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In one insulting swoop, Joe Scarborough managed this morning to impugn the intelligence of his viewers and of Republicans. According to Scarborough: "I know a lot of people aren't really smart out there." As for Republicans, Scarborough said he felt sorry for them "because they should have paid more attention in school. They wouldn't be so easily confused by 140-character statements." All this was preface to his suggestion that President Obama accept the Republican proposal to fund such things as NIH, taking the issue of kids with cancer off the table. Ironic, given that earlier in the show, Scarborough said...

Seems like the shutdown is already causing nerves to get frayed. Some of it might have been for show, but tempers seemed to truly flare on today's Morning Joe. An on-air spat broke out, with Joe Scarborough in one corner, and Mika Brzezinski and the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson in the other. Fed up with what he described as a "paid advertisement for Obamacare" by Brzezinski and Robinson, Scarborough insisted on giving his side of the story. He predicted that Obamacare will fail, as major employers opt to pay fines instead of providing health insurance to their employeees. That in...

MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough is waking up to the fact that despite all the hype that accompanied President Barack Obama when he made his 2008 presidential run, he wasn’t ready for primetime. “Barack Obama has proven over the past five years that he wasn’t ready to be president of the United States,” Scarborough said on his show Tuesday, according to Newsmax. “And he proves it still today.” Scarborough said Obama “came out of nowhere” as a freshman senator, and “a couple years later, people elected him president of the United States.” Obama served less than a decade in...

Imagine that George W. Bush had decided to proceed with a harsh, partisan speech attacking Democrats for "hurting people," despite a scene of mass murder unfolding just 3.5 miles away. On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough imagined just such a scenario, and came to the inescapable conclusion: his own MSNBC network and the MSM at large would be "killing" W for his insensitivity and poor judgment. Panelist John Heilemann of New York magazine grudgingly agreed that Scarborough's assessement was "kinda fair." But Mika Brzezinski empathized with our poor president: he was in a "horrible position." View the video here.

One thing is certain: Axelrod didn't do the rest of us any favors . . . On today's Morning Joe, after Joe Scarborough empathized at length, in the context of the Syrian situation, about what a lonely job President Obama has, David Axelrod actually had the chutzpah to say "there have been many days where I wonder, gee, I wonder if all of us who helped him get elected did him a favor." View the video here.

How the doves have fallen! When it comes to attacking Syria, we've already seen the likes of Nancy Pelosi making like George Patton. Now of all people comes mega-dove Howard Dean, credulously claiming that we should support President Obama's decision to attack Syria . . . because he knows more about the situation than we do. Dean's astounding assertion came during a clash with Joe Scarborough on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough scalded Dean, saying he sounded like Paul Wolfowitz defending President Bush's decision to go to war against Iraq. View the video here.

It's something we've been saying at NewsBusters for some time: living in his MSM/political bubble has turned Joe Scarborough—once a conservative congressman representing the Florida panhandle—soft. So it was refreshing to hear someone who travels in the same circles as Scarborough make the same observation. On today's Morning Joe, man-about-Manhattan-and-the-Hamptons Donny Deutsch told Scarborough that "your liberal friends are making you soft." The particular issue at hand was Deutsch's support and Scarborough's opposition to the New York City Police Department's program of spying on potential terrorist organizations, including mosques. But the point is of general application. View the video here.

Although he didn't dare mention him by name, there's little doubt that Joe Scarborough had Mark Levin—who has taken strong shots at Scarborough's criticize-conservatives-first approach—in mind as a radio talk show host who is "jealous" of him and for whom Scarborough feels "sorry." On today's Morning Joe, James Carville told Scarborough that the hard core of the Republican party does not consider him one of them. Scarborough defended himself, claiming that whereas some basement-dwelling, underwear-clad bloggers and a couple of "jealous" radio hosts might not like him, Republicans regularly come up and hug him, proclaiming "thank God!", when he's out...

<p>Virtually every other show [aside from "Morning Joe"] belongs to hosts who unstintingly support Obama and the Democrats, with only minor points of disagreement. ([Host Chris] Hayes criticizes Obama for his drone killings and surveillance programs, and often conducts friendly interviews with Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who collaborated with Edward Snowden. Melissa Harris-Perry, who appears on weekends at 10 a.m., nearly always defends Obama, and called Glenn Greenwald a “jerk.”) Conservatives are far less visible on MSNBC than liberals are on Fox News, and the right-leaning guests who do appear are typically critics of the conservative movement: Steve Schmidt, the Republican strategist, who says the party is too tolerant of “nuts” and “kooks”; Josh Barro, an advocate for Republican reform who describes himself as “neoliberal”; Abby Huntsman, the daughter of failed presidential candidate Jon, who has described the G.O.P. as a party of “non-inclusion.” The over-all impression is that your average Republican or conservative is simply too fanatical to be part of polite discourse.</p>

Joe Scarborough is frequently panned in these parts for his propensity to pummel his presumably fellow Republicans. So it's noteworthy when the Morning Joe host goes after the left for a change. It happened on today's show, when Scarborough defended voter ID laws, saying most Americans don't think it's racist to require a photo ID when you show up to vote. and scalding the left for trying fit to politicians in North Carolina and Texas with symbolic KKK hoods. Scarborough even forced a clearly reluctant Mike Allen of Politico to ultimately acknowledge his point. View the video here.

