During an appearance on Monday's edition of the Morning Joe program on the liberal MSNBC cable TV channel, Donna Brazile -- the interim chair of the Democratic National Committee -- behaved in what can best be described as an “animated” manner from swaying in her seat to making a number of expressive gestures.
According to an article by Mark Finkelstein of the legalinsurrection.com website, “Brazile has been a fixture for years on talking-head shows” and someone he always thought of “as an affable but relatively reserved soul.”
“Reserved?” Finkelstein repeated just hours before the first presidential debate was set to take place. “There's another side to Donna that I was obviously missing!”
As co-host Mika Brzezinski introduced her, Brazile “swayed gracefully in her seat” while greeting attorney and Republican strategist Ben Ginsburg was welcomed to the program and promising he “was just going to sit still” during the discussion.
Finkelstein also stated that “Brazile was a one-woman show of expressive gestures and phrases.”
Brazile later began talking about singer Aretha Franklin while gesturing enthusiastically to the words that “love is like a seesaw, baby” before changing the expression to indicate that “polls are like a seesaw, baby.”
“Don't get caught up in the current,” she continued. “Just try to push it, just push it.”
“Look, I'm confident at the end of the day -- and Ben knows this -- it's about turnout,” she said while gesturing toward Ginsburg. “We'll get you. We'll roll you over.”
At another point in the discussion, the DNC chair discussed attempts to “reach out to the millennials,” people who attained young adulthood near the year 2000.
“Can she?” Brzezinski asked regarding Hillary Clinton.
“Hell, yeah,” Brazile responded enthusiastically.
“Of course,” she later noted, “I'm not advising anybody. I'm the chair of the party, party, party” while clapping her hands in front of the TV camera.
Willie Geist, another co-anchor of the Morning Joe program, joined the fray by noting “that Hillary Clinton has spent so much more money on ads, had so many more boots on the ground.”
“With all that money advertising on shows like this when she could have put some love out,” Brazile replied.
Soon afterwards, Brazile looked right into the camera and made several gestures while stating: “You know, come on. Some people love the camera. Some people operate and say 'OK, I'm great,' and there are others who just -- that camera is such a screen for them.”
Brzezinski later had a recommendation for people who dislike Donald Trump: “Don't even look at him because he's gotta take that stage.”
While Brazile gestured with both hands, Brzesinksi added that “all this yelling is no good.”
She then emphasized her advice for Clinton by shaking her hands while declaring: “Not like this, OK? Because that's not gonna work.”
The DNC chair then referred to Clinton as “a tree-shaker. She's a jelly-maker. She's the one who does things right.”
Finkelstein called that expression “Brazile's most amusing line” and noted: “Yes, I don’t know about you, but when you say 'jelly-maker,' I say 'Hillary Clinton!'”
“And Hillary shakes the truth all right. just not in the way Brazile presumably had in mind!” the reporter declared.
When Scarborough tried to end the segment, the DNC chair asked him: “You gonna invite me back, Joe? 'Cause you know you miss me.”
Brazile continued: “I love you. You know, me and you always connect.”
Perhaps the DNC chair just had too much caffeine in her coffee this morning, but it's really unlikely that the hosts on Morning Joe would allow and encourage a Republican guest to shake and make over-the-top gestures during an interview. So much for neutrality on MSNBC.
