Morning Meeting

MSNBC on Wednesday suspended host Donny Deutsch in the wake of a segment on Tuesday about what role hosts such as Keith Olbermann and Ed Schultz play in making this country "America the angry." During the piece, Deutsch played a clip of an Olbermann rant and didn't defend Schultz when conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt attacked the "the biggest hate mongers in television." 

However, in February, when Deutsch dismissed Hispanic senatorial hopeful Marco Rubio as a "coconut," a term that the New York Times described as meaning "brown on the outside and white on the inside," MSNBC took no action.

Apparently, incurring the wrath of Keith Olbermann is quite dangerous. (TV Newser reported the role the liberal anchor played in the punishment.)

You almost need a flak jacket to go on an MSNBC show these days - at least judging by the rapid fire attacks displayed on the March 2 "The Dylan Ratigan Show."

Either host Dylan Ratigan was trying to play to MSNBC's  rabid liberal audience or he really has it in for the Tea Party movement based on some exaggerated notion it is nothing but hate and fear mongers. In an interview with Mark Williams, a conservative talk radio host and sometimes spokesman for the Tea Party Express, Ratigan asked Williams what he was doing to separate his legitimate effort from radical fringe elements in American political culture.

"Mark, how do you draw the bright line between the very admirable and understandable principles that are advocated by so many in the Tea Party as it pertains to a Constitutional definition of a democracy, separation of things like banking and investing, church and - I mean, you go to all these things, and those who would choose a more radicalized view or racist view and hide, if you will, inside of the Tea Party umbrella?" Ratigan said.

After taking time out of his last few broadcasts to try to clarify his Feb. 8 remarks that the "snowpocalypse" was because of global warming, one would hope MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan would have learned his lesson.

Ratigan spent a portion of his Feb. 10 and now a portion of his Feb. 11 shows trying to clarify his statement - that "these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming," as he said - but that he didn't necessarily believe that premise.

"Now, in addition to that being completely wrong on so many levels, it's also a total misrepresentation over the climate change theory that I was attempting to explain," Ratigan said. "Let me be very clear - I do not believe that this storm is proof of climate change. And I do not believe that this storm is not proof of climate change. But I do believe that you, Mr. Beck, did a tremendous disservice to your viewers by bastardizing the most basic science behind the theory, period. That's not very good."

Immediately after taking shots from some conservative voices for his Feb. 8 remarks that heavy snowfall in the Mid-Atlantic is "reportedly" a result of global warming, MSNBC host Dylan Ratigan fired back at his detractors on his Feb. 10 program. 

The once seemingly rational host of CNBC's "Fast Money" voiced his frustration with the entire global warming debate as it stood in the wake of this record-setting winter weather event. Ratigan suggested neither side should use the crippling snowfall as evidence to further their respective arguments. However he did direct the lion's share of his criticism at conservatives.

"The weather we know is frightful, but my goodness me, so is the political back-and-forth over climate change in the context of these storms that are hitting D.C. especially," Ratigan said. "Both sides trying to use hometown ‘snowpocalypse' as free advertising for their chosen position on climate change, baby. Conservatives today, using the blizzard to pull a snow job on Al Gore and his liberal brethren. From South Carolina, Sen. Jim DeMint says quote, ‘It's going to keep snowing in D.C. until Al Gore cries uncle.' That was a good one. Meanwhile, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asks ‘Where is Al Gore now?'"

With Washington, D.C. buried beneath at least 20 inches of snow, and with more in the forecast, common sense would suggest global warming alarmists look elsewhere to make the argument to raise awareness for their concerns.

But no, Dylan Ratigan thinks it's ridiculous to suggest all the snowfall totals could cast doubt on the theory of anthropogenic global warming. On MSNBC's Feb. 8 "The Dylan Ratigan Show," Ratigan criticized those who would dare express misgivings about climate change based on the so-called "snowpocalypse."

"Here's the problem - these ‘snowpocalypses' that have been going through D.C. and other extreme weather events are precisely what climate scientists have been predicting, fearing and anticipating because of global warming," Ratigan said.

As NewsBusters’ Noel Sheppard reported on Saturday, on Friday’s Morning Meeting program on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan got into a shouting match with Democratic Florida Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz over health care legislation. On Monday, he apologized for the outburst: “...the way I went about that on Friday was a disservice to our viewers....I have some work to do.”

