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Budding United States Senate candidate and still current MSNBC Hardball anchor Chris Matthews finds few things in life as thrilling as President-elect Barack Obama. Republican in-fighting, certainly, comes close.

As we saw on Tuesday, when Chris the Contender gleefully reported on another potential Senate challenge, of current Alaska GOP Senator Lisa Murkowski by her Governor, Sarah Palin. There was just so much wrong with this segment; it was a rich pageantry of ridiculous bias, rank hypocrisy and Matthews's snarkiness and adolescent boy sexual frustration.

I will let the video (located, with the audio, below the fold) speak for and to the entirety of the patheticness, and write further merely to point out some of the more ludicrous highlights.

"Talk about too big to fail," said managing editor of Time Richard Stengel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Dec. 4, who was on the program promoting the latest cover story for the magazine entitled, "The Case for Saving Detroit." Stengel:

"I find the fact that so many Americans are unsympathetic to Detroit to be kind of amazing," Stengel said:

We make the case that in fact the, you know, the Big Three have adapted in a lot of ways ... They haven't managed things well, they have too much capacity, but I mean, talk about being too big to fail in a way, right?

The fact is Americans don't understand what collateralized debt obligations are, yet they sort of said, ‘Okay, let's bailout all of these banks and AIG' and yet people feel like, ‘Hmm what about the big car manufacturers?

Another Hardball, another opportunity for Chris Matthews, his eyes on a Senate run, to ingratiate himself with his party's powers-that-be.  No one is more powerful than Barack Obama, of course, and Matthews found numerous ways this evening to praise the president-elect, even lauding, as NewsBuster Geoffrey Dickens has noted, his dud of an attempt at humor when it came to Bill Richardson's erstwhile beard.

Richardson, too, came in for some Matthews fawning.

Admission: Lawrence O'Donnell is emerging as one of my favorite media liberals.  On the one hand, almost exactly one year ago, his anti-Mormon rant spurred me to action.  But lately, watching him as a frequent MSNBC guest, I've been impressed by his acumen and willingness to call them as he sees them.  

Take O'Donnell's intervention on tonight's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," where he made the salient point that the scandal of the Marc Rich pardon is, ironically, being held against AG nominee Eric Holder . . . while Hillary Clinton skates.

View video here.

Do as I say, not as I do.

That appears to be Jim Cramer's philosophy. The CNBC "Mad Monday" host told NBC "Today" show viewers Dec. 2 that comparisons between the current economy and the Great Depression were inappropriate.

 "[T]hat's got to be taken off the table," Cramer told "Today" host Meredith Vieira. "There have been enough things done by this government to absolutely preclude that. I, myself, do not want to use that term ever again on the ‘Today' show even to compare it. Things are very different. We do need help from Europe; we need help from China. But take the Great Depression talk off the table. That is scare tactics."

 "I'm reluctant to start talking like that," Cramer said of describing the current recession as "the longest since World War II," as Vieira did. "I've adopted a ‘just the facts, ma'am,' approach, kind of a little bit more of a ‘Dragnet' approach, so to speak. Because when we give those characterizations what happens is we can affect things."

He was right. Comparisons to the Great Depression are way off the mark - Cramer makes them enough, he ought to know.

If Britney Spears wants to launch her grand return with a trite and tacky rough-sex pantomime, I suppose that's her business.  She's not known as a pop tart for nothing. What I do find noteworthy is the way GMA celebrated that bit of rough stuff, featuring it in its opening minutes. Even there, it's not ABC's descent into schlock that jumps out so much as the double standard.  Can you imagine the dutifully feminist ABC applauding such junk if the gender tables had been turned?  Me neither.

Diane Sawyer, uh, teased things during the show opening.

Note to Chris Matthews: when mocking someone for using a ghostwriter, it's best to avoid doing so on a day when Hillary Clinton is prominently in the news . . .

On this evening's Hardball, Matthews went out of his way to mock Joe The Plumber for his use of a ghostwriter on his just-released book.  This on the day Hillary Clinton was in the headlines, having been named Barack Obama's Secretary of State.  You know, Hillary Clinton.  The woman famous, in writing "It Takes A Village," for failing to credit her . . . ghostwriter.

Of all the genres of interviews, those conducted by the media with family and friends of victims of tragedy are among the most difficult and often least successful. 

A remarkable exception to that rule comes in the form of the interview David Gregory conducted on this morning's Today show with Rabbi Shalom Paltiel, who was a friend of the Chabad couple murdered in Mombai and is a fellow member of the Chabad movement.

