservative can win the presidency (despite Obama's not-so-great approval ratings), she's sorely mistaken!

Later in the show, there was an economic panel, and as usual, Paul Krugman told the truth.