Mark Finkelstein's blog

Who was Morning Joe protecting: the sensitive ears of its viewers, or Hillary Clinton?

During a discussion of the death of the feisty and fearless reporter Michael Hastings, Morning Joe bleeped out Joe Scarborough's reading from an email from Hastings to Philippe Reines, Hillary's personal spokesman during her Secretary of State tenure.  Hastings had accused Reines of "b---s---" answers on the State Department's handling of Benghazi.  The extended bleeping wasn't simply of the offending word, but of Hastings' entire sentence, so listeners never learned the thrust of his accusation.  View the video after the jump.

Things got feisty on Morning Joe today, as Glenn Greenwald of the Guardian clashed with Mika Brzezinski over the leak of the NSA phone surveillance program by Greenwald's informant, Edward Snowden. H/t NB reader Jeff M.

When Brzezinski alleged that wiretapping or the review by the NSA of emails required an additional judicial review and warrant, Greenwald accused Mika of using "White House talking points" that were "completely misleading and false."  Mika denied it. Greenwald upped the animosity by telling Mika she would have known better if she had paid even "remote attention" to the issues over the last ten years. View the video after the jump.

MSNBC and Anthony Weiner: made for each other like a frank and a bun?

Today's New York Daily News reports that when NYC mayoral candidate Weiner got into an argument on the campaign trail yesterday, he boasted that despite his mistakes, "I am still gonna be out there leaning forward."  "Lean Forward" is of course MSNBC's lefty slogan, featured in many promos that NB has analyzed, as here and here.  More after the jump.

Looks like Mike Barnicle's not going to let anyone get to his PC-left when it comes to women.

On today's Morning Joe, Barnicle claimed that "a lot of men . . . fear the fact—and I think it's a fact—that women are better balanced than men.  They have better judgment about things than a lot of men."  Barnicle's comment during a discussion about the statement made yesterday by Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant that the decline in educational outcomes for children today is due to the entry of women into the workforce.  View the video after the jump.

A classic case of MSM jujitsu.  Yesterday, Darrell Issa called Jay Carney a "paid liar."  So did Morning Joe today dig down to see if Issa was right?  Of course not.  Instead, its focus was on Issa--how he is "overreaching," "overplaying," etc. H/t NB reader Wayne T.

The quintessential statement came from Mika Brzezinski, who actually said that Issa's accusation "makes us all want to walk away and ignore" the White House scandals.  It's not as if Mika & Co. needed much convincing!  View the video after the jump, along with a medley of statements from Mika, Brian Shactman, Joe Scarborough, Jon Meacham, Chuck Todd and Robert Gibbs along similar lines.

When it comes to identifying nutcases, some might say that Howard Dean gleans valuable experience daily, while shaving.

The failed presidential candidate put his expertise to dubious use on Morning Joe today, calling National Review editor Rich Lowry a "right-wing nutcase."  Lowry's sin?  Having written a column mocking Eric Holder, and President Obama's decision to put Holder in charge of investigating himself in the James Rosen affair. View the video after the jump.

How worried should President Obama be when he loses the likes of Al Hunt?

On today's Morning Joe, discussing the James Rosen outrage, Hunt called President Obama "no better than Richard Nixon" when it comes to the press. He then strongly suggested that Attorney General Eric Holder should go. View the video after the jump.

UPDATE: Not one second about the IRS scandal in the entire show.   GMA just went off the air and managed to avoid mentioning the dreaded I-word.  The second half-hour featured two more Powerball segments, and features on Beyoncé's possible pregnancy, Bieber's monkey, and a kangaroo.  IRS scandal?  What IRS scandal?  ABC couldn't find a second for it.

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Bianna Golodryga opened today's Good Morning America by announcing that it was "a very busy Saturday morning."  So busy, in fact, that GMA couldn't spare one second in its first half-hour for the IRS scandal. That despite yesterday's stonewalling testimony by the outgoing IRS Commissioner in which he had the colossal chutzpah to deny there had been any political motive in the targeting of conservative organizations.

So what kept GMA so busy? By far the longest segment was devoted to . . . the Powerball lottery.  Just in the first half-hour, GMA spent 325 seconds—over five minutes—on the lottery and its big prize.  One report from stores where lottery tickets are being sold didn't suffice. There were two.  Those were followed by an interview with a lottery official.  GMA even managed to squeeze in a report of a bear that had climbed into a tree.  But the IRS?  Sorry: too busy.  More after the jump.

Call it Luke Russert's version of "bitter clingers" on steroids . . . In Russert's world, there are apparently two kinds of Republican congressmen.  The "smart" ones—to be found on the Ways & Means Committee—and the others, whom he calls the "God, guns and guts people," presumably in reference to this book.

