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Make it a trio of mindreaders at NBC/MSNBC. As noted here, yesterday Howard Fineman and David Shuster went Carnac on us, emphatically declaring that Barack Obama didn't have Sarah Palin in mind with his lipstick line. On this morning's Today, Andrea Mitchell joined her network stablemates [no pun intended!] in delving into Barack's brain and assuring us he meant no harm. ANDREA MITCHELL: Barack Obama has been a punching-bag [aww] for a barrage of criticism from the McCain campaign. Charges that he slurred Sarah Palin when he said this about McCain and his change argument [cut to clip of Obama's...

H/t reader cgb1. There was probably a dose of WWF at work, but surely also some authentic animosity in the heated exchange between Joe Scarborough and David Shuster on today's Morning Joe. Scarborough ultimately accused Shuster and his MSNBC colleagues of being Democrats, their independent political registrations notwithstanding. A news segment about Iraqi President al-Maliki's call for the withdrawal of US troops touched off the skirmish. Shuster snidely suggested to Joe that "your party, the Republican party" mocks those who call for withdrawal. All hell ensued. The entire seven-minute exchange is worth viewing, and I'll be posting the video soon....

Could the NBC honchos be a tad touchy about criticism of the Beijing Olympics—especially when it comes from its own talent pool? Was there a kernel of truth in Mika Brzezinski's light-hearted warning that MSNBC's Morning Joe crew would "get a call" if it persisted in its mocking of the games for whose broadcast rights the Peacock Network has over the years paid billions? When the subject of the Olympics arose during the opening segment of today's show, the panel went into an extended coughing fit, coupled with cracks about tanks in Tiananmen Square. Mika joined in the joshing for...

Zbigniew Brzezinski says that since we talked to Likud, we can talk to Hamas. And Kevin Spacey, who has trouble keeping his disputed primary states straight, suggests that his "Recount" plays it straight, despite evidence to the contrary. All that and more on today's Morning Joe. In reverse order, let's begin with Zbig's appearance, and consider this statement. ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: I have joined a bi-partisan group of some prominent Americans including Paul Volcker, Brent Scowcroft, Lee Hamilton, and some others, in saying that talking to Hamas is a necessary course of action. You know, we talked to Likud when Likud...

The big story this morning is President Bush's remarks to the Israeli Knesset invoking the example of Hitler to warn against the appeasement of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In the opening segment, from Mika Brzezinski [subbing for Joe Scarborough and seen in file photo] to Willie Geist to Pat Buchanan to Mike Barnicle to David Shuster, nary a word in defense of Bush was heard, with Shuster twice referring to Bush's remarks as "grotesque." The only slight straying from Bush-bashing orthodoxy was Barnicle's observation that when he first heard of the remarks, he took them as aimed at Jimmy Carter, not Barack...

If Barack Obama is looking for proof there are indeed bitter Americans out there, he need look no further than across the kitchen table . . . Morning Joe opened today with a clip of Michelle Obama on the stump that I can only call stunning. By her tone, and her language both verbal and physical, this is one angry lady. The transcript below doesn't begin to convey Mrs. Obama's apparent rage. I urge people to view the video here.

Time editor Rick Stengel has a regular Thursday gig on Morning Joe, revealing the magazine's cover to be published the following day. But while we learned that the Dalai Lama's photo will appear there, the bigger story is the "cover" Time is trying to provide for Barack Obama's Rev. Wright problem. Here's the gist of Time's defense of Obama, a distillation of Stengel's statements and Time articles by Amy Sullivan and Joe Klein: * White Americans are incredibly ignorant about black churches in America. * In fact, Rev. Wright's church isn't that radical as black churches go. * It was...

When David Gregory grilled Hillary Clinton on Today on December 17th, the challenges to her came from his own mouth. Not once was a statement by Barack Obama used to confront Hillary. But when Barack Obama made back-to-back appearances this morning on Today and Morning Joe, again and again tough questions were posed not in the first person but as coming from Hillary Clinton or her surrogates. View video here.

Are Hillary's internal polling numbers telling her staffers that she's in big trouble? That's the provocative theory that Chris Matthews floated on today's Morning Joe. Host Joe Scarborough asked what could have caused Hillary and her senior aide Howard Wolfson to go on the attack against Barack Obama this weekend, respectively questioning his character and accusing him of maintaining an improper political "slush fund." In response, Matthews theorized that Hillary's helpers have looked at the polling data . . . and seen her support "crashing." View video here [with apologies for mediocre video quality.]

A conservative comedian [yes, there are some], appears at a venue in a heavily-white suburb at a campaign event for a white candidate and tells his audience composed overwhelmingly of people of pallor they'd be embarrassed if they supported a black candidate and the white candidate won, saying "Oh no. I can't call him now. I had that black guy. What was I thinking?" What are the odds the MSM would laugh it off? But when Chris Rock does the equivalent on behalf of Barack Obama, the MSM appears to raise nary an eyebrow. Rock appeared last night at an...

Presaging the kind of press control a President Hillary Clinton might try to impose, a member of her inner circle scolded Joe Scarborough today for having the audacity to mention a poll with results unfavorable to Clinton. Yesterday, Zogby International released a new poll indicating that in a general election head-to-head match-up, Hillary Clinton would lose to all of the leading Republican contenders by a 3-5% margin. Even worse from the perspective of Clinton heading into the Dem primaries, the same poll shows Barack Obama beating each of the Republicans by 5-7%. Chief Clinton strategist Mark Penn was a guest...

