Mika Fave? Maureen Dowd, of Course

Figures. Who else would Mika Brzezinski's ink-stained doppelganger be but Maureen Dowd?

"Morning Joe" has apparently introduced a new feature, "Three Things to Read Today," in which each of the panelists recommends an item from that morning's newspaper crop. Willie Geist went first today, and being the pop-culture maven he is, suggested the New York Post's coverage of the sexual harrassment lawsuit that a former female New York Knicks employee has brought against coach Isiah Thomas.

Then it was Mika's turn.

View video here.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Mika, what are you looking at?

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I was reading Maureen Dowd. And of course she so eloquently says what I was trying to say yesterday, which was -- this was Ahmadinejad's visit -- that "New York’s hot blast of nastiness, jingoism and xenophobia toward its guest, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, only served to pump him up for his domestic audience . . . we build him up, the self-serving doofus Iranian president."

By the way, turning to the Dowd column, I note a surprising bit that will not endear her to gay rights groups. Writes the Times columnist:

Given the repressive and confused stance of some of our Middle East allies on women and gays, isn’t it insane to get into a war of ideas on homosexuality in the Muslim world?

"Insane" to question a leader about the at-times violent repression of gays, Maureen? Really? Speaking of which, in denying the existence of gays in Iran, I half-expected Ahmadinejad to break out the Tehran variation of the Larry Craig defense: "We don't have any gays. We have never had any gays. We simply have a lot of wide-stanced guys in Iran. Come on, you've seen the state of some of our restrooms."

Similar to the Dowd/Brzezinski critcism of the trampling of poor Mahmoud's sensibilities, there's been a bit of conventional wisdom going around to the effect that Columbia President Lee Bollinger's less-than-laudatory introduction flouted Iranian traditions of "hospitality."

I like Tucker Carlson's take on the matter. On his show last night, he laughed at the notion, pointing out that it was this same Iran that engaged in the worst breach of hospitality in recent history: holding American diplomats hostage for over a year during the Carter administration. Oh, and who is accused of being one of the hostage-holding thugs? None other, of course, than that sensitive guy himself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Aside: For the record, Joe Scarborough's reading pick was this Wall Street Journal editorial, suggesting to Rudy Giuliani that he lose the wife-calling-on-cell-phone shtick. Later, "Weather Wonder Woman" Jackie Meretsky got into the act, jokingly letting viewers know she was reading a scientific article on wind shear.