at&t. rethink possible. martha: a video has now surfaced of former clinton white house chief of staff and also president obama s pick to head up his debt commission, erskin bowles. in this video bowles is praising republican vice president nominee paul ryan who was also a member of that debt commission bowles worked on. while the bowles-simpson plan did not get much support, especially from the white house, mr. bowles had some very nice words about ryan s alternative budget proposal and about ryan himself. listen to this. have any of you all met paul ryan? we should get him to come to the university. i tell you this guy is amazing. i always thought i was okay with arithmetic. this guy can run circles around me. and he is honest. he is straightforward. he is sincere. and the budget he came
almost on a daily basis, including this very week, the president goes out there and attacks your administration, the bush administration. we inherited, we inherited. liberals kind of get mad, because he claims kiosks, atms, tsunamis, earthquakes. i use the term, almost to this point, it s like president crybaby. uh-huh. sean: when you hear all these instances where he s blaming your administration for his troubles 3 1/2 years in, what s your reaction to that? well, my reaction is he hasn t got anything to talk about on in terms of his own record. he s had now almost four years in the white house to deal with the major issues that we face as a nation, and he hasn t dealt with them. classic example, simpson-bowles, the commission set up, partly with his support, and al simpson, one of my closest friends, and erskin bowles put
almost on a daily basis, including this very week, the president goes out there and attacks your the bush administration. we inherited, we inherited. liberals kind of get mad, because he claims kiosks, atms, tsunamis, earthquakes. i use the term, almost to this point, it s like president crybaby. uh-huh. sean: when you hear all these instances where he s blaming your administration for his troubles 3 1/2 years in, what s your reaction to that? well, my reaction is he hasn t got anything to talk about on in terms of his own record. he s had now almost four years in the white house to deal with the major issues that we face as a nation, and he hasn t dealt with them. classic example, simpson-bowles, the commission set up, partly with his support, and al simpson, one of my closest friends, and erskin bowles put
the rich. would you agree? reporter: sure that is the political issue that they are trying to capitalize on, that is the one they are trying to run on. they ve done a fairly good job politically speaking of putting republicans back on their heels a bit on this payroll tax cut battle up on capitol hill, but when you look at that interview on meet the press really one thing stood out, david gregory effectively pushed david axelrod on the issue of the president essentially leading from behind, or not leading on the issue of debt reduction, and when it came to the question of simpson-bowles, the deficit debt commission, and whether the administration was going to embrace that, it didn t. and you had a sound byte from erskin bowles, and he is a
everybody in this room to stand up and support what these two people have done. including dick durbin and senator coleburn. he hasn t done it do this day. martha: why doesn t he do it. the part of the democratic base was offended by the cutbacks in medicare and social security and entitlement programs, and i certainly support those programs. i recognize there needs to be an across the board balanced approach. the republicans only want to cut spending and not increase revenues. they don t have a balanced approach. only erskin-bowles and alan simpson gave us that approach. martha: someone say desperate times call for a different kind of behavior than we ve seen in the past. martha: past. agree. martha: thank you. always good to have you here. bill: did you watch a lot of football over the weekend. martha: a bit. bill: someone must be smiling on quarterback tim tebow, the