Free Republic

It's official: Nicolle Wallace really doesn't like Sarah Palin. On today's Morning Joe, Wallace—who was Palin's chief handler during the 2008 campaign—took the occasion of Palin's speech at the Iowa Freedom Summit on Saturday to jab at the former veep candidate. Wallace had been asked to comment on conservative columnist Byron York's panning of Palin's speech as "long, rambling, and at times barely coherent." York's column also passed along criticism of the speech by a number of Iowa Republicans. Wallace said that it was interesting to see York come "full circle," since back in 2008 he had been a staunch...

He did stop short of claiming his approach would lead to "peace in our time." But Zbigniew Brzezinski has otherwise clearly argued for the appeasement of radical Islam. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, Jimmy Carter's former national security adviser criticized some of the satire directed at Islam as "unnecessarily nasty" and "extraordinarily provocative." He said that it was very important "to avoid becoming the number one enemy of the fanatics." Brzezinski argued that we must not be engaged "in anything that appears to be a struggle against Islam," and he criticized President George W. Bush for speaking of a war...

It's good that we live in a country where citizens feel free to criticize elected officials to their face. Just wondering, though: when was the last time that freedom was exercised on MSNBC to tell a Dem official that something he said was "inane?" On today's Morning Joe, Donny Deutsch angrily asked Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Miami "why do you say an inane thing like that?" Deutsch's diss came in the context of an exchange in which Diaz-Balart told Donny that his notion that the Cuba deal was "liberating" for the Cuban people was "naive." Deutsch later retaliated in...

You'd think Joe Scarborough would have learned by now to avoid inflammatory statements about the Trayvon Martin case. Back when that case first broke, Scarborough immediately branded George Zimmerman a "murderer." But there was Scarborough at it again this morning. On today's Morning Joe, he sought to contrast the Michael Brown case with that of Trayvon Martin. In Ferguson, "we don't know the evidence," said Joe. Whereas in the Trayvon Martin case, Scarborough said "you had a guy chase a guy around a neighborhood and shoot him because he was black." View the video here.

Talk about a hypocritical, mealy-mouthed non-apology apology . . . On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough condemned Republicans who "support[ed] George Zimmerman before they even knew the facts of the case." Scarborough then added: "you know, I got out early, said some things about George Zimmerman myself. I shouldn't have said, perhaps. I got overly emotional. I'm not in office. If I were in office I would have apologized." Scarborough didn't reveal to viewers the "some things" he had said about Zimmerman. In fact, early on in the case, long before the facts were on the table, Scarborough branded Zimmerman...

Talk about a hypocritical, mealy-mouthed non-apology apology . . . On today's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough condemned Republicans who "support[ed] George Zimmerman before they even knew the facts of the case."  Scarborough then added: "you know, I got out early, said some things about George Zimmerman myself, I shouldn't have said, perhaps. I got overly emotional. But I'm not in office. And if I were in office I would have apologized." Scarborough didn't reveal to viewers the "some things" he had said about Zimmerman. In fact, early on in the case, long before the facts were on the table, Scarborough...

Amidst all the Morning Joe talk about the Eric Garner case today, there was Al Sharpton looking out for #1. When Mika Brzezinski began to praise NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio for the absence of violence last night, Sharpton jumped in to shut her down and claim credit for himself. There's "the mayor and other mechanisms," sniffed Sharpton, silencing her, but the real credit for the lack of violence goes to "movements" and "organized bodies." Which movements and organized bodies, might you ask? Well, Sharpton—sporting a big button from his National Action Network—went on to praise the way a non-violent...

Jim Miklaszewski kept it relatively diplomatic, declaring "there's something amiss here." But Joe Scarborough was blunt: "boy, that's damning," said the Morning Joe host. They were characterizing Miklaszewski's description of the Obama administration's "micromanagement" of the Department of Defense in which communication flows only in one direction: from the White House to the Pentagon. On today's Morning Joe, NBC's Pentagon correspondent reported that former SecDefs Robert Gates and Leon Panetta had recently "lambaste[d]" that micromanagement. View the video here.

Jonathan Gruber was “the man” behind Obamacare, according to a former adviser to President Barack Obama. “The problem is not that Gruber helped them put Obamacare together, because he was the man,” Steve Rattner, who worked as Obama’s lead adviser in 2009 for the Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry, said Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “The problem is what he said in the last two weeks and how the White House has handled it,” Rattner added. Rattner said his influence was enormous. “Jonathan Gruber was, back in the day in 2009, the guru on health care,” said Rattner,...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)On his Wednesday radio show, conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh emphatically stated that it was not the job of newly elected Republican majority in both chambers of Congress to govern, work together, find common ground or compromise. Instead, Limbaugh told his audience the message was clear, which was the American people wanted Congress to stop President Barack Obama. On MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday, host Joe Scarborough and Bloomberg Politics John Heilemann dismissed that suggestion from Limbaugh and warned Republicans not to follow that advice. “If you listen to talk radio and some of the right-wing, the far right...

