Barbara Lee

Previewing the network’s “Black Agenda” special, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell dragged out one of the most liberal members of Congress on April 7 to demagogue Republican budget cuts as harmful to poor minority groups.

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) turned what was supposed to be a conversation about the consequences of a government shutdown, which most members on both sides of the aisle want to avoid, into a screed against only $60 billion in cuts to non-defense discretionary spending.

“And so people need to know, people are going to bed hungry tonight,” fretted Lee, even though the government was still open yesterday and wouldn't close until at least tomorrow morning. “There will be more people poorer if the budget that the Republicans want passed gets passed.”

[Video embedded after the page break.]

Earlier this week Rush Limbaugh, on his radio show, predicted he would be accused of racism, for merely referencing Harry Reid's "light-skinned" remark about Barack Obama and sure enough it happened as Chris Matthews, on Wednesday's Hardball, did precisely that. After playing an out-of-context clip of Limbaugh claiming Barack Obama would gain "credibility with the black community...both light-skinned and dark-skinned" with his handling of the earthquake in Haiti, Matthews questioned his guest Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Lee, "What do you make of that kind of commentary, stirring the pot on race in this country?" [audio available here]

What Matthews failed to tell his viewers was that Limbaugh and his African-American staffer James Golden AKA Bo Snerdley joked that Obama -- by letting Reid off the hook for his comment about "light-skinned" blacks -- had disrespected "dark-skinned" blacks.

The following exchange was aired on the January 13 edition of Hardball:

If Napoleon was right about not interfering with an [in this case political] enemy in the process of destroying itself, this could be a time for Republicans to lay low. According to Ed Schultz, the left could be on the verge of an anti-Obama crack-up.

On his MSNBC show this evening, Schultz said to the face of a senior admin official that the left is seriously considering dumping support for the president.

Schultz's guest was reporter-turned-Obama-spokesman Linda Douglass.  The point of Schultz's exercise was to hold Obama's feet to the fire for the way the prez is furiously backpedaling away from his pledge that any health care bill "must" contain a public option.

An agitated Schultz conducted this exchange.