Gregory demonstrates knowledge and sensitivity, and Rabbi Paltiel exhibits a faith and optimism in the face of tragedy that people of all faiths should find inspiring.  I encourage people to watch.

Let's do it again.

Here are the rules: suggested videos should be tasteful, unoffensive, and sent this evening to both Noel and Warner via PM or EM (nsheppard@newsbusters.org, igcolonel@hotmail.com). Please don't link videos in the comments section, for we want all content to be filtered.

The phone lines are open!

Tonight's first submission comes from NBer motherbelt who offers us this apparently banned commercial for Xbox 360:

Is Harry Smith sad that the Mumbai terrorists missed their intended American and British targets and hit Indians?  Strange as it sounds, it's hard to interpret his remark of this morning otherwise.

Smith was discussing the attacks on the Early Show with CBS terrorism expert Jere Van Dyk when he made his bizarre observation.

Barbara Walters invites Great Leader to "give" Thanksgiving message to "the people."  Great Leader obliges: be inspired by . . . me.

Check out the clip of Barbara Walters's interview of the Obamas, aired on GMA today, and tell me whether you find something off-putting in the way Walters poses what is, after all, a very banal question. And then there's the President-elect's self-centered answer . . .

View video here.

Some wag dubbed the Prius the "Pious," for the smug self-righteousness of its greener-than-thou owners.  CNBC ran a segment this morning highlighting an even pricier form of conspicuous green consumption: the installation of geothermal wells in Manhattan as an alternative form of HVAC.

Narrating a segment that would have had Veblen nodding in approval, CNBC's Bertha Coombs observed "for many, it represents bragging rights in the pursuit of green luxury."  That segued to a clip of New York magazine's Jesse Oxfeld explicitly making the conspicuous consumption point.

View video here.

Now that the government has assumed the role of economic planner with various bailout packages and stimulus plans, experts are predicting a federal budget deficit of $1 trillion.

That much money may be difficult to comprehend, but former President Ronald Reagan put it in perspective with a 1981 analogy describing the federal debt: "And the best I could come up with is that if you had a stack of thousand-dollar bills in your hand only 4 inches high, you'd be a millionaire. A trillion dollars would be a stack of thousand-dollar bills 67 miles high."

But the huge number doesn't worry Mark Green, the president of the liberal talk radio network Air America. Green dismissed concerns about deficit spending in an interview on MSNBC's "Hardball" Nov. 25.

Why does Sarah Palin continue to receive so much media coverage?  Peggy Noonan has a theory.  The Wall Street Journal columnist believes the MSM is up to what she considers "mischief": attempting to make Sarah Palin the face of the Republican party.

Noonan propounded her premise during an appearance today on Morning Joe.

Paul Krugman has been making the rounds of the network morning shows, urging the government to "go big" in spending to revive the economy.  His only concern is that Obama might not be planning to spend enough.  Heck, even FDR wasn't a big enough spender in his book.  View Krugman's weekend GMA appearance in which he says that here, the episode in which, as discussed here, Krugman of all people had to talk Kate Snow down from her fantasy of Obama "forcing" the Bush administration to adopt his policies.

None of the network shows had anyone on to debate Krugman.  But the Early Show did invite Jim Rogers in today to give very much the other side.  The legendary investor's take: let the banks fail.  The massive bailout underway will put our country in hock for decades.  Almost 20 years later, Japan has still been unable to get out of the hole it dug when it, like the US now, decided certain institutions were too big to fail.

President and Mrs. Bush couldn't be handling the transition more graciously.  But rather than celebrating the peaceful transfer of power that is the hallmark of our democracy, Hardball has announced a new feature, "Final Daze," intended to mock W as we count down his last weeks in office.

Mike Barnicle, sitting in for Chris Matthews, announced the new segment on this evening's show.

MIKE BARNICLE: And that brings us to a new, regular item we're starting tonight called "Final Daze."  President Bush has 57 days left in office, and many are asking "where's Dubya?"  With the economy tanking and the country looking for guidance from the guy who's still president, here's what we got today.

View video here.

