Morning Joe

House Speaker John Boehner made himself a hero in the eyes of the liberal Morning Joe panel. All it took was lashing out publicly against conservative organizations which criticized the Ryan-Murray budget deal. Appearing on Thursday’s show, panelist Donny Deutsch was the most effusive about Boehner. He proclaimed: [Video below. MP3 audio here.]

Wow! File this one under: what would have been the MSM reaction to a conservative who had made the same un-PC statement?   On today's Morning Joe, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, discussing the way American children have fallen behind children in other countries in academic achievement, and are coddled, handed trophies for non-achievement and protected from stress, said: "stress…

Things got testy between Joe Scarborough and Howard Dean on today's Morning Joe over the issue of the Dem party moving left.  In a particularly unkind cut, Scarborough accused Dean of spouting "Carl Bernstein nonsense," while Dean tried to shut Scarborough down, bleating "blah, blah, blah, blah, blah."  Adding spice to the mix, Mika Brzezinski made clear her great regard for lefty Senator…

With the passing of Nelson Mandela yesterday, it was a metaphysical certainty that the media would draw parallels between the legendary South African leader and Barack Obama. So it was not a surprise when it happened during a tribute package at the beginning of Friday’s Morning Joe. As triumphant footage of Mandela rolled on the screen, co-host Mika Brzezinski read a scripted narrative: […

Call it a case of interview envy--in the context of an ongoing feud between two MSNBC hosts. There has been bad blood between Joe Scarborough and Chris Matthews for years, as here, here and here.  On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough took the occasion of Chris Matthews' impending interview of President Obama to mock the way Matthews' on-air schedule has shrunk. In a particularly low blow,…

Potemkin Village, anyone?  Joe Scarborough has offered a scathing simile for the new-'n-improved Obamacare website.  On today's Morning Joe, he likened the site to the set of a Hollywood Western--pushing back the facade reveals that there's nothing behind it. Even former Obama spox Robert Gibbs—proudly sporting an Auburn jersey—acknowledged that big chunks of the system, including the…

How shambolic of a smoking ruin is the Obama presidency?  When Tina Brown surveys the wreckage, the best—the best!—thing she sees, the thing she believes will be Barack Obama's shining legacy, is his handling of Iran and Syria, which she declares to be "smart," and of course, "nuanced." The Obamacare catastrophe? Not to worry.  On today's Morning Joe, Brown assured us that those problems are…

Joe Scarborough has suggested that President Obama's poor poll numbers made him "desperate," driving him to agree to a deal with Iran on its nuclear program that Scarborough criticized as "bad" and even "horrible." Scarborough described recently speaking with someone who said that no president with approval ratings under 40% should be allowed to do a deal. Reminds me of doctors' warnings not…

President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 50 years ago by a Communist sympathizer, yet Friday’s Morning Joe on MSNBC ran a package that emphasized right-wing hate in Dallas while failing to mention Lee Harvey Oswald or his ideological leanings. The package, narrated by Brian Shactman, focused on the “unspoken speech” that President Kennedy was planning to give on the day he was shot.…

Sure, he was careful to couch it.  But the bottom line is that Zbigniew Brzezinski believes that Iran is willing to abandon its goal of acquiring nuclear weapons. Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser offered that opinion in response to questioning by former RNC Chairman Michael Steele on today's Morning Joe.  Brzezinski also claimed that the recent round of negotiations have been…

Morning Joe sidekick Mika Brzezinski hurled a favorite liberal accusation at Republicans on Thursday’s episode. She started by presenting it merely as a question that she and Joe Scarborough received often during his book tour: “One of the points [Joe] makes [in his book] was illuminated in a question that we get everywhere we went, which is why do Republicans not want Americans to have health…

If only "Republican" Nicolle Wallace would be as critical of Democrats as she is of members of her own putative party . . . On today's Morning Joe, Wallace—adviser to Sarah Palin during the 2008 campaign—decided that in order to praise Republican governors, she had to pound Republicans in Congress. Wallace took her shot at congressional Republicans in the course of discussing Chris Christie…

Was someone holding Mika Brzezinski's shoe collection hostage?  Because something obviously forced the Morning Joe host, against her will, to devote two lengthy segments today, totalling more than 2.5 minutes, to the story of scandal-ridden Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. With Joe Scarborough away, Mika was in charge. After airing the second long segment she complained "I can't believe he's still in…

In the wake of the disgusting comments MSNBC's Martin Bashir made about former Alaska governor Sarah Palin Friday, conservative talk radio host Mark Levin had some important observations regarding the incident Monday. "MSNBC, ladies and gentlemen, is a hateful, vile, character assassinating outlet" (video follows with transcript and commentary):