Free Republic

Wow! That was Mika Brzezinski's repeated reaction to Robert Gates' amazingly frank take on the presidential field. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, the former Defense Secretary shot down all contenders mentioned, dumped on two who have not yet entered the race, and retroactively knocked President Obama for always thinking he was the smartest guy in the room. Here was Gates' rap on various candidates: Ted Cruz: people proposing carpet bombing "don't know what they're talking about." Joe Biden: "I don't think so." Donald Trump: "if you have never beeen in government, your ability to make the government work is going...

Jim Webb may be considering trying to become the next Ralph Nader by running as an independent. Webb has been pretty active on social media, going after both President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton for their policies. He’s tapping into the populist anger that those who are turned off by both Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Ted Cruz might have, but Webb is probably counting on their support too. Ben Brody at Bloomberg Politics Webb is going to hop back into the presidential fray. Since dropping out of the race for the Democratic nomination, Webb has continued to maintain his...

The fight between Bernie Sanders and the DNC over the data breaching scandal is getting even more sexier. One adviser tells Yahoo News fired national data director Josh Uretsky was recommended to them…by the DNC itself! "It's not as if we conjured this guy Josh from thin air. This is an individual … who was recommended to us by the DNC and NGP VAN," the adviser said.According to the adviser, one of the references that Uretsky gave when he applied to work with the campaign was the DNC's National Data Director Andrew Brown, who works closely with the shared voter...

Basta: enough already! It's not that John Heilemann thinks Joe Biden is a liar, it's just that he's not convinced that Biden knows his own mind yet. And so it was that on today's Morning Joe, Heilemann declared "if he called me this morning and said I'm going to get in today at noon, I wouldn't believe him because I think there's a chance that by noon he'd change his mind." Heilemann used two words with rhyming Middle English endings to describe Biden's charged emotional state: fraught and wrought. View the video here.

There's an understandable tendency not to take Donny Deutsch too seriously. He can come across not as a credible political analyst but as a guy more interested in his abs and biceps and the next lady at the next Hamptons cocktail party. But let's give Donny his due: as an ad man, he at times offers interesting insights on politics seen in terms of brands and marketing. He also serves as a credible bellwether for a certain segment of the East Coast Dem donor class. And so it was noteworthy that on today's Morning Joe, Deutsch declared that the string...

As we would cynically say back in the good old days in Queens [insert NYC accent]: yeah, right. On today's Morning Joe, Associated Press White House correspondent Julie Pace claimed that one thing that made Hillary hesitate in deciding to run for president was that she "worried that her candidacy would block out Joe Biden who is quite a close friend of hers." When Joe Scarborough expressed skepticism, and the panel burst into guffaws, Joe said "Good. I'm not the only one laughing at that." View the video here.

Joe Scarborough has a warning for conservatives: going after Jeb Bush will make him more likely to run for president. According to Scarborough, speaking on today's Morning Joe, Jeb is "his mother's son," "kind of "cranky" and "rough around the edges." If conservatives think they will drive Jeb out of the race by attacking him, "they've got him played exactly backwards." To the contrary, conservative attacks will make Jeb more likely to run "to prove them wrong."View the video here.

It was one thing for Joe Scarborough to make the case for Mitt Romney, arguing that these frightening times demand the kind of competence Romney offers. But on today's Morning Joe, it was stunning to hear a New York Dem like Donny Deutsch say something very similar. According to the ad man: "There is a psychological reason to go to Mitt Romney, and that is: wow! We kind of made a mistake four years ago. We get to do a do-over. He was right about Syria, he was right about a lot of things."View the video here.

Chris Christie might have millions of admirers across the country, people who love the Jersey governor's blunt style. But among the Republican media and political elites who populate Morning Joe, Christie's a no-hoper. That's what Joe Scarborough divulged on today's Morning Joe. Said Scarborough: "off the air in Republican circles . . . nobody thinks Christie can win." View the video here.