Was that Mike Huckabee on "Morning Joe" today -- or John Edwards? The former Arkansas governor found an odd way to refute charges he's not a true conservative, indulging in some class-warfare rhetoric that would have been the envy of the former North Carolina senator. Mika Brzezinski hit Huckabee with an excerpt from Bob Novak's column of today. Here are the opening paragraphs from Novak's False Conservative: Who would respond to criticism from the Club for Growth by calling the conservative, free-market campaign organization the "Club for Greed"? That sounds like Howard Dean, Dennis Kucinich or John Edwards, all Democrats...

Thanksgiving is a time for reconciliation, so let's start with some sympathy for our liberal media friends. It's been a tough 24 hours for them. Yesterday, articles appeareared in the New York Times and LA Times reporting the dramatically improved security situation in Iraq. Today brings another blow, as Thomas Friedman suggests that beyond the military successes, there might be an informal kind of political accomodation going on in Iraq that he refers to as an "ATM peace." That would be a real setback for the MSM, given its fall-back position that "there might be military progress but there's been...

The President's escalation strategy has failed. We need to stop refereeing this civil war, and start getting out now. -- Hillary Clinton, statement of August 23, 2007 As many had forseen, the escalation has failed to produce the intended results. -- letter to Pres. Bush from Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, June 12, 2007 That's not a cement mixer you hear. It's the collective Dem gnashing of teeth. Things have gotten so bad -- meaning good -- in Iraq that now even the New York Times is reporting it. Have a look at Willie Geist -- sitting in for Joe...

When thinking of Hillary Clinton, do the adjectives "moderate" and "spontaneous" spring to mind? They do for Joe Klein, assigned by Time magazine to write its cover-story profile of her last week. Joe Scarborough let Klein's characterization slide this morning. But when Klein played the "spontaneous" card on last night's "Hardball," Chris Matthews devastated him with a clip of Hillary at her wooden worst. Klein offered his assessment during the 8:30 AM ET half-hour of today's "Morning Joe. View video here.

On October 20th, I posted this item at NewsBusters: "Obama: No Hand on Heart for National Anthem," which included a "Time" photo of Barack Obama at Sen. Tom Harkin's steak fry in September. In contrast with the other candidates, Obama was shown not placing his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem. A reproduction of the photo is seen here, as displayed on today's "Morning Joe." I believe I may have been the first person in the blogosphere to discuss the story. Fox News made reference to the matter on a couple shows, but to my...

"I'm a Dan Man myself, so I tend to look at this from his viewpoints [sic]." -- WaPo media critic Tom Shales, on today's "Morning Joe." It's a morning for candor on "Morning Joe." Earlier, Mika "Bubbles" Brzezinski had admitted that "the SATs were not my strong suit." Later in the show, the notoriously tough-on-conservatives [see, e.g., MRC item #3 here] Tom Shales acknowledged that he has a soft spot for Dan Rather, calling himself a "Dan Man." I'll say. Despite the overwhelming mountain of uncontroverted and incontrovertible evidence, Shales, loyal to Rather to the end, refuses to admit...

<p>Darn it, when will Osama Bin Laden's jack-in-the-box moments start hurting Republicans, as they should? That was the prevailing sentiment on today's "Morning Joe." At 6:40 a.m. EDT, reacting to the news that OBL is planning to release a new video to mark the sixth anniversary of 9-11, Host Joe Scarborough expressed his perplexity to NBC News political director Chuck Todd.</p>

Most of Dan Rather's pontifications on today's "Morning Joe" rolled off my back, as I flipped between his performance and that of Tiger Woods over the closing holes at Carnoustie. But something made me sit up and take notice. At 8:34 A.M. EDT, Rather suddenly blurted out: "I'm big on personal responsibility." And yes, he managed to do so without laughing. This from the man who notoriously brought us Memogate, yet who to this day has refused to squarely admit the truth: that the documents were blatant forgeries. For documentation of Rather's dodges, weaves and rejections of personal responsibility, check...

Live Earth's TV ratings might have been dismal, and the extravangza took heat for the liberal use of profanity by its performers. But at least the concert series served some purpose: providing comedic fodder for today's "Morning Joe." Host Joe Scarborough and sidekick John Ridley had considerable fun at the expense of Ann Curry, a host of NBC's coverage of the event, whose interview of Al Gore gave new meaning to "touchy-feely."At about 6:45 A.M. EDT this morning, the MSNBC show rolled clips from the Curry-Gore interview in which Curry repeatedly grabbed Gore's arm and ended with a manic hand-pump.View...

US television news presenter refused to lead her bulletin with the latest Paris Hilton story, then screwed up, shredded and attempted to set fire to the script on air. Mika Brzezinski, co-presenter of MSNBC's Morning Joe programme, refused to read out the story of the celebrity socialite's release from jail ahead of items on Iraq and developments at the White House. A clip showing the presenter's stand has been viewed more than 250,000 times on the popular video website YouTube. It shows Ms Brzezinski repeatedly refusing to read the Hilton script and arguing with her co-presenters about its place as...