Morning Joe

Tuning into Morning Joe today, the question on this NewsBusters' mind was whether—given that MNSBC and CNBC are corporate cousins—Joe Scarborough would have the guts to go after John Harwood. He did.  In at least three segments this morning, Scarborough criticized Harwood for what he called his "embarrassing" performance as moderator of the GOP debate last night. Scarborough's repeated criticism…

Whatever Nicolle Wallace had for breakfast this morning, Jeb should down a double order . . . On today's Morning Joe, former Bush communications chief Wallace slammed a Politico story in which former McCain staffers rejected parallels between Jeb's campaign and that of McCain, who came back from the political wilderness to win the nomination in 2008. Calling the story a "cheap shot," "low blow"…

Just as the liberal media greet Antonin Scalia as some sort of Supreme Court supervillain, they lionize Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a superhero. A gushy new book spinning off of the Internet meme of the “Notorious RBG” is making a splash in the liberal media. The New York Times hailed it as “an artisanal hagiography, a frank and admiring piece of fan nonfiction.” On Monday night’s All Things…

Joe Scarborough had to prod her into it, but once she got going, Mika Brzezinski unleashed a blistering tirade  against Hillary on today's Morning Joe for accusing Bernie Sanders of sexism. Hillary has ginned up great feminist umbrage at Sanders' statement at the debate that people need to stop "shouting" about gun violence and do something about it.  A clip was played of Hillary at two stump…

Say, Tom, maybe you could lead a movement to retroactively impeach George W. Bush . . . On today's Morning Joe, Tom Brokaw, downplayed the significance of Benghazi, suggesting instead that what we really needed was "a big congressional investigation about the decision to go to war in the first place in Iraq for weapons of mass destruction that didn't exist." Brokaw also underlined that more…

Talk about politics making strange bedfellows . . . Joe Scarborough has said that when he goes back to Washington, DC, his "best friends" are "liberal Democrats."  The one person Scarborough singled out to illustrate this was Maxine Waters, mentioning that he hugs her on the House floor. Scarborough's statement came during a pre-recorded New Hampshire town hall with John Kasich that aired on…

Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski were among the first in the media, going back months, to take Donald Trump seriously. In contrast, Bill Kristol had repeatedly declared that we had reached "peak Trump," only to find The Donald confoundingly continuing to climb in the polls.   Things boiled over on today's Morning Joe.  Despite a fresh poll showing Trump with an astounding 48% of GOP voters in…

It might be apocryphal, but the famous quote attributed to Pauline Kael, the late film critic of the New York Times, is along the lines of "how could Nixon have won? Nobody I know voted for him." Mika Brzezinski had her Pauline Kael moment on today's Morning Joe.  Mika declared herself "really surprised" by poll numbers showing there are more Americans dissatisfied with Hillary Clinton's…

This could be the worst whitewashing since Tom Sawyer suckered people into helping him with that fence... On today's Morning Joe, Joe Klein cleared Hillary of responsibility for American deaths in Benghazi, and blamed the CIA.   According to Klein, "this really was a CIA station there, not so much a consulate, and those guys should be able to protect themselves in most circumstances." Klein…

Basta: enough already! It's not that John Heilemann thinks Joe Biden is a liar, it's just that he's not convinced that Biden knows his own mind yet.  And so it was that on today's Morning Joe, Heilemann declared "if he called me this morning and said I'm going to get in today at noon, I wouldn't believe him because I think there's a chance that by noon he'd change his mind." Heilemann used two…

Joe Scarborough says there's an effort underway to delegitimize the FBI investigation of Hillary's email. Did Mark Halperin just abet that effort by alleging that FBI agents conducting the investigation are driven in part by personal animus toward the Clintons? Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Halperin said that "of all the entities in the United States that represent a threat to Hillary…

Joe Scarborough swung a double-edged sword on today's Morning Joe, swiping simultaneously at his MSNBC colleague Chris Matthews and at radio host and debate panelist Hugh Hewitt. The subject was Marco Rubio, with Hewitt calling him "the most dynamic speaker the Republican party has seen ever, since Lincoln."  "Since Lincoln," asked Scarborough incredulously—"do you have a tingle going up your leg…

Wow: an MSMer who not only has "many" conservative friends, but is willing to admit it on live national TV? On today's Morning Joe, in the course of praising Anderson Cooper's performance as debate moderator, Geist let drop that prior to the debate "many of my conservative friends" thought CNN would go easy on the Dems, but that five minutes in, they told him "oh, I guess he's not going to go…

Rush Limbaugh likes to facetiously refer to Hillary Clinton as "the smartest woman in the world." Today's Morning Joe brought us three people who might actually believe it. Previewing tonight's Dem debate, Mike Barnicle led off the love-in, fantasizing about people coming away from the debate saying "wow, there is a prepared, thorough, knowledgeable candidate. All the Benghazi stuff goes out the…