WE'RE WITH JOE:

MSNBC prez defends convention team (MICHAEL CALDERONE | 8/27/08, Politico)

In addition to Olbermann, MSNBC personalities Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough and David Shuster were involved in Denver controversies.

On Monday evening, Olbermann interrupted Scarborough while he was talking about McCain being competitive in the polls. “Jesus, Joe, why don’t you get a shovel?” Olbermann remarked.

On “Morning Joe” the following day, a clearly agitated Scarborough went off on Shuster during a discussion of Iraq, which quickly devolved over several cringe-worthy minutes into personal attacks, such as Scarborough telling the world how his colleague missed the show three times by oversleeping. "Are you Rip Van Shuster?” Scarborough asked. “Have you been sleeping for the past couple of months?”

But Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, became enraged when Shuster made a reference to “your party.” Asked by Scarborough what his party was, Shuster said he was an “independent.”

"I feel so comforted by the fact that you're an independent,” Scarborough said, in a mocking tone. “I bet everybody at MSNBC has independent on their voting cards. Oh, we're down the middle now.” (Shuster left the set, but returned later to hug it out, "Entourage"-style.)

That night, Scarborough told NPR that he “get[s] frustrated by people who have an obvious partisan bias that don't proclaim that bias.”

Why not just declare that MSNBC has an agenda and let the partisan guns rip? It's not like the networks fool anybody.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 28, 2008 2:31 PM