Ratigan’s heated exchange with Schultz stemmed from his anger over the Senate health care bill not being liberal enough. On Friday, he declared: “It basically allows the taxpayer to take the hit to pay for the uninsured, but it does not deal with the underlying symptom as to why there are so many uninsured...[P]art of the problem in this country is that our politicians do not understand that they make laws that create total imbalances.”

Schultz attempted to address the issue, but Ratigan repeatedly cut her off. On Monday he described one viewer’s reaction: “The way I conducted the interview has been called many things, but I’ll sum it up with a tweet from a woman known only as DianeG12, and I quote, ‘Dylan was very rude!’” He then admitted: “yes, DianeG12, I was and I want to apologize to the Congresswoman and to our viewers for that.”

MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan on Friday got into a very heated discussion about healthcare reform with Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) that resulted in the "Morning Meeting" host abruptly ending his interview with her and moving on to another guest.

After Schultz spouted the usual Democrat talking points about the benefits of healthcare reform legislation currently before Congress, Ratigan pointed out that forcing people to buy health insurance without actually increasing the amount of competition in the marketplace is not a sound financial idea:

It basically allows the taxpayer to take the hit to pay for the uninsured, but it does not deal with the underlying symptom as to why there are so many uninsured...[P]art of the problem in this country is that our politicians do not understand that they make laws that create total imbalances.

Despite Ratigan's left-leaning views, the points he made during this segment have been largely ignored by Obama-loving media that have been doing their darnedest to get healthcare reform legislation passed with total disregard for what any of the bills being discussed actually do (video embedded below the fold with rough transcript, h/t Allahpundit):

Some of the clearest examples of MSNBC’s liberal bias can be found in the onscreen graphics selected for the network’s programming. In the span of 20 minutes on Tuesday, three such Morning Meeting images stated a pretty clear opinion about Joe Lieberman’s opposition to parts of the health care bill. At 9:20am, one whined, "Joe Blowing Health Reform?"

At 9:01, another graphic actually used an exclamation point, not often seen in supposedly objective reporting: "Say It Ain’t So, Joe! Lieberman: No on Buy-In." At 9:14, a picture of the senator appeared onscreen with the words "THE SPOILER."

Dylan Ratigan (file photo at right), whose bias and occasional forays into balanced journalism have both been documented at NewsBusters, is set to gain an afternoon slot in 2010, according to Chris Ariens of TVNewser:

MSNBC's "Morning Meeting" is about to get an afternoon edition.

TVNewser has learned that starting Monday, host Dylan Ratigan will be on for one hour, 9am ET only, so he and the team can prepare for a move to the afternoon after the first of the year.

Back on November 11, Ariens reported:

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan on Friday aggressively took on the subject of ClimateGate, informing a global warming scientist that the "perceived integrity of what you are saying is diminished by scientists who appear to be hiding something." If MSNBC can debate this serious subject, why have the three major networks ignored it for 14 days? [Audio available here.]

The Morning Meeting host brought on Yale scientist Dan Esty and Michael Shermer, executive director of the Skeptic Society, to debate the revelation that hacked E-mails to a climate change institute show a willingness to fake data. An appalled Ratigan continued, "Because, then, the veil of suspicion or the eye of suspicion is cast upon the entire data set when a certain number of scientists- who are trying to retain their particular political power or role as meaningful advocate and feel threatened by the truth- that hurts the integrity of everything."

During the segment, Esty repeatedly asserted that, despite the revelations, the overall science is sound. He did allow that those who fake data should be "condemned." That wasn’t enough for Ratigan. He quickly retorted, "Not only condemned, but punished and eliminated from the conversation. If you want to have a clean data set, you don't keep bad data as a scientist inside your Petri dishes. You just don't."

Every once in a while, a liberal cuts right through the hemming and hawing and verbalizes his true world view. Like Hollywood producer Gavin Polone commenting on the Tiger Woods episode: If you can't live up to the terms and responsibilities of an institution, the institution must change. That's essentially the lesson Polone  believes Tiger should draw from his adultery disgrace.

Marriage, you see, is an anachronism that doesn't fit with how we moderns live our lives - or at least, how the important people in Hollywood live theirs.

