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Donny Deutsch is host of The Entrepreneurs, a primetime special profiling the success stories of America’s entrepreneurs on CNBC. I thought I would introduce him to you because I didn’t know who he was until he appeared on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” today, and I assume you haven’t heard of him before either. As said, despite him being an absolute nobody, hosts Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough invited Deutsch to appear on their show nonetheless. ‘Why?’ I wondered, ‘why would they invite somebody no one has ever heard of?’ The answer to my question came after only a few minutes: that’s...

Who is Nancy LeaMond? That's what I wanted to know after watching AARP's Exec. VP defending her organization's endorsement of ObamaCare to Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe today. Click, Wikipedia, click: whaddayaknow? Turns out that before coming to AARP, LeaMond was a senior Clinton administration appointee and a top Dem congressional staffer. Surprise, surprise! View video here.

Here is video of a Morning Joe Panel today discussing Sen. Joe Lieberman's statement that he will not support a Health Care Bill with a "Public Option." They said Lieberman has signaled he will simply not support what the Democrats are trying to do, and they tried to say it is because he is too closely tied to the Insurance Industry. The whole panel was made of liberals - Mika Brzeznski, Mike Barnacle, and Lawrence O'Donnell - and you can tell they are really put out with Lieberman! . . . (VIDEO)

Here is video of Robert Gibbs on "Morning Joe" talking about Afghanistan. Gibbs was asked when he thinks Obama will make a decision on Afghanistan. He answered "I think in the coming weeks, I think in the next several weeks the President will make a decision and announce that decision and talk to the American people." Gibbs was also asked "does the President still consider Afghanistan a war of necessity?" He answered "absolutely." (Video)

So why can't Anita Dunn use Beck's red phone? This is hilarious!

After ripping Rush Limbaugh yesterday, Morning Joe sports reporter Fred Roggin today announced he would henceforth be keeping his mouth shut on the subject--after getting an earful from his wife. As we noted, during his Morning Joe sports slot yesterday Roggin took a number of shots at Rush and his quest to purchase an interest in the NFL's St. Louis Rams. Among other barbs, Roggin falsely claimed that Rush had been "canned from ESPN for racist remarks about Eagle's quarterback Donovan McNabb." A chastened Roggin had this to say this morning . . . View video here.

When candidate Obama talked about bringing us all together, this is presumably not what he had in mind . . . There was surprising consensus on today’s Morning Joe around the fact that this is an arrogant White House. It was press secretary Robert Gibb’s boast—responding to Pres. Bush’s rather mild remarks–that “we kept score last November and we won” that set things off. Willie Geist analogized it to an athlete whose team is ahead telling an opponent to “look at the scoreboard.” Pat Buchanan took it from there, with Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski and even John Harwood, not known...

<p>Was Joe Biden giving solid advice . . . or sewing the seeds of panic? Asked on Today this morning how he’d counsel family members in light of the swine flu, the Veep said he wouldn’t take a plane, a subway train, or be in any other confined space.</p>

Draw your own conclusions. Personally, I think more of us should be crying.

That’s Erin Burnett holding up a $100 billion Zimbabwe bill. It will buy you about three eggs. Could the USA be on the road to becoming the next Zimbabwe? Very doubtful. But the threat of high inflation is very real, and that’s what prompted Erin to display the bill during her Morning Joe appearance today. The CNBCer was responding to Joe Scarborough’s questioning about the inflationary risk of the government’s decision, announced yesterday, to create $1 trillion out of thin air that it will use to buy Treasury bonds and mortgage securities. View video here.

Are today’s politicians and bureaucrats smarter than the ones we had a few years ago? Apparently so, since the new fad in the political set is to claim that we can avoid future financial crises via “smarter” regulation. We saw a perfect example of the phenomenon on Morning Joe today. First in a clip from Tim Geithner, then in live comments by two pundits, all agreed that smarter regulation is our salvation. There are only a few little problems with that theory . . . View video here.

Brzezinksi fears class warfare. Not Mika. Zbigniew. And not Barney Frank on the Meet the Press. Real, blood-in-the-streets riots. Jimmy Carter’s former National Security Adviser expressed his concern about the possibility of riots on Morning Joe today. To stave them off, he proposes the creation of a voluntary National Solidarity Fund, whose contributors would be the fat cats who have made out well in recent times. View video.

So what if Tim Geithner freaked out Wall Street to the tune of a 382-point Dow dive? Wall Street wasn’t really his audience. That, according to Andrea Mitchell, is the Obama administration’s defense of Geithner’s universally-panned performance on Tuesday. Mitchell appeared on Morning Joe today. It was David Gregory’s “who’s-in-charge-here” question and Joe Scarborough’s ripping of Geithner’s claim that he’d only been there two weeks that prompted Mitchell to speak up for the Obama administration. Next time I’m in a jam, I’d hope to have an advocate as passionate as Andrea. Watch 38 second into the video, as Mitchell can...