Talk about a hypocritical, mealy-mouthed non-apology apology . . . On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough condemned Republicans who "support[ed] George Zimmerman before they even knew the facts of the case." Scarborough then added: "you know, I got out early, said some things about George Zimmerman myself. I shouldn't have said, perhaps. I got overly emotional. I'm not in office. If I were in office I would have apologized." Scarborough didn't reveal to viewers the "some things" he had said about Zimmerman. In fact, early on in the case, long before the facts were on the table, Scarborough branded Zimmerman...

NBC News political director Chuck Todd on Thursday labeled the new NBC miniseries about Hillary Rodham Clinton a “total nightmare” for the network’s news division — adding another voice to the increasing backlash against the project. “This is why this miniseries is a total nightmare for NBC News,” Todd said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “We know there’s this giant firewall. We know that we have nothing to do with it. We know that we’d love probably to be as critical or whatever it is going to be, if it comes out.” Todd added, though, that regardless of whether the Clintons...

Move over, Reverend Al. You're not the only MSNBC host who moonlights as a liberal activist. On today's Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski announced that she will be not merely be covering a pay protest by fast-food workers in Detroit on August 29th--she'll be an active part of it. Joe Scarborough tried—in vain—to school Mika on Econ 101. But she did the equivalent of covering her ears and nattering "nah, nah, nah: can't hear you!" Scarborough said he'd be at the protest--on the sidelines, with a bullhorn. View the video here.

Joe Scarborough has yet again scaled his soap box to mock those of us in the conservative blogosphere. He described us today as a bunch of "very stupid people" living in their mama's basement who write "really stupid things" about him. The thin-skinned Scarborough has often derided his blogging critics as Cheetos-chewing cellar-dwellers. He was at it again this morning, depicting them as people who if not in mama's basement would otherwise be wandering the streets in their pajamas. View the video here.

Bashing Ted Cruz on Morning Joe today, Joe Scarborough pre-emptively defended himself against charges that he is an "MSNBC liberal" by claming for himself a "95% ACU [American Conservative Union] rating." That might have been true 18 years ago when Scarborough was representing the conservative panhandle of Florida in Congress. But what would Scarborough's conservative rating be today, given his liberal shift on gun control, immigration amnesty and other issues? View the video here.

Via Mediaite, he’s making a point about inexperience. I’m … just not sure which point. It’s true, Obama had little experience as a federal legislator (and zippo as an executive) before running for president, and look how little he’s accomplished. But is that a function of “inexperience” or a function of other variables, like greater partisan polarization and Obama’s disdain for doing the sort of congressional outreach needed to pass bills? Rubio and Paul will each have served a few years more than Obama did in the Senate by election day 2016. They each also have some cred in working...

Commenting on the current dust-up between Rand Paul and Chris Christie over pork-barrel spending, Joe Scarborough has managed to insult both combatants. On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough called Rand Paul a "daddy's boy." And in warning Paul not to pick a fight with Christie, Scarborough cited a saying by his grandmother to the effect that you should never fight with a "pig," because "you both get dirty and the pig likes it." Scarborough was careful to suggest that in comparing Christie to a "pig" he wasn't alluding to the Jersey governor's girth. OK. View the video here.

When on today's Morning Joe, Obama spokesman Jay Carney had the chutzpah to call the IRS mess a "phony scandal,"Joe Scarborough ripped into him, calling Carney out for using "talking points," instructing him to "answer the question" and informing Carney that "I'm not somebody you talk down to from your podium." Ouch! H/t NB reader cobokat. Scarborough reminded Carney that he hadn't told the truth when he initially claimed that the scandal was limited to low-level employees in the IRS Cincinnati office, that it now appears that it may go at least as high as the IRS Chief Counsel, appointed...

Political talkers Sean Hannity and Joe Scarborough are trading blows over Trayvon Martin’s personal history. Last Friday on his radio show, Hannity asked if President Barack Obama compared himself to Trayvon Martin in his impromptu remarks on the George Zimmerman murder trial verdict because “he smoked pot” and “did a little blow.” On Monday morning, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough took to his “Morning Joe” show to condemn Hannity for those remarks. “Really?” Scarborough said. “Is that the new standard? Would we like to go across college campuses in America and tell all white boys that if they have marijuana in their...

"Really, really, in 2013, Sean. Come on," Scarborough said. "Whatever excuse there is, to say this young black man had it coming to him — that is the defense because there is no defense for shooting down a young black man in a middle-class neighborhood with Skittles." . . Scarborough called "the entire spectacle" depressing, saying it was no wonder that the "parents and loved ones of African-American children" are reacting by going out and peacefully marching and protesting over the Zimmerman verdict.