President-Elect Obama’s choice for Attorney General, Eric Holder, had a 2002 interview with CNN’s Paula Zahn, (partial transcripts and stories have appeared on several sites recently including: National Review, Salon, Israpundit, and Democrats.com) where he cited a stance on terrorist detainees and their rights which was very different from not only Vice President-elect Joe Biden  but also  Obama himself  (my emphasis throughout:)

"This is a death-bed confession," Seton Motley quipped of Time magazine's Mark Halperin admitting that the mainstream media was biased towards Sen. Barack Obama. The MRC Communications Director made the remark on the November 24 "Fox & Friends" program

"As the mainstream media dies, they're trying to rectify their reputations and their relationships with their audience by saying, 'oh, you know, we were in the tank.' Clearly, this would have been a lot more useful in June or July," Motley added. "It does us no good now at the end of November."

But don't hold your breath for balance, the NewsBusters contributor told co-host Steve Doocy:

Update 11-25 8:20 AM: Morning Joe Makes SNL References -- see discussion at foot.

Call it "The Wild 'n Crazy Guy–Billionaire Style."  Maria Bartiromo's interview of Saudi Prince Alwaleed, the largest shareholder of Citigroup, is literally a Saturday Night Live skit waiting—begging—to happen.

CNBC's Bartiromo conducted the interview by remote this afternoon. When the camera went to the prince in Riyadh, you might have expected to find him in a TV studio, or perhaps in his business office, maybe even in one of his palace rooms.  But no, there he was sitting outdoors, apparently by his stables, with seated camels and sleek horses very visible in the background.   And rather than being attired in business or traditional Saudi dress, the Prince was duded up with an open collar, tinted glasses and a scarf warding off the desert's cool night air.  He could be seen occasionally fingering what appeared to be golden worry beads.

View video here.

Appearing on the November 24 "Fox & Friends," MRC Director of Communications Seton Motley reacted to left-wing bloggers critical of President-elect Obama for choosing center-left, rather than far-left staffers for his presidential transition team. [audio available here]:

GRETCHEN CARLSON, co-host, "Fox & Friends": Alright, Seton, so a lot of these people on the Left say, "Oh, wait a minute, Barack! You were supposed to choose people who feel exactly like we do on the issues." And in essence, he's chosen a lot of centrists. Will we now see the blogosphere really light up now with the ultra-left viewpoints?

Various "Good Morning America" anchors and guests on Monday gushed at the sheer brilliance of Barack Obama's incoming cabinet, including his "team of economic gladiators." Former top Bill Clinton aide-turned journalist George Stephanopoulos rhapsodized, "We have not seen this kind of combination of star power and brain power and political muscle this early in a cabinet in our lifetimes." (What does that say about Stephanopoulos' friends in the Clinton administration?) [audio clip available here]

Co-host Robin Roberts was equally enthusiastic. Speaking with Stephanopoulos, she cooed, "Some would say it's a team of rivals, a la President Lincoln, or is a better comparison a team of geniuses as FDR did?" Continuing the fawning, Stephanopoulos readily agreed: "Well, one Obama advisor told me what they like is a combination of 'Team of Rivals' and 'the Best and the Brightest,' which was the David Halberstam book about the incoming Kennedy administration. I think there are parallels to all three." (This is somewhat of an odd comparison. Halberstam's 1972 book explores the origins of the Vietnam War and the mistakes made leading up to it.)

Transcript from press conference of Pres. Barack Obama, Feb. 12th, 2011:

CNSNEWS.COM: Mr. President, when you first took office you promised to create 2.5 million jobs by January, 2011.  But the Labor Department report issued yesterday indicates that in fact 1.7 million jobs were lost during that period.  Why did your plan fail?

PRES. BARACK OBAMA: Ah, but it didn't fail. To the contrary, we succeeded beyond all expectations.  You misquoted our promise.  We said we would create or "save" 2.5 million jobs.  And a report prepared by my White House team being distributed to you demonstrates that had we not taken the bold steps we did back in 2009, we would by now have lost 5.8 million jobs.  We therefore in fact saved 4.1 million jobs, more than 50% greater than the number of jobs we promised to save.  So our program has been a huge success.  Let's see, Keith, you had a question?

KEITH OLBERMANN:  Yes, Mr. President.  You are so wonderful, sir.  Please comment, if you would, sir.

The "or save" makes Obama's plan virtually fail-proof. No matter how many jobs are lost, Obama will always be able to claim that things would have been much worse were it not for his plan. To his credit, NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd pointed out the verbal sleight of hand on today's Morning Joe.

Tom Brokaw: talk show host or DNC enforcer?  Barack Obama and Harry Reid were willing to let bygones be bygones, letting Joe Lieberman keep his Homeland Security Committee chairmanship. 

