The title question makes for a bad Paula Cole record, but a good basis for discussion on this morning’s Morning Joe. Co-host Mika Brzezinski led a discussion of the current GOP presidential field’s frequent brain power outages, such as Herman Cain’s Libya whiff and Rick Perry’s debate mega-stumble, pegged to op-eds by The Washington Post‘s Kathleen Parker and Newsweek‘s Paul Begala.

Democratic political strategist Paul Begala spoke with Don Imus this morning on Fox Business Network and unsurprisingly strongly defended President Obama and mocked some of the Republican presidential candidates. Yet the most enjoyable exchange came when Begala and Imus debated whether CNN should truly be considered “the most trusted name in news.”

The punditry over “Weinergate” continues with Anderson Cooper last night trying to moderate a fair discussion of the controversy. Yet to Cooper’s amusement and bewilderment, liberal commentator Paul Begala demonstrated a convincing yawn over the story, but didn’t seem to convince the others in the conversation that “what Anthony Weiner is even accused of doing, even if true, is just nothing.”

It is on. A new online campaign ad attacking Mitt Romney has been released, funded by a recently group called Priorities USA Action. Who is that you ask? Well, its founders former Deputy Press Secretary for the White House Bill Burton, and Sean Sweeney, who is former senior adviser to former White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel; and CNN contributor Paul Begala, who was a former senior adviser to President Bill Clinton. So, safe to say its a a pro-Obama group.

Paul Begala joined Don Imus this morning and commented on the recent troubles for Arnold Schwarzenegger and Newt Gingrich. Begala felt Schwarzenegger and his family deserved privacy, but was absolutely loving the media attention Newt received, and even offered to pay his filing fee to confirm that he would still run for President.

Bill Maher took it upon himself on Real Time tonight to analyze George Will’s prospective field of realistic Republican presidential candidates for 2012. In a development that will shock precisely no one, Maher didn’t seem overly taken with the field – although in a somewhat more surprising turn, neither did one of his conservative panelists.

It seems that Anderson Cooper can’t get enough of hunter/rocker Ted Nugent on his special edition of 360º, and, as an opening act, Nugent sure is giving Piers Morgan a run for his money. After mocking CNN for hiring Eliot Spitzer earlier this week, Nugent went all out against a less risky target on a topic near and dear to his heart: obesity.

With the first results of the Midterms in, CNN turned to what Anderson Cooper called their “super-sized” political team and, in doing so, we got one of the first memorable quote of the night from Paul Begala. Asked about what he’d be looking for tonight, Begala responded that while the big question of 2008 was whether or not America was ready for a black president, this year it was whether America “is ready for an orange speaker.” Our big question of the night is how long he had that joke waiting in his back pocket. Yes, there were audible groans on the CNN set. Yes, he got at least a couple of chuckles out of the Mediaite office.

Last night President Obama marked the end of U.S. combat operations in Iraq with a solemn and graceful thank you speech from the oval office. Former Clinton adviser Paul Begala and White House Press Secretary under President Bush Ari Fleischer took the occasion to debate (or re-debate) the many complex and unsettling issues that made the Iraq War such a lightening rod for criticism for both sides of the political aisle.

Considering the “Randslide”, the departure of 30-year veteran Senator Arlen Specter, and the fact that Chris Matthews was waxing poetic about the primaries way past midnight, this was a pretty uneventful Election Day, gaffe-wise. The one radiant exception to this came from Anderson Cooper‘s political team, where Democratic strategist Paul Begala took a thematic detour in explaining the rational behind Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal‘s false record as a Vietnam War veteran.

You’d expect James Carville to be the one that would use Karl Rove‘s new memoir as an excuse to remind everyone of a time he won an obscure, near-impossible political campaign, but it’s his lifelong sidekick Paul Begala who is doing the honors this time around. Begala published his very best attempt at a fair review of Courage and Consequence at The Daily Beast today and, unsurprisingly, it’s a little biased.

Give credit where credit is due: Keith Olbermann‘s Friday apology, however slight, was a rare thing, indeed, in the world of political punditry. While I don’t doubt that Keith had a true moment of self-recognition here, I’m also fairly certain that this apology was equal parts reflection and self-preservation. Will it be enough to stave off the Jon Stewart Wrath-O-Matic?

Haven’t had your fill of books by sexy, polarizing conservative women with an inside view of John McCain‘s 2008 presidential campaign? Never fear, 2010 is here, and it’s bringing Meghan McCain‘s “dirty, sexy” new book with it.

George Stephanopoulos responds to the Politico story which reported that he, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, and former Clinton advisers Paul Begala and James Carville share a daily, morning conference call. And a quote from the original story, which if read closely doesn’t actually say the four are on the phone at the same time