EVEN HALPERIN WON’T DEFEND GOP TACTICS…. It was a lively discussion on “Morning Joe” this morning, when White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee appeared to discuss Wall Street reform. In particular, he explained why GOP talking points about “bailouts” aren’t just wrong, but are in fact the opposite of reality.

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Goolsbee also did a nice job highlighting the GOP’s motivations for repeating obvious nonsense: “Everybody knows a consultant just handed them that line and they’re just reading it. It doesn’t matter what’s in the bill. It could be a bill about breakfast cereal and they’re going to say this is a bailout bill.”

But what was especially interesting this morning was the moment when host Joe Scarborough turned to Time‘s Mark Halperin, and urged him to “defend the Republican position” on the legislation. Halperin, who often seems more than sympathetic to the GOP line, couldn’t bring himself to support the Republican arguments.

“I cannot defend what they’re doing,” Halperin said. “They are willfully misreading the bill or they are engaged in a cynical attempt to keep the president from achieving something.”

Note to Republicans: when even Mark Halperin is calling you out for lying, the conventional wisdom is turning against you.