"I know a lot of famous people," Polone said on Dec. 3 during an interview on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting." "And actually the norm is that they cheat."

Polone, who produced the 2009 movie "Zombieland," argued that it isn't fair for stars like Tiger Woods who are "in the public eye" to be "called to task for their behavior" - behavior that Polone said is "probably pretty natural behavior given what they're going through."

The real problem lies with society's idea of marriage. As a people, he said, we need to "rethink the idea of locking into someone for what one would call a lifetime marriage."

Citing a Democratic congressman who recently proposed a no whining day, on Friday’s Morning Meeting on MSNBC, host Dylan Ratigan asked: “...unemployment, health care, a couple of wars, Americans got plenty to be frustrated about these days...But some people say stop the whining....Is ‘shut up and deal’ the new American mantra?”

Ratigan made that question the topic of discussion for the ‘Trend or Talker’ segment near the end of 9:00AM ET hour of the show with correspondent Contessa Brewer and Financial Times U.S. managing editor Chrystia Freeland. Ratigan explained: “...the congressman, by the name of Emmanuel Cleaver, wants to declare the day before Thanksgiving complaint-free Wednesday.” He wondered: “Worthy proposition?”

Brewer replied: “Yeah, absolutely. Here you get a two-fer. No complaints on Wednesday and Thursday gives you something to be grateful for.” Freeland enthusiastically agreed with the idea: “I think the no whining day is a fabulous idea....What they say in preschools, you get what you get and don’t get upset.”

Only four days after airing faked photographs purporting to be of Sarah Palin wearing a bikini and holding a gun, MSNBC hosts on Tuesday decided they were qualified to fact check the ex-governor of Alaska. Contessa Brewer chided Palin’s new memoir: "But can this book really be classified as fact, fiction or a little of both? Okay, so here is a bit of fact-checking."

Brewer, who was part of the Morning Meeting segment on Friday that also featured a doctored photo of Palin’s head on the body of someone wearing a black mini-skirt, delighted in mentioning John McCain aides who disputed the book. "One, in fact, called it pathetic score settling," she announced. The MSNBC graphic hyped, "Palin Book: Fact of Fiction?"

Of course, much of the brief "fact checking" piece amounted to Brewer recounting how Palin said one thing and ex-McCain aides said something else: "In another part of the book, Palin claims she was pushed into risky network interviews including that rocky one-on-one with Katie Couric. McCain's former campaign says that is a fabrication." Brewer breathlessly explained that "McCain aides deny ever forcing Palin or her family to dress up in designer clothes." These are not examples of "fact checking." They are simply accusation swapping.

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan apologized on Monday for using photoshopped images of Sarah Palin firing a gun while wearing a bikini. The pictures, which were first brought to light on NewsBusters, appeared during a November 13 segment on the former governor and also included a doctored photo of the Republican in a black mini-skirt.

The Morning Meeting host explained, "I want to apologize to Governor Palin and all of our viewers. On Friday, in a very misguided attempt to have some fun in advance of Sarah Palin's upcoming book Going Rogue, our staff mistakenly used some clearly photoshopped images of Ms. Palin without any acknowledgment."

Calling the use of such faked images "unacceptable," Ratigan continued: "We should have never used those photos in the first place and you can rest assured we spent the weekend and Friday afternoon taking measures to make sure it will never happen again. I apologize."

On Friday's edition of Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan featured fake photos of Sarah Palin during a mocking segment on why Americans are fascinated with the former vice presidential candidate. While listing the show’s top ten reasons, Ratigan showed a doctored photo of Palin’s head on the bikini-clad body of a woman holding a weapon.

The host never admitted or addressed the fact that his network was passing off counterfeit pictures to his viewers. Earlier in the segment, Ratigan displayed an image of Palin in a short, black mini-skirt. This photo is also not real. MSNBC should immediately apologize for presenting such false information.

It's important to remember, several hosts on the network, including Chris Matthews, have mocked Fox News host Sean Hannity for taking video images from the 9/12 rally and then portraying the footage as from a more recent tea party event. After it was brought to his attention, Hannity apologized on Wednesday. How long will it take MSNBC?  

MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan anchored a segment on Tuesday’s Morning Meeting that worried about the "far right" and wondered whether "super conservatives" are alienating "GOP centrists." The host hyperbolically spun, "But are the super conservatives of our country careening the GOP toward the edge of irrelevance, leaving centrists Republicans fighting for control of their own party?" Later, his colleague Contessa Brewer inadvertently referred to Florida conservative Marco Rubio as the "great white hope." (Mr. Rubio is Hispanic.) [Audio available here.]

Ignoring the fact that the Republican Party actually won impressive victories in last week’s gubernatorial races in New Jersey and Virginia, Brewer then cited liberal columnist Paul Krugman as an expert on the faltering Republican Party. Not identifying Krugman as a leftist, she touted his comparison of the California GOP as an obstructionist "rump" and quoted, "If this happens to the country as a whole, the country could become effectively ungovernable."

As Brewer discussed the Club for Growth and their endorsement of failed Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman in a New York congressional race, MSNBC graphics underlined the liberal alarm. One read, "Are Super Conservatives Alienating GOP Centrists?" Another declared, "Far Right Fights Health Bill." (MSNBC doesn’t often worry about the "far left.") Brewer, who on October 21 confused Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, made another verbal miscue on Tuesday.

Morning Meeting host Dylan Ratigan on Friday appeared uncomfortable discussing the faith of the Muslim shooter who killed 12 people in Texas. In a tease for a segment on the subject, he noted that Major Nidal Hasan is being "described as a devout Muslim, mortified at being deployed to Iraq. Did that drive him to allegedly commit murder?" Ratigan quickly added, "And who cares what his religion was?"

Talking to Corey Saylor of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Ratigan offered a tortured, run-on question about the importance of Hasan’s Muslim faith: "Corey, it's very easy, considering, sort of, the history of the relations between our country and some nations- and some individual, really, of a Muslim faith. There's a very quick response or higher levels of anxiety for no reason other than because of the lesser familiarity."

Meandering his way to the end of this politically correct query, Ratigan concluded, "Is it appropriate to be looking at the- any sort of religious signals in a situation like this when you're clearly dealing with an American soldier, born in America, who enlisted again right out of high school?"

Is there nothing MSNBC can’t spin? A graphic on Tuesday’s Morning Meeting hopefully announced, "NY-23: Win-Win For Dems?" Apparently, even if Democrats lose the special congressional election in New York to Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, it will just show how extreme the Republican Party has become.

In a not-exactly-balanced segment, host Dylan Ratigan talked to Representative and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chairman Chris Van Hollen, liberal blogger Arianna Huffington and Professor Tom Schaller, who has written a book on how Democrats can win without the south.

The interview seemed very similar to one that appeared on Friday’s Situation Room on CNN. That program featured a graphic that read: "If The Dems Lose Next Week: How it might help them in the long run." And that followed an October 6 blog by ABC reporter Claire Shipman in which she speculated that President Obama losing Chicago’s Olympic bid was also a good thing:

MSNBC on Monday featured the Nation magazine’s sports editor to rant against Rush Limbaugh as a "unreconstructed racist," a "swine" and also lobby that the conservative host shouldn’t be allowed to purchase the St. Louis Rams football team. Morning Meeting guest host Contessa Brewer completely ignored the left-wing affiliation of Dave Zirin and identified him only as "sports writer." [Audio available here.]

Raging against the idea that the Limbaugh might soon own a football team, Zirin asserted that the issue is "about having somebody in an NFL owners box who [players] know views them with naked and open contempt because of the color of their skin." He fumed that the radio star is someone who "has made hundreds of millions now on the issues of hatred and division."

Zirin even used a dubious, disputed quote that he assigned to Limbaugh: "[Players] don't want an owner who has said slavery was a good thing because it made the streets safer." A Google News search finds this supposed comment attributed to the host: "I mean, let's face it, we didn't have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: Slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark."

MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer on Wednesday angrily agreed with Democratic claims that the National Republican Congressional Committee made a sexist slam against Nancy Pelosi. Appearing on Morning Meeting, Brewer attacked the critique of the House Speaker as "not good" and a "poor move." [Audio available here.]

After recounting how the GOP organization released a statement mocking the Democrat as "General Pelosi" and hoping that the top commander in Afghanistan will "put her in her place," a visibly annoyed Brewer complained, "Really? Put the first female Speaker of the House in her place? Not good." (Pelosi had given an interview in which she suggested General McChrystal should not give his advice to Obama in public.)

