Clintonite Paul Begala speaking to college students about Republicans:

“They want to kill me and my children if they can. But if they just kill me and not my children, they want my children to be comforted — that while they didn’t protect me because they cut my taxes, my children won’t have to pay any money on the money they inherit,” Begala said. “That is bulls*** national defense, and we should say that.”

Betsy Newmark takes down Begala here and updates here.

Radioblogger has the audio clip (MP3) and a transcript with Hugh Hewitt and Victor Davis Hanson’s discussion of Begala’s remarks.

HH: Victor Davis Hanson, you’re a serious man. I hate to ask you to comment on unserious things. But what is that emblematic of?

VDH: I think it’s symptomatic of the bankruptcy of the mainstream Democatic Party, because, after all, we know that almost everything he just said was false. We have more gross revenues coming in after the tax cut than before. The deficit’s going down. The problem is spending, not a revenue problem. Within four weeks after 9/11, we conducted this sophisticated military campaign seven thousand miles away. And in less than seven weeks, we took out that God-awful regime, and put democracy where it had never existed before. We took Saddam out in three weeks. We stayed on to try to create a democratic government. There’s change in Lebanon, Syria, places like Libya, Pakistan’s nuclear roguery is being exposed. So, it’s just oblivious to that. But it is symptomatic that we’ve had a mid-term election, we’ve had another election since 9/11, and the electorate, even after the unleashing of the New York Times, CBS, Michael Moore, the electorate still doesn’t trust Democrats.

More…

Tom Elia takes a look.

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Related: For a saner discussion of politics, check out this fascinating Washington Post Sunday Magazine profile of two bloggers, including Betsy Newmark of one of my faves, Betsy’s Page.

Update: There’s dispute about Begala’s pronouns, which Betsy addresses here.

Leopold Stotch at OTB has more, and notices that author Thomas Frank is even more off the rails.