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MSNBC Tag

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 09, 2016 29 Comments
Quick: name the woman who was the object of Donald Trump's crude remarks on the hot mic. Bet most of us can't. Because her identity, while not a secret, has not been featured in the coverage. For example, this Insurrectionist sampled most of the Sunday talks shows this morning and didn't hear the woman's name, or race, mentioned once, nor was her photo displayed. But that won't stop someone determined to drag race and racism into the matter from doing so. Enter Tara Dowdell. The former Apprentice participant, appearing on Al Sharpton's MSNBC show this morning, claimed that there is "more concern and outrage" about Trump's hot mic comments because they were "focused on a white woman." Dowdell's statement amounted to an accusation of racism against Americans at large—you deplorables!

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 06, 2016 26 Comments
Right, Donny. Because who could ever come up with an argument against Hillary Clinton, possibly the most corrupt, scandal-ridden, jaded candidate in the history of presidential politics? On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough, to his credit, fulminated against anti-Trump MSM reporters who are supposed to write stories down the middle but are instead "openly cheering for Hillary Clinton." That's when Donny Deutsch defended media bias, saying that reporters have a "conscience" and that "sometimes there's no other side to an argument."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 05, 2016 15 Comments
Still disloyal after all these years . . . Eight years after serving as a Sarah Palin aide, Nicolle Wallace can't stop trashing the woman she was presumably paid to support. On today's Morning Joe, Wallace suggested that if ignorance of foreign policy were an asset, "Sarah Palin would be Vice-President of the United States." Wallace's unworthy remark came in the context of a discussion of Libertarian president candidate Gary Johnson's claim that his own ignorance of foreign policy was an asset, since it makes him less likely to get the country involved in foreign wars.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 05, 2016 12 Comments
How well did things go for Mike Pence and the Trump-Pence ticket tonight? Even Chris Matthews—no doubt to the horror of Rachel Maddow who was helping oversee the post-debate commentary on MSNBC—had to declare Pence the "winner." Perhaps even worse for the denizens of MSNBC and its viewers, Matthews said Pence looked "strong" and like a "grown-up," whereas Tim Kaine came across as "desperate." Ouch!

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 04, 2016 5 Comments
Joe Scarborough was probably just trying to make the point that Donald Trump is very unpopular with black voters, but he wound up saying something that some might view as insulting to African-Americans. Interviewing Al Sharpton on today's Morning Joe, he asked about the Rev's view that Hillary has not been doing enough to appeal to black voters. As Sharpton prefaced his remarks by observing that Hillary is way ahead of Trump among black voters, Scarborough interjected "my dog's way ahead of Trump among black voters." It's amusing to watch the video: as Joe gets to the end of his statement, it seems to dawn on him that he's wandered down a dangerous path, but by then it's too late so he plows ahead!

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on October 03, 2016 21 Comments
This Insurrectionist finds Mark Halperin to be among the most cautious and level-headed of pundits. The With All Due Respect host typically avoids wild speculation and is generally of the on-the-one-hand and on the other school of analysis. So it was striking that on today's Morning Joe, Halperin, with some prodding from Joe Scarborough, suggested that Donald Trump might be planning a big October surprise in the nature of a "revelation" about Hillary Clinton. One sensed that Halperin had some inside knowledge of the situation, though all he mentioned in support of his theory is that Trump is surrounded by people such as David Bossie, who has spent a quarter-century investigating the Clintons' personal lives.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 30, 2016 21 Comments
Mika Brzezinski prefaced her remarks by saying she wanted to phrase them "carefully," but then, in the most careless way, Brzezinski clearly accused Donald Trump of being mentally ill. On today's Morning Joe, reacting to a depiction of Trump by New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters as being incapable of taking criticism of his performance, leading his advisers to communicate with him via the media, Mika said that was "very sick" and "it sounds like they're dealing with someone who, doesn't—how do I say this carefully—is very troubled, is very disturbed."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 29, 2016 32 Comments
Mika Brzezinski went on an epic feminist rant on today's Morning Joe, condemning not just Donald Trump for his comments about a former Miss Universe, but raging against the entire beauty pageant culture in which women are judged on their . . beauty. Mika summed up her intellectual argument this way: "you stupid men." Brzezinski considers it unfair that beauty pageant contestants are expected to be trim, whereas men like Trump and Newt Gingrich "can walk around as rotund as all get out." But if those guys had entered the Mr. Universe contest, every inch of their oiled bodies would come under the microscope. But they haven't. Thank God. And if a woman in exercise of her free will enters a beauty contest, that's her choice.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 28, 2016 11 Comments
Perhaps John Warner's biggest claim to fame is a distinction he shares with a good-sized chunk of the older male demographic: having once been married to Elizabeth Taylor. But the former Republican senator from Virginia found another way to get himself some attention today: by endorsing Hillary for president. Interviewed by Andrea Mitchell on her MSNBC show this afternoon, Warner managed to make his endorsement mainly about himself. In the course of their brief conversation, Warner let it be known: that he had been on the lawn for the famous handshake between Rabin and Araft; that he had served in both the Navy and the Marines; that he devoted much of his life "I say with a sense of humility" to national security; that he had been a leader on the Armed Services committee for 30 years; that he had been Hillary's "boss" as the Chairman of the Armed Services Committee; and that the voters in Virginia had "supported me so strongly."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 27, 2016 30 Comments
The screencap says it all . . . on today's Morning Joe, reacting to last night's presidential debate, Mika Brzezinski was nothing short of despondent. Brzezinski repeatedly argued that although Hillary was "amazing," did "great," etc., it is Donald Trump who walked away the winner politically because he was able to "connect" with the concerns of broad swaths of the electorate. Readers are encouraged to view the video to understand the depths of Mika's despair.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 25, 2016 11 Comments
You know that feeling when during an interview or a debate your guy is hit with a question, and you sit there just praying that he will give a certain answer? Wish fulfilled for this Insurrectionist during Joy Reid's MSNBC show today. Reid asked conservative pundit Hugh Hewitt whether he doesn't "worry" about how a President Donald Trump would make a life-or-death decision given his "comportment and demeanor." Shot back the nimble Hewitt: "No. I am much more worried about Secretary Clinton fleeing the State Department at 1:00 A.M in the morning on the night of Benghazi." Zing!