According to the Weather Channel, its 6am "Wake Up with Al Roker" beat both CNN's New Day" and MSNBC's "Morning Joe" this month:"Morning Joe" has been shedding viewers for about a year. "New Day" is shaping up to be one of television's all-time titanic disasters. In other words, it's not that Al Roker's numbers are so high, it's that CNN's and MSNBC's numbers are so low. Overall, this is another sign of the slow-motion fall of left-wing cable news networks. While -- thanks to great producing, on-air talent, and a willingness to cover news stories the left-wing MSM ignore --...

Did Chuck Todd just do it again? His comment a couple of weeks ago that Dem Alison Lundergan Grimes "disqualified herself" for refusing to say whether she voted for Barack Obama was quickly made into an ad by the McConnell campaign. On today's Morning Joe, Todd made a highly quotable claim about another race. Todd described the campaign for a congressional seat in a district located in Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn as "a fight between mob families." That sent Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough scrambling to disassociate themselves from the Meet the Press moderator. And at the end...

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.

Alison Lundergan Grimes (D), who is trying to unseat Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) this fall, appeared before the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board on Thursday to make her pitch for their endorsement. The life-long Democrat, whose father represented Kentucky for the party in the state House and who herself has been on the ballot in the state on the Democratic ticket, was asked a simple question. Did she vote for President Obama in 2008 and 2012? And she didn't answer. Repeatedly......... .... there was no reason to do this. Grimes is fairly new on the national scene, but she's...

Remember when dissent was patriotic? When people like Hillary Clinton screeched that "we have a right to disagree with any administration?" Forget about it. That's so, like, 2003. You know, when George W. Bush was President. Things are different today. Now, criticizing a sitting president is wrong. Very wrong. Just ask Joe Scarborough, who on today's Morning Joe accused Leon Panetta of a "lack of character" for criticizing President Obama in his book and public appearances. View the video here.

Whatever liberal leanings he might have, sometimes the political animal in Chuck Todd just can't contain itself. Take today's Morning Joe, where Todd host absolutely annihilated Alison Lundergan Grimes, Dem candidate for senator from Kentucky, for her refusal to say whether she voted for Barack Obama for president. Todd ripped Grimes as "ridiculous," then twice declared that she had "disqualified herself." Ouch! Even Mika Brzezinski was embarrassed by Grimes' cringe-worthy performance, as you'll see in the screengrab. View the video here.

Elite Dems across America might be scuttling away from Barack Obama. But the president can count on at least one man to stand by his side: MSNBC's Thomas Roberts. On today's Morning Joe, Roberts accused Leon Panetta of criticizing President Obama for base motives: "getting paid" off his book, and currying close ties with Hillary Clinton. Roberts lame line of attack came after Joe Scarborough and Mark Halperin [citing Ron Fournier] said Panetta's criticism of Obama echoes what elite Dems from Washington to Hollywood are saying in private—but are afraid to express in public. View the video here.

Early in today's Morning Joe, teasing Chris Matthews' upcoming appearance, Mika Brzezinski admonished "you two be nice now." They weren't. Yet again, the two MSNBC hosts came to verbal blows. The detonator wasn't political differences. Instead, the two MSNBC hosts squabbled over personal supremacy like a pair of eighth-grade boys in the schoolyard. Matthews was on a riff, offering a extended rundown of his predictions on the various Senate races. He didn't want to stop when Scarborough sought to interrupt. "Just a minute, Joe. Just a minute," insisted the Hardball host. Shot back Scarborough: "no, no. It's my show. I'm...

Could the "Islamic" in "Islamic State" be a clue? Not for John Kerry. Appearing on today's Morning Joe, our clueless Secretary of State insisted that what drives ISIS is a "radical, extremist, cultish" philosophy, but not--perish the thought!--a "religious attitude." Kerry was of course echoing the analysis of that noted theologian, Barack Obama, who two weeks ago declared that ISIS is "not Islamic." In fairness, Presidents George W. Bush and Clinton have expressed similar sentiments. For a thorough debunking of the ISIS Islam-deniers, see here. View the video here.

Ever since the Ray Rice elevator video went public, Morning Joe has been in a state of sustained moral outrage over the NFL's mishandling of the issue of domestic violence. All well and good. But things turned testy this morning when a New York Times reporter turned the tables on Joe and Mika. When Mika Brzezinski suggested that sponsors should boycott the NFL, Alan Schwarz asked if Joe and Mika should march into the office of the NBC Chairman and demand that the network stop supporting the NFL by broadcasting its Sunday night games. After first jokingly suggesting that the...