Of all the things that might give you comfort in the wake of Nidal Malik Hasan's murderous rampage, where would you rate the news that the military's commitment to "diversity" endures?  Down there, dare I guess?  Ah, but you're probably not part of the MSM elite.

Chrystia Freeland is. And on today's Morning Joe, the Financial Times editor did indeed announce that she was "comforted" by that very fact of the military's unflagging devotion to diversity.

Joe Scarborough countered Chrystia with a tough question.  And--sacré bleu!--Mike Barnicle, not normally an NB fave, made some very blunt and on-target observations . . .

Mike Allen has dumped on Doug Hoffmann's candidacy.  Again.  Yesterday, as noted here, Allen said Republicans would be "crazy" and "suicidal" to support the conservative in the special congressional election in New York's 23rd CD.   Today, Politico's chief political correspondent has claimed that a Hoffman victory would spell "chaos" in Republican ranks.

And check the video for Mike Barnicle making an elitist crack about the upstate NY district, and Chuck Todd trying to embarrass RNC Chairman Michael Steele . . .

And you thought President Obama just didn’t like Glenn Beck. According to MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, the administration’s repeated attacks on Fox News are an attempt to send a message to the rest of the news media: “Fox isn’t a real news organization, so the stories it generates aren’t real news.”

The Oct. 21 “Morning Joe” reported on an exchange yesterday (noted on Newsbusters by Noel Sheppard) between ABC Chief White House Correspondent Jake Tapper and White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs, in which Tapper asked whether it was “appropriate” for the administration to be deciding what news organizations are legitimate.

“I think Jake Tapper was onto what we got onto yesterday morning, because we’ve been having this debate: ‘Does this make sense for them to shoot down at Fox News?’” said host Joe Scarborough. “No it doesn’t if your target’s Fox News.”

You would think MSNBC would have learned after getting caught in a deliberately doctored piece of video, which tried to portray town hall protestors as white racists.  The video showed a man ‘packing heat' outside an event where the President was speaking, but was edited in such a way as to conceal the fact that the man was actually African-American.

Yet, the opposite has occurred.  MSNBC seems more determined and emboldened to portray conservatives and Republicans as racists.  How?  By continually defining those who oppose the President, an African-American man, as nothing more than angry white men of questionable intelligence.

Since that video aired (and was immediately exposed as altered by NewsBusters Kyle Drennen on August 18th), MSNBC has continuously hammered home the message that town hall and Tea Party attendees, conservatives, Republicans, or generally anyone who opposes the President, is racist.  A list of examples follows after the jump (bold mine throughout and each example contains a link):

You know Cindy Sheehan's star has really fallen with the liberal media when the likes of Mike Barnicle, compare her to GOP Congressman Joe "You lie!" Wilson. On Thursday's "Hardball," Barnicle, substitute hosting for Chris Matthews, declared, "Democrats hope to turn Wilson into the Cindy Sheehan of the anti-health care reform movement. A clownish figure of ridicule who hurts his own side, more than he helps." As the MRC's Brent Baker noted, now that she is opposing a Democratic president, the media have turned on Sheehan.

The following is from Barnicle's opening to the September 10 edition of "Hardball":

Dick Cheney's daughter Liz was a guest on Tuesday's "Morning Joe," and she took the opportunity to wipe the floor with the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson.

Earlier that day, Robinson had published a column at the Post harshly critical of the former Vice President:

Can't we send Dick Cheney back to Wyoming? Shouldn't we chip in and buy him a home where the buffalo roam and there's always room for one more crazy old coot down at the general store? 

For the final act of his too-long public career, Cheney seems to have decided to become an Old Faithful of self-serving nonsense.

Liz clearly wasn't pleased by such disrespect to her father, and after the curtain opened, showed Robinson who the crazy old coot was (video in two parts embedded below the fold, h/t Marc Sheppard):

The Fox News Channel has another huge hit on its hands with "The Glenn Beck Show," and the media can't stand it.