Pres. Obama might have his ardent admirers, but his Treasury Secretary’s performance before the Senate yesterday has been universally panned. No one, though, is likely to outdo Dylan Ratigan when it comes to giving a scatological thumbs down to Tim Geithner’s tap dance. Ratigan, of CNBC, was a guest on Morning Joe today. Asked by Joe Scarborough to describe yesterday’s performance by Geithner, Dylan twice used the expression seen in the headline. The screencap shows Mika Brzezinski’s mortified reaction to his earthy choice of words. Ratigan can’t be accused of springing an unwelcome surprise on his hosts, since as you’ll...

As long as you don’t get fooled into thinking Andrea Mitchell is an objective reporter, listening to her can actually be very instructive. Floating somewhere between the journalistic and governmental sectors, and with her extensive contacts, Mitchell serves as something of the unofficial spokeswoman of the center/left inside-the-Beltway establishment. Want to know what's been said in bien-pensant Washington? Just listen to Andrea. Mitchell’s appearance on Morning Joe today was a perfect illustration of the phenomenon. Making the case for the Obama stimulus plan, Mitchell would at times cite the arguments of others, at others speak in her own voice before...

This was the pot calling the kettle . . . broke. Talk about chutzpah, this was the journalistic equivalent of John Edwards and Eliot Spitzer co-authoring an advice book on how to stay faithful to your wife [foreword by Bill Clinton]. By its cover story this week, Time deigns to dole out advice to newspapers about how to save themselves. This from the same Time whose parent, Time Inc., just a few months ago announced massive layouts. Time Inc. is in turn owned by Time Warner, which just yesterday announced a fourth-quarter loss of . . . $16 billion. Time...

I don’t claim to have a sure-fire solution for the economy. But I’m pretty confident there’s something certain to prop up pay-per-view ratings: a steel cage match between Arianna Huffington and Mark Haines. The pair put in separate appearances on Morning Joe. After the never-shy Huffington called on the government to stop “protecting the equity holders” in banks, Haines came on and called Huffington “clueless” and suggested “in the future, you might want to get someone who knows what they’re talking about.” He pointed out that, contrary to Arianna’s claim, equity holders in the banks have been “destroyed.” As you’ll...

Would you waterboard an al Qaeda member for three minutes to get information to save the lives of nine passenger-loads of innocent civilians? Chrystia Freeland wouldn't. The US managing editor of the Financial Times made the stunning statement during the course of a classic Morning Joe dust-up today. Joe Scarborough, with help from tag-team partner Pat Buchanan, went after Freeland on her opposition to waterboarding and similar interrogation techniques. At one point Scarborough called Freeland "sophomoric." Later, the exasperated MJ host gave his guest some of the same treatment to which he'd recently been subjected by Zbigniew Brzezinski, telling Freeland...

Mika, minus six bucks.Inauguration Day is coming! And this morning Joe Scarborough was broadcasting 'Morning Joe' from Washington, D.C., where Mayor Adrian Fenty was to be on hand to talk about the city's security and traffic plans for Jan. 20. But the public safety angle got a different twist when Mr. Scarborough revealed that an hour before his co-host, Mika Brzezinski, had been mugged outside her Washington hotel while waiting for her car service. "A guy walks across the street straight for her," Mr. Scarborough said, adding the hotel should "at least police five feet outside their own doors." Mrs....

It's said that to work, humor must contain a kernel of truth. No wonder David Letterman's effort to wring humor out of the shoe-throwing incident fell so flat, as he joked that Muntadhar al-Zeidi had been offered a show, of all places, on Fox News. Letterman was playing off the report that al-Zeidi is reported to be hot-tempered and possess poor journalistic skills. How bad was the Late Show's bon mot? After airing it on Morning Joe today, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist gave it a double thumbs-down. View video here.

B.C. and A.D? Get with it, old man. It's B.B./A.B. now. And George W. might have been "misunderestimated" as he engaged in "strategery." But that's so, like, yesterday. Barack Obama is "pre-deortained." By whom? Spike Lee stopped short of saying it is God's hand at work. But he was clearly speaking in quasi-religous terms as he discussed The One on today's Morning Joe. View video here. SPIKE LEE: I say, it's very simple. You have B.B.: Before Barack and A.B.: After Barack. And a bit later . . . LEE: What he's done is historic. This coalition which he's gotten:...

Morning Talk Shows renewed thread because the old one seems lost.

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...