If you've tuned on the news, specifically MSNBC, you don't have to watch for very long to see the network views focusing on fringe elements of the right as a newsworthy endeavor.
However, as MSNBC "Morning Joe" co-host Mika Brzezinski suggested, discretion should be exercised with the amount of attention given to these radical components of the opposition to President Barack Obama's health care reform endeavors.
"Yeah, call it out but also I think we have to be careful along the way," Brzezinski said on the March 26 broadcast. "I think this happened during the campaign. I think this happened during the final hours of the health care debate where certain fringe, really minute members of it were highlighted."
Brzezinski said more focus should be granted to the nuts and bolts of the policy that has already been put into place and signed into law by the president, as her co-host Joe Scarborough and guests Dylan Ratigan and Eugene Robinson did previously during the "Morning Joe" segment.
"And then it's injected into the conversation and then it becomes ridiculous," Brzezinski said. "I mean, the conversation and the debate that we're having, Dylan, you, me, Eugene, about you know, whether or not parts of this bill really make sense, whether they really come down hard on the insurance industry. That's what we should be talking about, not a bunch of crazies or one or two saying potentially something that wasn't caught on camera, if you know what I'm getting at."
Although Brzezinski doesn't name any particular outlet or individual, her colleagues have shown a keen interest in the "crazies" versus the policy. Since the legislation was passed by the House of Representatives on March 21, MSNBC has followed up with several stories about the so-called anger and outrage generated by the Tea Party protests, including reports from MSNBC's David Shuster, Chris Matthews, Melissa Harris-Lacewell, Lawrence O'Donnell, Howard Fineman and Keith Olbermann.
