Oh My: Here’s Six Kooky Moments from MSNBC’s 2017 Most Interesting People/Things List

December 18th, 2017 3:58 PM

1. Here We Go.....

Here We Go.....

On Sunday night, MSNBC host and serial liar Brian Williams co-hosted an MSNBC special on 2017's most interesting people and things with former McCain campaign official-turned-MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace. 

Given both of their records, it didn’t disappoint in churning out head-scratching selections and crazy quotes on everyone from Republican Senator Bob Corker (Tenn.) to Robert Mueller and even a love letter to the liberal media.

Here are ten of the most insane moments, presenting chronological order:

2. 1. Bob Corker Is a ‘Profile in Courage’ Amidst GOP’s ‘Endless Funeral’

1. Bob Corker Is a ‘Profile in Courage’ Amidst GOP’s ‘Endless Funeral’

The retiring GOP Senator was number ten on the duo’s list due to his coziness with Donald Trump taking a hit not long after Trump became President. Amidst a highlight reel of Corker’s various Trump denouncements, Williams swooned that “during a time these last few months when profiles in courage have been rare,” Corker deserved to be on the list whether he decided to run for reelection or not.

“Listen, I think that Republican senators who have stood up to Trump in some instances get too much credit. Jeff Flake is not on the list because he is fluent in anti-Trumpism, but he never puts actions behind it,” Wallace lamented.

Williams also turned the tables on Wallace by invoking “personal privilege and ask you as my friend and co-worker, what 2017 has been like.” because she was “a very visible Republican communications director in the 43 White House.”

The liberal Republican replied right on cue, to Williams’s approval: 

It's like an endless funeral. It's like going to the political wake of a party I served for -- from the time I was 25 until the sort of calamity that was the McCain/Palin campaign. This sort of wave started in 2008 with the crowds that came out for Sarah Palin.

It's safe to say that most conservatives would argue that the calamities of the 2008 campaign were Wallace and fellow liberal Republican/campaign manager Steve Schmidt, but that debate is for another day.

3. 2. Duo Swoon Over Far-Left San Juan Mayor’s ‘Decency’

2. Duo Swoon Over Far-Left San Juan Mayor’s ‘Decency’

Far-left San Juan, Puerto Rico mayor Carmen Cruz took the ninth-place spot on their list and the pair did nothing to question her motives or outbursts following the federal government’s response to Hurricane Maria. 

Wallace declared that Cruz “will stay with me forever” and touted her “competence,” “decency,” and “urgency about her” that made for “the wrong Twitter combatant” for Trump to fight with.

“A few weeks back, she was on with Rachel Maddow here in this building and was wonderful. I don't know how she views her future in politics. I think a good many Americans would have voted for her for just about anything at the height of this,” the supposedly-neutral Williams added.

4. 3. Protesting Athletes ‘Filled the Vacuum’ of American Morality Under Trump

3. Protesting Athletes ‘Filled the Vacuum’ of American Morality Under Trump

With Colin Kaepernick occupying the seventh spot, Wallace and Williams praised the national anthem protests at NFL games and even denounced the critics.

Williams bemoaned those against the kneelers, fretting that the action was seen “as somehow anti-veterans, anti-troops fighting overseas” when “[i]t was never about our people in uniform.”

On cue, Wallace agreed, touting the leftist protests as a sign of American athletes becoming the country’s moral arbiters instead of Trump:

And you know what agrees? Most people in uniform and I think in this vacuum and I think it's safe to just assert that in the Trump presidency, there's a morality vacuum, a leadership vacuum in our national politics. There have been some athletes who have stepped in around issues, and this was around the most basic American idea, free speech, and filled the vacuum. 

