The right-wing talkers and Beltway Villagers have all been wringing their hands at how mean and disrespectful President Obama was by inviting Paul Ryan to sit in the front row of his speech Wednesday and then to so openly rebuke his absurd 'Path to the Poorhouse' deficit-reduction plan.

One of the more vivid examples of this was Joe Scarborough's wailing and gnashing of teeth on Thursday morning on MSNBC. He was happily joined in this by Professional Wanker Mark Halperin.

Scarborough kept repeating that Obama had "called Ryan un-American," though of course Obama had done no such thing; he had repeatedly said that the Republican plan didn't reflect any America he knew -- which is of course quite a different thing. (We on the Left know what being called "un-American" sounds like -- and that ain't it.)

Of course, we all saw Ryan's little hissy-fit afterwards, in which he declared that the president was "dramatically inaccurate" in his speech. By Joe Scarborough's logic, that's exactly the same as calling him a liar! So who's being disrespectful?

I think Mika Brzezinski had it exactly right: Obama in fact was being unusually respectful in inviting Ryan and his cohorts to hear directly what he had to say, because he doesn't believe in doing things the Republican way: Slamming people not to their faces but waiting till they're not around and can't answer.

It's just such a radical concept for Republicans that they become utterly flabbergasted when confronted with it.