After Joe Scarborough’s intra-squad snarking of Keith Olbermann yesterday morning, one might have expected a better-behaved Brew Crew today.

No such luck for Chris Matthews – Pat Buchanan had different plans.

In a discussion of the polling data in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, Joe asked Lawrence O’Donnell why the Democrat was doing so poorly in a state that President Obama won by a large margin last year:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Why [crosstalk] Democrats doing better in Virginia a year after Obama’s historic victory?

A new left-wing organization created specifically to attack Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Brown has ties to ex-Obama green jobs czar Van Jones.

As NewsBusters reported Thursday, StopTheWitchHunt.org was formed to "call out" what it considers "mischaracterizations and hate speech" by the aforementioned quintet.

With the assistance of tipster Bret A. Gehring, NewsBusters has discovered an organizational link to Jones.

Our investigation began with who was listed as the contact person on the STWH press release reported by Reuters Thursday:

A new coalition was launched Thursday to specifically target conservatives Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Pat Buchanan, and Paul Brown.

Called StopTheWitchHunt.org, their goal is "to give voice to the millions of Americans who believe it is time for talk-show hosts and elected officials to stop stoking the racial anxieties of the fringes of America."

They accuse the quintet of spewing "lies and hate speech...in a nationwide witch hunt" against President Obama. 

They even call Limbaugh's "I hope he fails" remark "the verbal equivalent of putting a razor blade in a candy apple." 

Their press release is even more hysterical, especially the misspelling of one of the objects of their disaffection:

If Joe Scarborough is right, this could be a game-changing blow to Barack Obama . . .

On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough left no doubt that he believes the Obama administration acquiesced to the release by the British government of Abdelbaset Al Megrahi, the convicted Lockerbie murderer and terrorist.

Scarborough was reacting to reports suggesting that, contrary to initial claims, the release was done at the behest of Gordon Brown's British government, and was not an independent move by Scotland.

"[Pat] Buchanan is a bonafide anti-Semite. He, as a member of Opus Dei, he would like to see every Jew hanged..."

So said liberal talk radio host Mike Malloy within days of calling for Fox News's Glenn Beck to commit suicide.

What follows is a YouTubed audio of these appalling comments along with a transcript (readers are encouraged to hang in long enough to hear Buchanan equate Al Gore to birthers!):

Generations past and present of the Washington Post heaped abuse on Sarah Palin today.  Appearing on Morning Joe, Carl Bernstein called Palin "ignorant," a "demagogue" and a "flake."  Current WaPo editorialist Jonathan Capehart chimed in to second Bernstein's emotion "100%."

Pat Buchanan stepped in to explain Palin's appeal.

Viewers of "The Rachel Maddow Show" on July 20 were treated to something seldom seen -- a political analyst trying to set the record straight after an argument, in the absence of the second pundit.

Maddow preceded her criticism of MSNBC colleague Pat Buchanan by saying this tactic is "not cool" and "not fair" before proceeding with it anyway --

MADDOW: It's not cool to talk about guests after their segment is over. It's also not fair to relitigate these arguments in the absence of one of the parties who participated in the argument and I will not try to do that now.

One of the sad byproducts of journalism's decline is that you rarely see a great debate on television anymore between a liberal and a conservative without it devolving into a lot of yelling, name calling, and folks talking over each other.

On Thursday night, MSNBC's Rachel Maddow invited Pat Buchanan on to talk about the nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court.

What ensued was a surprisingly civil and respectful ten minute discussion that should give viewers faith that it is still possible for folks on opposite sides of the political spectrum to converse like adults about controversial subjects (video embedded below the fold with transcript, file photo):

On Thursday’s edition of Democracy Now on the radical-left Pacifica Radio network, co-hosts Juan Gonzalez and Amy Goodman discussed the Holocaust Museum shooting with Leonard Zeskind, author of the book Blood and Politics: The History of the White Nationalist Movement from the Margins to the Mainstream. But Gonzalez wanted Zeskind to connect dots from the racist fringe to Sean Hannity and Pat Buchanan and Rush Limbaugh:

JUAN GONZALEZ: And when you talk about the mainstream part of the movement, the mainstreamers, what role does television, shows like Sean Hannity and the impact of Pat Buchanan and other right-wing populists who are always on a lot of the cable shows and on radio, the Limbaughs of the world—how does this affect the ability of the right wing, of this most extreme right-wing movement, to win sympathizers and supporters?

During the 3:00PM EST hour on MSNBC on Wednesday, political analyst Pat Buchanan wondered why President Obama’s short list for the Supreme Court only included women, in response, anchor Norah O’Donnell declared: "Did it ever occur to you, Pat, that maybe there weren’t any white men who were qualified?" (video here)

Buchanan replied: "No, it did not occur to me...You mean there are no white males qualified? That is – that would be an act of bigotry to make a statement like that." O’Donnell defended her remark by claiming past discrimination against women in the nominating process: "In the past there have been no women that have been qualified." Buchanan argued: "They certainly have been qualified in the past. I don’t doubt there are. But probably half of the great lawyers and judges are white males in this country. And to rule them out, why? Because of their sex and because of their race is wrong, I think. At least it’s affirmative action."

O’Donnell rejected Buchanan’s claim: "I don’t think you have proof that they did that." Buchanan asked: "How did he come down to four women?" O’Donnell simply repeated White House talking points: "He said that they were the best and that met the views that he had, the particular criteria." Buchanan summed up that "criteria": "One of them, it’s got to be a woman, and the other it got down to be, ‘hey, it’s an Hispanic,’ that’s affirmative action."