Parroting a liberal Congresswoman, she fretted, "Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida was so infuriated, she says it's evidence the Republicans long for the days when a woman's place was in the kitchen."

An interesting, yet little known fact about goldfish:  The average goldfish has a memory of approximately one to three months, depending on the stimuli used to train it.

Dylan Ratigan, former CNBC co-host and current MSNBC desk jockey, has a shorter memory than a goldfish.

As the MRC’s Tim Graham noted just yesterday, it is an odd thing when MSNBC hosts wish for more civility in political dialogue.  A mere 24 hours later, Ratigan provided another example of his insincerity during a live segment on health care.  

Former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey (R) took the conservative viewpoint, and Ratigan tag-teamed with Democratic Rep. Anthony Weiner (N.Y.) in belittling her every statement.  

It’s really strange when MSNBC personalities wish for more civility in the political process. Morning Meeting host Dylan Ratigan brought on pseudo-Republican consultant Mark McKinnon on Monday to discuss his attack on talk radio on the liberal Daily Beast website. McKinnon obliged (Audio available here):

I think the Chicago incident, I think it was bad political instincts and bad political judgment, but I was disappointed that it didn't come to America. I think it’s patriotic, that we should have supported that move. So I was very disappointed to see talk show hosts like Mark Levin coming out with just jaw-dropping hate language about the President, and, again, echoing what one your panelists said earlier about reveling in the President's failure. That is very disappointing to see on both sides.

In response, Levin told NewsBusters:

Mark McKinnon -- This guy has a very loose jaw and the political integrity of a Sham-Wow salesman. He first worked at the highest levels on the McCain campaign and then resigned because he couldn't bring himself to campaign against Obama. What a guy. That's why he's invited on MSNBC. McKinnon, Brooks, Frum, et al, do not debate substance. They trash conservatives and conservatism. But if McKinnon wants to hear hate language, I understand the president's chief of staff, former minister, Weather Underground bud -- and the list goes on and on -- might provide McKinnon with some real examples. Or maybe tune in Jon Stewart, who has the craziest things to say about conservatives with a little "f-bomb" thrown in about every other sentence.

Morning Meeting host Dylan Ratigan on Monday smeared conservatives, saying that the right doesn’t care if "half the country dies" in order to "take down Obama" on health care. Ratigan made his vitriolic remark while discussing glee over the President’s botched handling of the Chicago Olympic bid. Audio can be found here.

MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer complained, "Can you imagine this that some people actually went as far as to cheer?" This led Ratigan to froth, "Sure. I mean, there are people that are actually trying to derail health care in order to take down Obama, even if it means half the country dies. So, of course, they don't care about Chicago’s Olympics. Are you kidding me?"

Ratigan isn’t the first MSNBC host to accuse conservatives of wishing death on Americans. On the September 23 Ed Show, Ed Schultz screamed, "The Republicans lie! They want to see you dead! They’d rather make money off your dead corpse! They kind of like it when that woman has cancer and they don’t have anything for her."

On today's Morning Meeting, host Dylan Ratigan gathered his loyalist liberal media friends to deride Sarah Palin's recent speech to investors in Hong Kong, wherein she made the observation that government programs often create new problems, which are then tackled by eager politicians with what else but even more government programs. 

First, in the interest of fairness, it must be noted that the guest from the Huffington Post and Vanity Fair, Vickie Ward, barely uttered a word in the entirety of the segment.

That's because she was laughing.

Here's what caused Ward's giggle-fit:

RATIGAN: I want to go to Andy Barr at Politico.  Palin on health reform.  This one made a little bit less sense.  But I feel like it's very indicative, Andy, of certain aspects of right-wing talking points which look to demonize the government inherently, as opposed to looking at government as a tool that can either be abused, misused, or screwed up.  Right?  And so that rhetoric is evident here. [reading] 'It's common sense that government attempts to solve problems like the health care problem will just create new problems.' Now, forget the nonsensical aspect of that.

On Monday’s Morning Meeting, MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and his journalist guests expressed frustration that the ACORN scandal hasn’t gone away. Politico correspondent Mike Allen lobbied, “...It's time to move on." Ratigan highlighted other groups and offered moral equivalence: “And are all of these organizers ultimately guilty of some sort of shady activity or another?”