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 23, 2016 30 Comments
Mika Brzezinski used an unfortunate metaphor on today's Morning Joe to describe Hillary and Trump's different approaches to preparing for Monday's first presidential debate. Said Mika: "you think of like the two law students preparing for the bar. The guy is polishing his car to calm down. And the girl is studying up to the last minute." Mika is apparently unaware that Hillary flunked the DC bar exam after graduating from Yale law school in 1973. 67% of the people taking the exam at the same time passed, putting Hillary in the bottom third. Maybe instead of studying, she was too busy . . . polishing Bill's car.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 21, 2016 17 Comments
This Insurrectionist regularly monitors Chris Matthews' Hardball show. And while there's little doubt that come November 8th Matthews will pull the lever for Hillary, he has given Donald Trump a fairer shake than other MSNBC hosts. I chalk it up to Matthews' regular-guy upbringing. Factoid: Matthews did a short stint as a Capitol Hill police officer. A striking example of Matthews' relative fairness came tonight. After airing a clip of Trump criticizing the police shooting of an African-American man in Tulsa, OK, Matthews repeatedly pressed Hillary surrogate Stephanie Schriock, the president of the pro-abortion rights EMILY's List, to agree that Trump was "right in saying that." She clumsily dodged and weaved, but under persistent questioning by Matthews, Schriock eventually conceded "yes, I think so." Said a satisfied Matthews: "that's all I'm asking."

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 20, 2016 9 Comments
Andrea Mitchell has her unmentionables in major undulations over the fact that Donald Trump, Jr. posted a tweet analogizing terrorists hiding among bona fide refugees to a few poisonous Skittles in an otherwise okay bowl. And so on her MSNBC show today, Mitchell teed up Dem Rep. Adam Schiff to take a big swing at the Trump campaign. Schiff was only too happy to oblige, piously denouncing Trump, Jr., whom he described as a "rotten apple" falling not far from the tree. Schiff accused Trump, Jr. of saying "essentially, children who are fleeing the war and violence are like poison candy." The truth is that far from analogizing innocent children to poison candy, the point of the tweet was that terrorists would infiltrate themselves among the innocent to enter our country and wreak mayhem here.

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 19, 2016 19 Comments
Legal Insurrection readers who are also Rush Limbaugh fans know that one of El Rushbo's pet peeves is the way liberals have tried to co-opt the term "our values" into their political lexicon. There was a perfect—if annoying—illustration of the phenomenon on today's With All Due Respect. In clips of Hillary and President Obama, and during a live interview of Obama spokesman Josh Earnest, discussing the latest terrorist bombings in NYC and New Jersey, the v-word was bandied about no fewer than six times. View the video for the nails-on-blackboard montage!

Posted by Mark Finkelstein on September 14, 2016 15 Comments
How deeply has Joe Scarborough dived into Hillary's tank? On today's Morning Joe, Scarborough offered Hillary a script of how she should attack "right-wing Republicans." Howard Dean was so impressed by Scarborough's work on Hillary's behalf that he exclaimed "I actually think you could actually be her speechwriter. That's exactly what she should be saying. I'm sure you don't want that job, but I'm just saying, you know?" Howard, don't be so sure Scarborough doesn't want that job. Sure looked this morning like Joe was auditioning for a spot in Hillary's West Wing.
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