It's a response that might incite laughter, as it did from conservative pundit Monica Crowley and MSNBC paleocon talker Pat Buchanan. According to Newsweek's Eleanor Clift, the current problems facing the country and President Barack Obama are due to capitalism.

Clift, appearing on the syndicated April 26 "The McLaughlin Group" gave Obama high marks for his first hundred days and said Republicans were misguided for attacking the growth of the size of government.

"I give him a B+ because there's a lot of outcomes that haven't come in yet," Clift said. "But look, this isn't about the failure of government and the Republicans are on the wrong tact talking about big government. This is a failure of capitalism. He's trying to save capitalism."

Everything you thought you knew about MSNBC political slant - throw it out the window, because one MSNBC host says you're probably wrong.

MSNBC's Contessa Brewer, appearing on "The Mark Reardon Show" on St. Louis KMOX 1120 AM radio on April 13. Brewer defended her network against the perception that it is a liberal cable news channel.

"No, but we're not liberal," Brewer said. "No, we're not liberal. We're not liberal. That's crazy - that's crazy talk."

According to Brewer, since MSNBC has a program hosted by former Republican Florida Congressman Joe Scarborough and has Pat Buchanan as a contributor that absolves the network of having the "liberal" label attached to it.

If you watch MSNBC's "Hardball," you really have to scratch your head and wonder what host Chris Matthews is thinking when he opens his mouth sometimes.

On the March 30 broadcast of "Hardball," Matthews, MSNBC political analyst Pat Buchanan and Newsweek's Howard Fineman were discussing what they perceived to be a rift between former GOP vice-presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her running mate, former GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. based on McCain's unwillingness to commit to supporting Palin as a presidential candidate in 2012. (h/t Breitbart.tv)

My therapist told me to take two shots at Chris Matthews and call him in the morning . . .

Mike Barnicle is back to looking down his nose at bloggers.  After Mika Brzezinski claimed on today's Morning Joe that "blogging isn't journalism," the former Boston Globe columnist declared that "95%, 99% of blogging isn't journalism. It's therapy for the blogger."

The predicate was a provocative one.  Willie Geist read from an Esquire interview of Sarah Palin in which she said that—long after the issue had been put to rest—the Anchorage Daily News called her—based on allegations in blogs—to ask whether she was indeed the mother of Trig, her youngest child.  Palin took that as evidence of continuing problems in the world of "journalism," prompting Mika and Mike to go off on us members of the pajamahadeen.

Far be it from me to sow discord in MSNBC ranks, to stir up old animosities between colleagues there.  But if Joe Scarborough is going to do a mocking imitation of Keith Olbermann in full Special Comment rant, well then, blogging ethics compel me to report it.

The jumping-off point on Morning Joe today was Eugene Robinson's current WaPo column. After claiming that he didn't want to kick the president on his way out the door, Robinson proceeded to do just that.  The columnist described a variety of measures adopted by the president in prosecution of the war against terror as "departures from American values and traditions." Robinson recommended an investigation if not a criminal prosecution. That led Pat Buchanan and Scarborough to cite, chapter and verse,  the ways in which Bush's supposed abrogation of  "American values and traditions" were small potatoes compared to the actions of predecessors including Lincoln, Wilson and FDR.

Without mentioning the Countdown host by name, Scarborough closed with an unmistakable impression of Keith Olbermann in pompous Special Comment peroration of the sort that can be seen here.

The exquisite moral sensibilities of the MSM . . .

Would you waterboard an al Qaeda member for three minutes to get information to save the lives of nine passenger-loads of innocent civilians?  Chrystia Freeland wouldn't.  The US managing editor of the Financial Times made the stunning statement during the course of a classic Morning Joe dust-up today.  Joe Scarborough, with help from tag-team partner Pat Buchanan, went after Freeland on her opposition to waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques. At one point Scarborough called Freeland "sophomoric."  Later, the exasperated MJ host gave his guest some of the same treatment to which he'd recently been subjected by Zbigniew Brzezinski, telling Freeland "you have no idea what you're talking about."

Finally, under questioning from Buchanan, Freeland went so far as to disagree with the proposition that it would be moral to waterboard someone for three minutes to get information to foil a plot to simultaneously kill nine passenger planeloads of people.

I like Pat Buchanan. I do. He's wise, funny and charming.  But every so often . . .

Like tonight. If Buchanan wants to criticize Israel's conduct of the current war, and its treatment of the Palestinians, so be it. But in doing so, is it really necessary to employ terms associated with the Nazis?  Appearing on "1600 Pennsylvania Avenue," Buchanan accused Israel of carrying out a "blitzkrieg" against Gaza and turning it into a "concentration camp."

View video here.

There was no Memorex around when the brontosauri were bidding bye-bye, but I think we have a pretty good idea of what they sounded like as they were going extinct.  Just listen to Brian Williams this morning.  Appearing on Morning Joe, the NBC Nightly News anchor lamented the decline of "classically-trained" journalists in favor of guys with "an opinion and a modem."  

A question from Pat Buchanan about the ebbing fortunes of the old media set Williams off on a soliloquy he assured us was not self-interested.

The people just don't know Caroline like I do.  That was the essence of Andrea Mitchell's defense of the would-be senator after Pat Buchanan analogized her to another nominee who famously flopped.  Appearing on Morning Joe, Buchanan unleashed a merciless metaphor.

PAT BUCHANAN: It's not only entitlement.  It appears–we are getting close to Harriet Miers country, where Bush put her out there, and it became transparent when people started going after her that she wasn't quite up to this --

Buchanan's barb stirred Andrea into action.

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.