As news of Beck's success spreads, his competitors -- especially the liberal wannabes -- are foaming at the mouth.

A fine example occurred on Tuesday's "Morning Joe" when co-host Willie Geist showed a video clip of Beck getting emotional during his monologues which evoked nothing but disgust from fellow co-host Mika Brzezinski and the Daily Beast's Tina Brown.

Even co-host Joe Scarborough couldn't hold back the laughter (video below the fold courtesy our friend Ms Underestimated with transcribed lowlights, file photo):

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.

This whole Blago-Obama business. Really, it's just too ineffably tedious for someone of Mike Barnicle's stature. Can't we just move on? So seemed the Morning Joe panelist's attitude today.

Mika Brzezinski received Barnicle's blasé response to her question about possible interactions between Blago and Rahm Emanuel. [H/t tip reader Ray R.]

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Mike Barnicle, does it matter if there were interactions between Rahm Emanuel and Blagojevich if they were above-board, and they blew him off?

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.

Amidst all the sanctimonious do-gooderism and global-warming alarmism that is NBC/Universal's "Green Week," it's good to see that at least one network minion has managed to maintain his sense of humor.

Morning Joe's Willie Geist became something of a sensation with his spoof electioneering for John McCain on the sidewalks of Manhattan's ultra-blue Upper West Side.  In that same spirit, Willie ventured onto the streets of midtown yesterday, asking folks how they were celebrating Green Week, and posing provocative questions. Sample: "Do you think global warming is kinda hogwash? I mean, look how cold it is today."  He got some amusing answers and met some colorful characters, including one dazed and confused fellow who turned out to be none other than Mike Barnicle.

Repent, all ye owners of Suburbans, thou drivers of Explorers.  Mend thy ways, ye Escalade-loving louts!  Take heed of the warning the prophet Mika has vouchsafed unto you: greedy thou art; verily, destroyers of the environment be thee!

Oy.  Mika Brzezinski was on quite a roll this morning.  On the one hand, free-marketers would find much to agree with in Mika's arguments.  As noted here yesterday, whereas Joe Scarborough has been vigorously advocating a federal rescue of Detroit, Brzezinski favors bankruptcy over bailout. But Mika couldn't help muddling her message, delivering a jeremiad against Detroit for producing larger vehicles and Americans for buying them, actually condemning the latter as "greedy."

View video here.

Whoops. It's turning into quite the morning for gaffes on the NBC/MSNBC family of networks.  As noted here, during the Today opening, Meredith Vieira stumbled onto the sensitive subject of Matt Lauer's marital history.  Then, during Morning Joe's 8 AM hour, Joe Scarborough accidentally dropped an f-bomb, provoking a protracted apolog-a-thon. [H/t reader P.C.]

[Warning: video contains unexpurgated F-bomb 20 seconds in].

During a break, Time's Jay Carney had apparently told a story of some politico who had used the f-word. Back on the air, Scarborough had actually been praising the discipline of the Obama team members.   It was in describing them as people who, in contrast with the person Carney had mentioned, were careful with their words and deeds, that Joe's internal edit button went on the fritz.

Mike Barnicle, come on up here and accept this morning's Lanny Davis Award for shameless defense of the indefensible.  You've earned it.  Not merely did the Morning Joe panelist excuse Barack Obama's nasty jab at Nancy Reagan, he actually claimed that we need more of those kind of "jokes" from our presidents.

Joe Scarborough began the discussion by asserting that whereas mayors, governors and other lesser officials can get away with what Obama said about the former First Lady, it is unbecoming in the mouth of a president. The Morning Joe host also suggested that had George W. Bush made a comparable crack about a beloved Dem First Lady, the New York Times would have taken him harshly to task. Leaping to Obama's defense, the former Boston Globe columnist didn't merely don the wetsuit: Barnicle went full bathysphere.

