As John already noted, Republican Todd Harris was on Hardball the yesterday talking about how we need to have "an adult conversation" about cuts to entitlements. What he didn't mention is that Democratic "strategist" Steve McMahon was on there parroting him. So in the spirit of Mr. Amato's post, I've got a big f-u for McMahon... and that goes for your pal Tweety as well. Adult conversation my ass.

Transcript via Digby:

Chris Matthews: Let me talk down the road the big stuff because we all know, gentlemen that the country has a 13 trillion dollar debt and we can talk about economic growth and we can all talk about economic growth the economy, we all know that sometimes it just doesn't grow, some years it just doesn't grow. There's always going to be a business cycle, there's always going to be downturns. So my question to you is, Todd, here's the question. We saw what came out of that bipartisan commission just a few weeks ago. We saw the immediate knee jerk reaction of Nancy Pelosi, we saw the immediate reaction of some of the Republican members of the House. The president did get 14 of the 18 members, of that commission.

Is there a potential that he could cut deals with Coburn who is much respected on issues like fiscal policy and bringing in other leading Democrats as well, recognizing that that the appropriators won't like it, that Pelosi won't like it, that the unions won't like it, that he has to get past those people or he will get nothing done on the fiscal area? If the president waits for the unions, if he waits for the usual interest groups to say yes, it will never get done. He has to form a coalition around them.

Todd Harris (GOP strategist): You're absolutely right and I think the best way to do that will be to include some significant entitlement reform as part of that package

Matthews: Yeah

Todd Harris: .. because there's no way to talk about deficit reduction without doing it. Until people in Washington are ready to have an adult conversation about entitlement all this talk about spending and the deficit is all a bunch of noise, because as we all know that's where the money's going.

Steve McMahon (Democratic strategist): I think you're absolutely right. And for the president this year, coming out and basically saying that we've had some major accomplishments in the past two years and now we have to concentrate on the deficit and getting spending under control and working with Republicans just like he worked with them on the measures he just passed, he'll benefit politically and the country will benefit over the long term. Because we can't afford to continue on the path we're on and it does seem to be that serious people on the left and the right are recognizing the importance of compromise. And the deficit commission had plenty in there for everybody to not like. But there's also a path to fiscal sanity and I think we've got people ready to move that forward.

We've got Senator Corker and Senator Mark Warner in a bipartisan fashion to try to do something in the Senate working on that and I think we're going to see some people like that who come from the business world into politics and who understand finance and understand the implications of what we're doing.

Digby thinks McMahon has been drinking too much Villager egg nog. I don't know what he's been drinking but if he's advising Democrats to go after Social Security and thinks that's a winning political strategy, I've got news for you pal, it's not. Go read the rest of Digby's post for more on the media's coverage on Social Security.