Mika Brzezinski gave quite a cold shoulder to author Ron Suskind Tuesday whose new book "Confidence Men" paints an unflattering picture of the Obama White House.
Doing her best Clarence Darrow, Brzezinski grilled her "Morning Joe" guest leading Joe Scarborough to smartly observe, "She didn't cross-examine Ron when he wrote books about Bush like this" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, CO-HOST: I have a couple of questions about the women.
RON SUSKIND: Anything, yeah.
BRZEZINNSKI: Alright, so do you point out in the book that there are more women in high level positions than in any other administration in this presidency?
SUSKIND: I say that he has a murderers' row of women in senior positions throughout which are incredibly accomplished.
BRZEZINSKI: Okay, and did you refer to the Lily Ledbetter Act and the effort toward women in small businesses and lifting them up, things like that?
SUSKIND: No. In this, I thought that would sort of…
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Hold on a second, Clarence Darrow.
SUSKIND: They can go to Google for that.
BRZEZINSKI: I have a few more questions. Are there any dates, titles or statistics or quotes wrong…
BRZEZINSKI: Let’s see, let me look. One…
SCARBOROUGH: No, seriously.
BRZEZINSKI: Yeah. I just want to ask, are there any dates, quotes or statistics wrong in the book?
A few minutes later as the segment drew to a close:
SCARBOROUGH: Come back tomorrow, we would like to talk more. Mika Darrow has more questions for you on cross-examination.
SUSKIND: Mika, let’s have coffee, you can cross.
BRZEZINSKI: Hey, why don't I get you a cup of coffee? Yeah.
SUSKIND: That’s good.
SCARBOROUGH: What does that mean? I don't even know what that means.
WILLIE GEIST: That's unfair.
SCARBOROUGH: Oh, seriously.
GEIST: That’s a cheap shot.
MIKE BARNICLE: Flag.
SCARBOROUGH: Seriously, you know what?
SUSKIND: That's all I'm getting these days - cheap shots.
UNKNOWN: Mika joined with a cheap shot.
BRZEZINKSKI: Rashida Jones is next.
SCARBOROUGH: She loved you when you were writing about George Bush.
In fairness, conservatives loving Suskind now likely felt the same way about him back then as Mika does today. Funny how that works.
However, she's supposed to be a professional commentator at this point, and as the host of a so-called "news" network program, she should be able to do a far better job of hiding her new-found disdain for her invited guest.
Or would that be too much like journalism?