Following a reading of the organization’s questionable accounting, the cable host spun, “Does it add up to the fall of ACORN or is it just something fun to talk about?” Allen, who used to write for the Washington Post, bizarrely tried to suggest the media have been covering ACORN too much: “Well, Dylan, this is classic for the press, driving from one side of the road to the other. We were flat-footed. We were slow to cover it. Now, we won't give it up.”

Interviewing Barney Frank this morning on proposals to regulate the financial markets, MSNBC's Dylan Ratigan seemed set on appeasing the notoriously rude representative.  Ratigan had surely seen the video of Mark Haines' CNBC interview of Frank back in June, and was determined not to suffer the same fate, in which Frank ripped off his earpiece and ended the segment short.

Even before posing his first question to Frank, Ratigan began by laying a sop at the great man's feet: "I know you're working very hard on this legislation.  And before we begin, I had a lot of folks come to me and say listen, make sure you thank the representative for his efforts to try to deal with this.  You are dealing with an incredibly complicated problem with a variety of issues.  So I wanted to pass along the appreciation of your efforts before we begin this conversation."

His tribute to Frank didn't spare Ratigan a reprimand when later on he dared to get in a word edgewise.  So Ratigan naturally concluded the interview . . . by apologizing to Frank for having interrupted him.

Media Research Center President and NewsBusters.org Publisher Brent Bozell today issued a public statement in which he demanded that MSNBC accept responsibility and apologize for concocting a racially charged "news" story that falsely accused a supposedly white health reform protester of carrying a gun out of hatred for a black President.

NewsBusters.org's Kyle Drennen initially reported on this on Tuesday, and yesterday provided an update: that the Second Amendment Foundation, as the name would suggest a gun-owners rights group, had condemned the liberal network for "using deceptively-edited video from a Phoenix, Arizona anti-tax rally on Monday to invent a racial stereotype in its on-going effort to demonize and marginalize American firearms owners as ‘racists.’"

After Politico.com picked up Kyle's initial NewsBusters.org item, an MSNBC spokesperson attempted to justify the slander: "Contessa was speaking generally and not about that specific person with the automatic weapon."

But Brewer did specifically cite an unidentified African-American man who attended a protest outside of a Monday speech by President Obama: "Yesterday, as President Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, a man at a pro-health care reform rally just outside, wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip."

Bozell's statement:

Following MSNBC coverage of ObamaCare protesters legally carrying guns, on Thursday, the Second Amendment Foundation condemned the liberal network for "using deceptively-edited video from a Phoenix, Arizona anti-tax rally on Monday to invent a racial stereotype in its on-going effort to demonize and marginalize American firearms owners as ‘racists.’"

As NewsBusters reported on Tuesday, MSNBC correspondent Contessa Brewer, along with Morning Meeting host Dylan Ratigan and pop culture analyst Toure, depicted all gun-carrying protesters as being "white," "racist," and even a threat to President Obama’s life. Brewer cited one such gun-toting protester, but used highly edited video footage that did not reveal the man was actually African-American.

UPDATE: The Second Amendment Foundation reacts, Politico.com cites NewsBusters and gets MSNBC response.

On Tuesday, MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer fretted over health care reform protesters legally carrying guns: "A man at a pro-health care reform rally...wore a semiautomatic assault rifle on his shoulder and a pistol on his hip....there are questions about whether this has racial overtones....white people showing up with guns." Brewer failed to mention the man she described was black.

Following Brewer’s report, which occurred on the Morning Meeting program, host Dylan Ratigan and MSNBC pop culture analyst Toure discussed the supposed racism involved in the protests. Toure argued: "...there is tremendous anger in this country about government, the way government seems to be taking over the country, anger about a black person being president....we see these hate groups rising up and this is definitely part of that." Ratigan agreed: "...then they get the variable of a black president on top of all these other things and that’s the move – the cherry on top, if you will, to the accumulated frustration for folks."

Not only did Brewer, Ratigan, and Toure fail to point out the fact that the gun-toting protester that sparked the discussion was black, but the video footage shown of that protester was so edited, that it was impossible to see that he was black. The man appeared at a health care rally outside of President Obama’s speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Arizona.