Russert made his statement on today's Morning Joe, responding to Joe Scarborough's question as to whether Republicans would overplay their hand over the current scandals.  According to Russert, Republicans chose well in holding today's hearing of IRS officials before the Ways & Means Committee because that's where the GOP puts its stars: "it's not the God, guns and guts people on the Ways & Means Committee: it's the smart people." View the video after the jump.

What will be the political fallout of the various scandals in which President Obama is ensnared?  Chris Matthews thinks it will be huge.

Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Matthews mused that the IRS scandal alone would be worth 5-10 points to Republican candidates. He specifically mentioned Mitch McConnell, Tom Corbett and Ken Cuccinelli as Republicans whom the scandal would aid in their 2014 races. View the video after the jump.

The press and the left. But Lisa Myers repeats herself.  Seriously, though, Myers did make a stunning admission along such lines on today's Morning Joe? H/t NB reader Pam.

Describing the harm done to President Obama by the AP spying scandal, NBC senior investigate correspondent Myers said the effect of the scandal has been to turn "one [sic] of the President's most important constituencies, the press and the left, against him." Did Myers make a double Freudian slip in describing the press and the left as "one" and the press as one of Obama's "most important constituencies"? View the video after the jump.

Et tu, Roberto?  It was bad enough for President Obama to have Andrea Mitchell jump ship this morning. But now someone who is—arguably—even closer to home has taken a resounding shot at the President's mishandling of the IRS scandal.

Appearing on Mitchell's MSNBC show this afternoon, former Obama press secretary Robert Gibbs condemned the president's "exceedingly passive" language in discussing the scandal.  Obama had said there'd be consequences "if" wrongdoing were found, and spoken of "losing patience." Gibbs was scathing: that's what "I do with my nine-year old."  Ouch! View the video after the jump.

President Obama knows he's in trouble when Andrea Mitchell—Andrea Mitchell!—proclaims the IRS and AP scandals to be among "the most outrageous excesses I've seen" in all her years in journalism [which pre-date Watergate].  The strength of Mitchell's statement drew gasps from Scarborough and Brzezinski. Then Ron Fournier, former AP editor now with the National Journal, darkly described the White House being "consumed" if it turns out someone there or in the Obama campaign had been aware of the IRS targeting of conservative groups. It happened on Morning Joe today.

But hey, President Obama still has his hangers-on.  Take good old Carl Bernstein.  As we reported, on yesterday's Morning Joe Bernstein blathered that he "can't imagine" that President Obama coudl be involved in the IRS mess.  And there was Bernstein again today.  When Fournier spoke of consequences of White House or Obama campaign knowledge of the IRS targeting, Bernstein quickly burped out that "we have no evidence of that whatsoever."  Joe Scarborough had to remind the former Watergate reporter: "that's why you have investigations.  You know that." View the video after the jump.

When it comes to investigative reporters, how do you change a bulldog into a lapdog? Easy: change the occupant of the Oval Office from a Republican into a Democrat.

Witness Carl Bernstein's pitiful performance on today's Morning Joe.  The man who teamed with Bob Woodward to bring down Richard Nixon now credulously claims that he "can't imagine" that President Obama is possibly involved in the IRS targeting of conservative groups.  Bernstein instead blames the "hyper-partisanship" in Washington.  Yeah, cause politics were so kumbaya in 1972, Carl.  View the video after the jump.

Chris Hayes is what passes for a progressive intellectual at MSNBC.

Which makes his simple-minded and manifestly mistaken proposal that much more maddening. Making a peek-a-boo video-clip appearance on today's Melissa Harris-Perry's show, which focused on finding solutions to poverty in America, Hayes was seen holding up a hand-written sign with his solution, reading "Giving people money: It's actually that easy."  View the video after the jump.

New day and time, same old liberal slop.  Ed Schultz returned to MSNBC yesterday in his new, relegated-to-the-ratings-desert slot of weekend afternoons.  

One of the topics was the targeting by the IRS of conservative organizations seeking tax-exempt status.  Predictably, Schultz & Co. did all they could to sweep the scandal under the carpet.  Schultz suggested the IRS had nothing to apologize for, while the ever-prolix Michael Eric Dyson actually claimed it was "much ado about nothing,"  and was even willing to diss President Obama's power, saying he lacked the "juice" to have ordered the IRS targeting. View the video after the jump.

Al Hunt prefaced his remark by describing the issue of ethnicity and IQ as a "swamp".  But did he then proceed to wade right into it?

Morning Joe today took up the topic of the flap over a report on immigration produced by the Heritage Foundation. The panel's particular focus was a statement by report co-author Jason Richwine contained in his Harvard dissertation that "the average IQ of immigrants is substantially lower than that of native whites." Rather than rejecting the notion out of hand, Bloomberg's Hunt asked "is that true of Asian immigrants? Is that true of all immigrants?"  Ruh-roh! Did Al just suggest Richwine might have been on to something regarding the IQ of non-Asian immigrants?  View the video after the jump.

