Closing a panel segment with three fellow liberals about the open letter to the Islamic Republic of Iran by Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and 46 Republican colleagues, MSNBC's Chris Matthews subtly hinted that the president's race was a motivating factor for the missive. 

In an episode that featured plenty of ObamaCare criticism from the president’s typical allies, MSNBC’s Morning Joe still found room for the law’s cheerleaders. On Thursday’s show, co-host Mika Brzezinski despaired over the fact that Bill Clinton advised President Obama to keep his promise to the country and allow people to keep their health care plans if they like them. The fact that Clinton was not explicitly siding with Obama caused Brzezinski to mourn, “Is anyone going to help out at this point, or is it so convoluted that we are holding onto hope at this point? Cause I believe in the concept of this law. I want it to work.”

Bloomberg’s Margaret Carlson, sitting on the panel, confessed to being a “believer” in the law as well. Going further than Brzezinski, she actually had the nerve to complain about the people who have been forced out of plans they like by ObamaCare:

On the Friday, September 6, Political Capital show on Bloomberg News, Bloomberg View columnist Margaret Carlson -- formerly of CNN and Time magazine -- blamed former President George W. Bush's "lies" for America's unwillingness to support military action against the Syrian government as she asserted that "Bush's lies" about Iraq should "keep him awake at 3 in the morning," but instead "haunt the country."

Host Al Hunt set up Carlson's attack on Bush as he posed the question:

Bloomberg columnist Margaret Carlson tied immigration reform to the shooting of Trayvon Martin on Wednesday’s Morning Joe, claiming Republican voters oppose the Senate immigration bill because they believe “immigrants are, you know, people in hoodies.” While the inflammatory line would no doubt be well-received on a liberal network like MSNBC, it seems somewhat unbecoming of a professional political journalist.

Suffice it to say, Carlson was not called out by her fellow panelists for the hyperbolic comment. Carlson also commended Thomas Friedman’s latest op-ed in The New York Times, entitled “If Churchill Could See Us Now,” in which Friedman – who recently held up China as a paragon of greatness, so long as they don’t emulate the “American Dream” – blasted House Republicans for making this country “un-great”:

Asked on Sunday’s Reliable Sources if the wider media dismissed the Weekly Standard story, by Stephen Hayes about the Benghazi talking points getting altered to take out any references to terrorism, because of his affiliation with conservative media, The Hill newspaper Managing Editor Bob Cusack agreed.

Then he turned his criticism on his colleagues: “If you look at the time line of how this administration dealt with Benghazi, there’s been a lot of contradictions from the get go. So, the media hasn’t looked at it as extensively as they should have.”