Did you know that the Republican Party is totally white and is stuck in TV Land shows like "Leave it to Beaver," "Father Knows Best," and "Howdy Doody?"

So said film director Spike Lee Wednesday as he discussed the meaning of Tuesday's elections and the first black president with MSNBC's "Morning Joe" team.

Lee also said history will view things in terms of "BB" and "AB", meaning Before Barack and After Barack.

Does that mean next year is 1 instead of 2009?

While you ponder, here are some of the lowlights (video embedded right):

The Nobel hasn't conferred any classiness on Paul Krugman.  Dancing on the GOP's grave this morning in his NYT column, the newly-minted laureate impugns the party of Lincoln as "a haven for racists and reactionaries."

According to Krugman [file photo], tomorrow's election will purge the Republican congressional delegation of some of its more moderate members, leaving it even more "extreme."

The only evidence Krugman adduces in support of his Republican-are-racists slur is that GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss of Georgia "observing large-scale early voting by African-Americans, warns his supporters that 'the other folks are voting.'”  Where's the racism, given that 90+% of African-Americans are expected to vote for Obama and presumably for Chambliss's Dem opponent?

View video after the jump of Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe ripping Krugman as a "shrill, silly, partisan cartoon-character" who takes his cues from the left-wing kookasphere.

Breaking down the front door of a suspected al-Qaeda stronghold in Fallujah took great courage. But even that fearless feat pales in comparison to the dangerous mission that Willie Geist undertook. The intrepid member of the Morning Joe crew ventured out onto the sidewalks of Manhattan's Upper West Side wearing . . . a McCain-Palin T-shirt, trying to drum up support for the Republican ticket. (h/t readers BondPlainBond and Steve.)

As Willie explained, it was all a good-natured goof. But the West Siders for the most part lived up to their stereotype of, as Willie described it, "a monolithic block of elitists," scorning Geist for his gall.

Has Mike Barnicle called Sarah Palin stupid?  Seems that way.  In a Huffington Post column that Mika Brzezinski read on today's Morning Joe, Barnicle, referring to Palin, wrote of the:

preposterous pronouncements of a woman whose candidacy is an insult to intelligence.

Let's deconstruct.  The normal formulation is an "insult to our intelligence," used to describe an assertion that is obviously unbelievable. For example, you might say Barack Obama insulted our intelligence when he claimed against all evidence during this week's debate that his only tie to ACORN is his past representation of the group in a lawsuit.  But when Barnicle writes that Sarah Palin's candidacy is an insult not to "our" intelligence, but to intelligence itself, it's hard to read that other than as suggesting Palin is something other than smart. Throw in his reference to "preposterous pronouncements" and there's little doubt that the person Barnicle intended to insult is Palin herself. Mika seemed to acknowledge that Barnicle meant to slur Sarah, observing, after reading that last line, "that's rough stuff."

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to suggest Mike Barnicle's nearly as deep in the tank for Obama as Chris Matthews, for whom he subbed for on tonight's Hardball.  Mike's actually refreshingly down-the-middle compared to the regular host.

Still, when at the very end of this evening's show Mike asked a question of Jill Zuckman, the Chicago Tribune reporter on the Palin beat, wondering [hoping?] whether the wild enthusiasm for Sarah has run its course, he got an answer that I don't quite think he was expecting.

View video here.

Thanks to Sarah Palin, the culture war has become a civil war—on the left. Mika Brzezinski bravely opened a new front in the conflict during today's "Morning Joe," repeatedly going after two female MSMers for suggesting Palin is taking the working-mom thing too far. 

And, mirabile dictu, Mika even admitted to sensing MSM unfairness to Republicans.

"This is an argument Joe and I have about fairness and whether or not there are some sort of underlying unfairness when it comes to Republicans. And I just, you know, I feel it here,"  Brzezinski said referring to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by Katty Kay and Claire Shipman. Full text and commentary after the jump. View video here.