By Mark Finkelstein | Friday July 09, 2010, 09:04 AM
Note: the heat wave has gotten to me. Please read this one with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
I was wondering why Mark Halperin was missing from the Morning Joe set today. His “Game Change” co-author John Heilemann was there, and the two are normally a matched set. Then the show rolled a segment on the conviction and deportation of those ten Russian spies, in a deal for the return of several Western agents.
Wait a second! Who is that guy, second-from-the-right in the bottom row [photo left]? Sure looks a lot like Halperin [photo right]. The spy’s nom de guerre: Donald Heathfield [real name Andrey Bezrukov].
Halperin. Heathfield. Mark missing from Morning Joe. Hmmm . . . (Continued)
Chris Licht didn’t seem merely OK on Morning Joe today. The show’s executive producer was looking absolutely mah-ve-lous. Amazing, considering that little more than a month ago Licht suffered the rupture of a brain aneurysm, leading to intracranial bleeding.
Fortunately, with Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough apparently acting as fierce advocates for their stricken comrade, Licht was given the best of care at the George Washington University Hospital in DC, and was treated by a top doc in the field, Vivek Deshmukh. (Continued)
Faced with his administration’s failure to head off the Christmas Day and Times Square bombers, or to stop the Fort Hood shooter before his murderous rampage, Pres. Obama sent his chief counter-terrorism adviser out this morning with apparent instructions to resort to that last refuge of scoundrels: patriotism.
When on today’s Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace confronted John Brennan, PBO’s top terrorism advisor, with this record of failure, Brennan sought to twist the question into an attack on our nation’s troops, invoking their patriotism. (Continued)
By Mark Finkelstein | Monday April 19, 2010, 07:22 AM
Some cross-network love for Jake Tapper on Morning Joe today, as MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski expressed respect for ABC’s Jake Tapper, and disappointment that ABC News had not chosen him as permanent host of its Sunday talk show, This Week. Instead of elevating its home-grown talent, ABC has brought in Christiane Amanpour, late of CNN, to fill the vacancy created by George Stephanopoulos’ move to Good Morning America.
Joe and Mika made their comments after rolling tape of Tapper asking Bill Clinton, in an interview aired yesterday, whether he should have been considered to fill the impending Supreme Court vacancy. (Continued)
Forget “throws like a girl.” Try “throws worse than an octogenarian” . . .
How weak was Pres. Obama’s first pitch on Opening Day this week? Well, have a look at officially-ancient John Paul Stevens throwing out a first pitch, and compare and contrast with PBO’s puny effort [after the jump].
MSNBC ran the clip of Stevens’ throw in the course of a segment on the Supreme Court justice’s announcement today of his retirement. (Continued)
By Mark Finkelstein | Friday April 09, 2010, 07:52 AM
Bob Schieffer predicts that Newt Gingrich will make a run for the presidency and Sara Palin won’t.
Appearing on The Early Show today, Schieffer saw Palin’s resignation as Alaska governor as too big of a political obstacle in the primaries. Here’s how the Face The Nation host imagined a GOP primary opponent putting it to Palin in a debate: (Continued)
By Mark Finkelstein | Saturday April 03, 2010, 01:56 PM
There I was this morning, watching a Today segment about tougher new airport screening procedures. A clip rolled of Homeland Security honcho Janet Napolitano talking about the program when, suddenly I said to myself: wait a second! Who’s that standing behind Napolitano?
Darned if it wasn’t . . . Patrick Kennedy! You remember good old Rep. Kennedy: the fellow who a few years ago . . . shoved a 58-yr. old airport security screener when she tried to stop him from barging through without submitting his oversized bag to x-ray screening .
So what was Kennedy doing there? Then it clicked: Patrick must be Janet’s poster boy—Exhibit A of the kind of person, under the new plan, who will be subjected to extra screening, maybe even put on a no-fly list!
By Mark Finkelstein | Monday March 29, 2010, 07:56 PM
Ron Christie has to be among the most loyal Republicans around. The former aide to Dick Cheney and George Allen is a regular on Ed Schultz’s MSNBC show, where he ardently defends GOP positions, typically in the face of a liberal double-team.
So when Christie comes this close to calling on RNC Chairman Michael Steele to resign, it’s news. And that’s exactly what happened on this evening’s Ed Show . . . (Continued)
By Mark Finkelstein | Wednesday March 24, 2010, 07:34 AM
You might think you’re a citizen with certain unalienable rights. But in the eyes of Pres. Obama, you’re no better than an acid raindrop . . .
On today’s Good Morning America, constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley–no raging conservative he–raised doubts as to the constitutionality of the way ObamaCare negates state law and forces every American to buy a government-approved health insurance policy–under penalty of law.
Turley went on to explain how ObamaCare treats citizens like pollution: a problem to be dealt with.(Continued)
By Mark Finkelstein | Tuesday March 23, 2010, 09:16 PM
Life, liberty and the . . . “right” to health care?
Chris Dodd has proclaimed that “every American” has the “right” to health care. He said so on tonight’s Countdown, while reminiscing about Ted Kennedy.
If health care is a “right,” what about food, shelter and clothing? Are they all legally enforceable rights? Where do these “rights” derive from? What country are we living in? Is it one that the Founders would recognize?
Here was Dodd, getting misty about Ted with guest host Lawrence O’Donnell, and creating the “right” some of use didn’t realize existed . . . (Continued)
Note: the heat wave has gotten to me. Please read this one with tongue planted firmly in cheek.