The Associated Press could not very well ignore today's hearing at which whistleblowers are testifying as to the events surrounding the Benghazi attack and the Obama administration's failed response thereto.  So AP did the next best thing from its liberal perspective: it downplayed the hearing's significance, casting it as a purely partisan event in its headline as a "GOP hearing."

That is not mere MSM spin: it is blatant journalistic malpractice.  This is not some unofficial hearing held under Republican auspices.  It is an entirely official hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.  Yes, there has in recent times been a faux House "hearing" held by a political party for partisan purposes.  That would be the "hearing" held by Democrats in February 2012, featuring Sandra Fluke.  More after the jump.

Chuck Todd has defended the Obama admin's decision not to send more special ops to Benghazi.

Appearing on today's Morning Joe, NBC News political director Todd claimed that the decision to send only two special ops to Benghazi was "very rational."  He also literally laughed off the notion that Benghazi could boil into a major scandal.  View the video after the jump.

On Election Day in South Carolina, as Republican Mark Sanford seeks to regain his old congressional seat, Mika Brzezinski did her best to stop Joe Scarborough from mentioning an ugly slur that the Chairman of the state's Democratic party had made against Republican Governor Nikki Haley.

Former South Carolina Democratic Chairman Dick Harpootlian was caught in controversy this week as he pledged to send Haley—daughter of Indian immigrants—"back to wherever the hell she came from.” According to the Morning Joe panel, Harpootlian has apologized for that remark.  But Harpootlian has never apologized for his 2012 remark, comparing Haley with Adolf Hitler's mistress Eva Braun.  When Scarborough began to cite that slur, Mika sought to silence him. Brzezinski actually resorted to the schoolkid technique of repeating "bah, bah, bah, bah" in order to drown Scarborough out, adding "we don't need to repeat it." View the video after the jump.   

Bob Herbert: columnist from the Planet Benzar?  Seriously, what the former New York Times op-ed writer had to say this morning is enough to make you wonder whether he occupies the same orb as the rest of us.  Appearing on Melissa Harris-Perry's MSNBC show, Herbert literally laughed out loud at the notion that American media leans liberal.  According to Herbert, the bias in the American media is "overwhelmingly" to the right.

Herbert's snicker came in response to a statement by New York Times reporter Amy Chozick, also an MH-P guest.  Chozick recently wrote an article reporting on the Koch brothers' possible interest in buying the Tribune Company, which among other media outlets owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. According to Chozick, the brothers' interest was in part sparked by their outrage in seeing the liberal bias when they pick up American newspapers. View the video after the jump.

What is it with Martin Bashir and his tendency to talk dirty to women guests?

A couple of months ago, we noted the MSNBC host claiming to guest Karen Finney that Senator Marco Rubio, in his questioning of a hearing witness, was seeking to show that he had "very strong testicles."  This evening, taking things a vulgar step further, Bashir told another Dem woman that Americans so detest Congress that they "would rather contract gonorrhea" than show respect for that institution.  View the video after the jump.

Carl Bernstein claimed that because he's Jewish, he could accuse "Jewish" neo-cons of talking George W. Bush into starting an "insane" war against Iraq.  Joe Scarborough wasn't so sure. H/t NB reader Paul J.

Jewish neo-cons?  The single most salient statement from the pre-war period was that by CIA Director George Tenet, who personally told President Bush that Saddam Hussein's possession of WMDs was a "slam dunk."  So which temple does Tenet attend?  What?  He's Greek Orthodox?  Never mind. Joe Scarborough offered a strong rebuttal to Bernstein's allegations. View the video after the jump.

As per his 1994 NRA questionnaire, Joe Scarborough: Opposed an assault weapons ban.  Opposed expansion of background checks.  Opposed limitations on magazine sizes.  Today, he supports all such measures.  

So how would you describe his two very different sets of opinions?  Why, as being "very consistent," of course--if you're Joe Scarborough. On today's Morning Joe, responding to the NRA's promulgation of the NRA questionnaire he submitted in 1994 as an aspiring Republican congressman, Scarborough did indeed claim that his positions today, despite the multiple flip-flops, are "very consistent."  View the video after the jump.

Everyone knows about the terrible backlash against America Muslims after 9-11, so it's understandable for Muslims to be worried about a post-Boston bombing backlash, right?

What?  There was no major backlash against Muslims in 2001 or thereafter?  American Jews suffer far more religion-based attacks than Muslims every year?  Then why did Andrea Mitchell today exclaim that Muslims were "understandably" very worried about a backlash?  View the video after the jump.

In theory, it was a straight news article from the Associated Press: a man trying to rob a gun store in a Russian city opened fire, killing at least six people.

But AP managed to work a pro gun-control message into its article.  Read more after the jump.