'Dancing With Stars' Sashays Into Bush-Bashing

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Is nothing sacred, not even the samba?

Yesterday we were griping about the way NBC's "Green Week" crusade had infiltrated a perfectly good NFL football game. Today brings news that not even the presumably politics-free "Dancing With the Stars" is immune from BDS.

"Morning Joe" today twice rolled tape from last night's "Dancing with the Stars" in which Len Goodman, a Brit who is the head judge, managed to sneak in a shot at President Bush. He was speaking to a dancing pair, apparently after their performance.

View video here.

LEN GOODMAN: You know, Tom, just because you come from Brazil doesn't necessarily mean you're going to be good at the samba. In the same way, just because you come from Texas doesn't mean to say you're going to be a good president.

The dancing couple reacted with shock, and one of the other judges mimed Goodman's papers being torn up [shown here] and exclaimed: "there goes the visa!"

Back at "Morning Joe," host Joe Scarborough and panelist Willie Geist were underwhelmed by Goodman's foray into politics.

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Good lord!

WILLIE GEIST: I know, when you want politics, you turn to one place: "Dancing With the Stars."

SCARBOROUGH: That's right. I want social commentary from some guy I've never even heard of.

GEIST [facetiously]: Some guy? Now wait a minute. Some guy? That's the head judge, that's Len Goodman, the head judge in "Dancing With the Stars." That's not some guy.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Just in case you didn't know.

GEIST: Also, it came out of nowhere. Enough.

SCARBOROUGH: Exactly. Go home. We don't want your kind here.

At the end of the show, Willie discussed the incident with MSNBC celebrity correspondent Courtney Hazlett, who was similarly unimpressed.

COURTNEY HAZLETT: It sort of smacks of these award shows when people come up to get their Oscar or their Grammy or whatnot and they turn it into some sort of political stance. They turn their speech into: "please don't vote for this person or that person." Or save the whatever. So I don't think this is going to go very well . . . Let's keep this entertainment, that's why people are tuning in, I feel this is [unintelligible -- perhaps "a horse they're beating"?] all the time. It had nothing to do, it was not germane to anything that had happened in the show. It was not like people were waving signs in the audience or anything like that.

GEIST: He'd been holding that one for weeks, and he finally got the chance to deliver it. Enough with the politics, stick to the rumba or whatever that --

HAZLETT: Right.