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 . . .

Readers will recall that MSNBC recently named Halperin its “senior political analyst.”  Sounds like a perfect fit.  Then again, might Halperin be a deep Obama/MSNBC mole, sent into the belly of the Russian beast to learn how it’s done in the Motherland?  Just wondrin’