5. 4. McCain’s ‘Thumb Down’ on ObamaCare Repeal Showed His ‘Scope of History’

4. McCain’s ‘Thumb Down’ on ObamaCare Repeal Showed His ‘Scope of History’

Skipping ahead, McCain clocked in at number five and thus gave Williams another opportunity to offer more gooey praise for the Arizona Republican following the MSNBC host’s July 30 comments about McCain’s no-vote that sunk efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

Williams touted McCain on that night as having created a “very dramatic moment... Much was made of that moment, a moment of moral courage, a man staring down his own mortality yet again.”

Almost five months later, Williams proclaimed that the “harrowing moment when he came out of the cloakroom” to “put his thumb down, but just in his outstretched arm, I saw the scope of history of John McCain.”

“Both of his arms were so grievously injured. He’s never been able to comb his own hair. He can't raise them above shoulder height. So, everything he was about was put into that moment, a vote he could not cast despite feverish lobbying efforts,” gushed Williams as if he himself were an ObamaCare advocate.

Wallace responded by noting that it was a classic example of who McCain has been throughout his career as someone “who has never strayed from his set of principles, that's John McCain.”

6. 5. Irony Alert! Williams Frets News Media Have Been ‘Under Constant Fire’

5. Irony Alert! Williams Frets News Media Have Been ‘Under Constant Fire’

Williams engaged in some hysterical irony regarding the infamous Iraq War lie when, while touting the news media’s placement at number three, he complained that “these institutions like The Times and The Post, like NBC News and MSNBC, have to make it through the other end” despite being “[u]nder constant fire.”

Predictably, the pair praised the media’s decision to awake from an eight-year slumber and, fairly or unfairly, doggedly investigate the White House and its political allies.

Here’s a portion of their discussion: 

WILLIAMS: Covering this administration has sparked an entire industry. 

WALLACE: It's also created some of our best TV friends. 

(....)

WALLACE: These people are family to us because we rely on not just their scoops, which come at a pace that — it's dizzying, but they’ve also become our storytellers of this presidency. 

(....)

WALLACE: Not to take anything away from our investigative unit which breaks stories all the time, but to cover such a disruptive period in politics, whether it was a Democrat or a Republican, it takes a village. So, what we get do is showcase all the journalism. 

“I mean, they are competitive, I'm sure, but there is a camaraderie to covering not just Donald Trump and the unconventional ways that he has turned the presidency on its head, but covering this moment. You just think of all of the people sort of bringing us these stories day after day after day. It's an embarrassment of riches,” Wallace stated.

After excitedly promoting the upcoming movie about the Pentagon Papers and The Washington Post, Wallace argued that the film “goes to this point about what we are living through” and “[t]he idea that the media was a check at these pivotal points in our history is an important inflection point.” 

Sure, just like how the late Ben Bradlee was close with John F. Kennedy and thus didn’t offer breathless coverage on Kennedy’s lewd personal problems. Same goes for the liberal media’s worship of Barack Obama, but what do I know?

7. 6. Pair Swoon Mueller Is ‘Perfect Nemesis for Trump,’ Bemoan ‘Vicious Assault’ Against Mueller

6. Pair Swoon Mueller Is ‘Perfect Nemesis for Trump,’ Bemoan ‘Vicious Assault’ Against Mueller

Special counsel Robert Mueller finished in the top spot and, unlike the liberal media’s treatment of Clinton special counsel Ken Starr, Mueller has been revered by many of those same outlets.

“[W]e always come back to the themes of his life, that he is someone who has always chosen public service. He is — if you were to go into a laboratory and create the perfect nemesis for Donald Trump, someone immune to Twitter, someone who does not care about his own press, someone who is not at all distracted. He's not distractable. He is the opposite of Donald Trump in almost every way,” Wallace proclaimed.

The Deadline: White House host also bewailed “the fact that he is under vicious assault night after night on another network” with that outlet being the Fox News Channel.

Following a clip of FNC host Judge Jeanine Pirro trashing Mueller, Wallace continued her slam on Fox, complaining that they’re “assail[ing] the integrity and character of Bob Mueller and his team, so and I think if they knew how ineffective it was with a man like Bob Mueller, they might not do it, but I think they're doing it for an audience of one.”