But Lieberman's professed "regret" for statements he made in the course of supporting John McCain for president wasn't good enough for Brokaw.  Interviewing the senator on Meet The Press today, Brokaw pointedly observed that he hadn't heard the word "apology" for Lieberman's lèse majesté.  Brokaw broached the subject by asserting Lieberman needed to be held "accountable."

In an MSM eager for the advent of the Age of Obama, Kate Snow may have taken the cake.  The weekend GMA co-host almost sounded as if she were calling for some kind of coup d'etat, musing whether Obama should be urgently "forcing" change before he takes office. How over the top was Snow?  She had to be talked down from her fin de regime fantasy but none other than . . . Paul Krugman.

ABC reporter John Hendren set the tone for the notion that time is dangerously a-wasting.

JOHN HENDREN: As with Hoover and FDR, the ideological gap between Bush and Obama could be too broad to bridge, leaving us with two more months of costly economic drift.

A little later, interviewing Krugman, Snow made her startling suggstion.

UPDATE: More absolutely must-see videos have been added below the fold. Some great additions. Keep 'em coming, NBers!

Let's do it again.

Here are the rules: suggested videos should be tasteful, unoffensive, and sent this evening to both Noel and Warner via PM or EM (nsheppard@newsbusters.org, igcolonel@hotmail.com). Please don't link videos in the comments section, for we want all content to be filtered.

The phone lines are open!

Our first offering is a humorous look at a drunk driving test:

Fox Business Network anchor Alexis Glick is frustrated by the way the government's $700 billion financial bailout is being used, and suggested on "Money for Breakfast" Nov. 21 that it was contributing to market declines.

"I mean, look, we are now at levels at least on the S&P that we haven't been since 1997. You know, people are pretty unhappy with how the TARP fund is going," Glick said in an interview with NYSE Euronex CEO Duncan Niederauer. "I mean, it's got to be - I'm frustrated, I mean I don't know about you."

It's not the first time that Glick has taken issue with the misuse of TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP).

In an odd, non-sequitur of a segment, co-host Diane Sawyer kicked off the 8:30 hour of Friday's "Good Morning America" by reading aloud from an essay that President-elect Barack Obama wrote about Abraham Lincoln for a 2005 issue of Time magazine. Stopping the show cold for a minute and 22 seconds, she solemnly began, "...There was something that made us all stop and think. And you know, it's 60 days now. 60 days until the inauguration of a new president." [audio available here]

Then, Sawyer gravely announced that Obama had, in fact, written an essay: "And we saw that President-elect Obama has a favorite photograph, which he looks at. And here are the words that he wrote in Time magazine. An essay." To music that seemed reminiscent of the Ken Burns "Civil War" documentary, with images of Lincoln appearing on screen, the GMA host recited the words of the President-elect's Time article.

Remember the years of media flak President George W. Bush received for his alleged use for political gain of first the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and then the related Afghanistan and Iraq Wars?

Will the press be as vociferous now? Incoming Obama Administration Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, speaking on Wednesday on and to the Wall Street Journal Digital Network, stated outright his desire to make political hay with the ongoing travails of the U.S. and global economy:

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

Wonder why President-elect Obama resigned from the Senate so early (while Vice President-elect Joe Biden remains an active member) and is hanging back, not wading into the debate over bailouts etc, and naming candidates for nearly every Cabinet post save Treasury (the man or woman who will have $350 billion to dispense when he/she walks through the door)?

Whoever had the brilliant idea of making Capricia Marshall a guest on MSNBC's "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" last night was probably hiding from host David Gregory when the show ended.  Marshall turned out to be the least forthcoming guest I have ever seen on a political talk show.  The aide to Hillary Clinton put up a smiling stonewall that would make G. Gordon Liddy—who chose a stiff prison sentence over Watergate stool-pigeonhood—proud.

Marshall is the director of Hillary Clinton's political action committee, Hillpac, and former social secretary in the Clinton White House.  Gregory had her on in the clear expectation that she would dish on Hillary's prospective appointment as Secretary of State.  But Capricia was tighter than the proverbial clam.  Try as Gregory might, Marshall wouldn't give up the smallest shadow of a hint of a scrap of a tidbit about anything of interest.  Her big revelation? She's excited about the inauguration.  Gag Gregory with an NBC "Yes We Can!" commemorative Obama-campaign DVD.