Don't blame Mika—she was just obeying White House orders . . .
When Joe Scarborough tried this morning to comment on Pres. Obama's latest ObamaCare oration, Mika Brzezinski unleashed a series of seemingly serious kicks at his ankles. Having successfully silenced her sidekick, Mika proceeded to read off her Blackberry a statement extolling the glories of what PBO has vouchsafed onto a grateful people.
At one point, Mika said "I have some talking points from the White House." Being the naive and trusting person I am, I assumed Mika was kidding. Except that, upon a bit of Googling, it appears that she wasn't . . . [H/t reader Pam M.]
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let me tell you: the President's talking there, and what he was saying -- Ow!! Why did you kick me?
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The White House asked me to.
SCARBOROUGH: Do you do everthing the White --
BRZEZINSKI: I have some talking points from the White House.
SCARBOROUGH: I was about to compliment the [Mika kicks again] -- ow!! Does it say in your talking points to kick me?
BRZEZINSKI: Yes.
SCARBOROUGH: Oh my God.
BRZEZINSKI: Then it goes on to say, that why --
SCARBOROUGH: You can't kick me because the White House is telling you to kick me.
BRZEZINSKI: Well yes I can. I can do it again [kicks]. It will be fun
SCARBOROUGH: Ow. If she does that again Chris [Licht, executive producer], I'm walking off the set.
BRZEZINSKI: Alright [reading off BlackBerry]: why would they hire an army of lobbyists who spent tens of millions of dollars trying to stop a bill that they supposedly love? That's lunacy.
SCARBOROUGH: She's reading the White House talking points right now.
BRZEZINSKI: [Continuing to read off BlackBerry] "The legislation passed last night reins in the worst excesses and abuses of the insurance industry with some of the toughest consumer protections this country has ever known It will hold insurance companies accountable to keep premiums down and prevent denials of care and coverage, including pre-existing conditions." This is good: there's a lot that's good about this [kicks again]. There's a lot.
SCARBOROUGH: I'm serious: don't kick me again.
The line about "reins in the worst excesses" is taken verbatim from PBO's speech the night ObamaCare passed, where he said "this reform just gave you more control by reining in the worst excesses and abuses of the insurance industry with some of the toughest consumer protections this country has ever known."
The line about preventing denial of care closely tracks this one from an official White House statement: "It brings greater accountability to health care by laying out commonsense rules of the road to keep premiums down and prevent insurance industry abuses and denial of care."
The line about the "army of lobbyists" is almost word for word what PBO said yesterday in Iowa: "the special interests sent an army of lobbyists to Congress, they blanketed the airwaves with million of dollars of negative ads."
So yes, Mika really did kick her co-host into submission in order to read talking points the White House had sent her. As Rush likes to say, the "state-controlled media" strikes—or shall we say kicks—again.
Mika reads WH talking points from her BlackBerry
