There was Hillary Clinton, telling Al Sharpton of all people that she found Kevin McCarthy's comments about the Benghazi hearings "deeply distressing."  

That was too much for the Morning Joe panel, which just had to laugh.  As John Heilemann put it, far from being distressed, Hillary surely sees McCarthy's comments—implying a political motive behind the hearings—as a Christmas and birthday gift wrapped into one that sent her "skipping through the park."

This NewsBuster is a paid subscriber and regular listener to Hugh Hewitt's podcasts, and believes that Hugh is the ablest conservative interviewer on radio. So it was surprising to see him serve as such a loyal CNN soldier on today's Morning Joe.

Hewitt, a member of the CNN panel at Wednesday's GOP debate, refused to complain about the paltry opportunities he was given to question the candidates. And defending the fact that Donald Trump had been given twice Scott Walker and Mike Huckabee's airtime, Hewitt said that while "unfortunate," Jake Tapper had done a "marvelous" job of allocating time. That was too much for Mika Brzezinski, who bluntly told Hewitt: "I guess you're probably uncomfortable being honest about this."  Mika's skepticism is on vivid display in the screengrab.

It's one thing for conservatives to concur that Carly Fiorina was outstanding at last night's debate.  But to hear a string of superlatives about Fiorina coming from committed liberal Mika Brzezinski was breathtaking.

Over the course of today's Morning Joe, a stream of praise for Fiorina flowed from Mika, capped by this: "my God, I have never seen anyone like her. Ever."

Mika Brzezinski: fired up and ready to go . . . for Donald Trump? Not exactly. It isn't that Mika's jumping on the Make America Great Again express.  It's just that she wants "intellectual honesty" from her peers when it comes to admitting that Trump has gone from amusing sideshow who's sure to eventually crash to true frontrunner who is now likely to be the Republican nominiee.

You might not think of Brzezinski as being particularly data-driven, but on today's Morning Joe she repeatedly argued that there is no data supporting a Trump meltdown scenario. Going around the table with the question of whether it was "likely" or not that Trump would be the Republican nominee, she, Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist were in the "likely" column.  Susan Ferrechio of the Washington Examiner was at 50-50.  The only naysayer was Bloomberg's John Heilemann, who opined it was unlikely Trump would be the nominee.

My mother had a saying about heeding warnings from others: "if one person tells you you're drunk, ignore him.  If two people tell you you're drunk, lie down."  So what should Hillary Clinton do when the entire Morning Joe panel tells her that her supposed apology on ABC last night was a total bust?

From Joe Scarborough saying it looked like a "hostage video," to John Heilemann saying her apology proved that everything she had said about no one caring about the issue was a "lie," to Mika Brzezinski speaking of the "freakish" control exercised by the Clinton camp, to Willie Geist flatly contradicting Hillary's assertion that her actions were "allowed," the panning of Hillary's performance was unanimous.