Tom Brokaw Talks MSNBC’s All Pundit Political Coverage…

The Chicago Tribune’s Phil Rosenthal interviews Tom Brokaw. Brokaw’s commentary raised an eyebrow for me when he got to talking about MSNBC’s political coverage…

“Listen, we’re better off than (ABC and CBS) because we do have cable,” Brokaw said. “Where it got sticky is when our commentators were anchoring political coverage. Those are, in some ways, incompatible roles. We worked our way through that.”

So was Brokaw knocking MSNBC’s all pundit political coverage? It kind of sounds like it. TVNewser’s Chris Ariens picked up on that too and noted the following…

That was the case on election night 2010. With Keith Olbermann‘s departure, it is yet to be seen how MSNBC execs will incorporate the other opinion hosts — Rachel Maddow, Ed Schultz and Lawrence O’Donnell — into 2012 primary and general election night coverage.

Um, actually it probably doesn’t remain to be seen. There will probably be no changes and the inmates will continue to run the asylum. How do we know this? Because MSNBC put out the same team, minus Olbermann, to anchor the State of the Union and there was nary a straight news anchor to be seen. It’s still business as usual over there. Which makes Brokaw’s apparent shot at the concept all the more relevant…

Press Releases: 01/31/11

MSNBC (1)

“PRESIDENT OF THE WORLD: THE BILL CLINTON PHENOMENON” – CHRIS MATTHEWS DISCUSSES PRESIDENT CLINTON’S POST-PRESIDENTIAL LIFE AND LEGACY

AIRING PRESIDENTS’ DAY: MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21 AT 10 PM ET/PT ON MSNBC

NEW YORK—January 31, 2011—There’s not a single political figure today with the global reach and influence of Bill Clinton—a former U.S. President turned humanitarian and diplomat extraordinaire. No one else in today’s political arena has the ability to command the attention of world leaders and organizations everywhere quite like he does. This Presidents’ Day, MSNBC’s Chris Matthews will take viewers behind the scenes of Clinton’s life in the one-hour documentary “President of the World: The Bill Clinton Phenomenon.” The special will air Monday, February 21, at 10 pm ET/PT.

Free for All: 01/31/11

What’s on your mind? Mine’s on sleep…which I’m not getting enough of since returning…

Al Jazeera’s CNN and ABC Moments…

This is sort of off topic because you really can’t get Al Jazeera in the U.S. but as I spent the better part of the last two weeks in The Maldives I was exposed to nothing but international news organizations (CNNI, BBC World News, Al Jazeera, some foreign language German, Russian, and French news channels) for the first time. Previously my international destinations I went to, which had TV (Tonga’s outer islands didn’t have TV…or internet…but I did manage four bars on the cell phone incredibly even on the remotest outer islands the size of an oversize football field) I also got either FNC or MSNBC (or both) and would spend too much time watching them instead of the internationals. But this time I had nothing but internationals.

This caused me to alter my perceptions of the international channels. I used to rank CNNI and BBC World as neck and neck in terms of quality. But then CNNI slipped behind BBC World. After The Maldives CNNI has slipped behind Al Jazeera as well.

I was in the Maldives while Tunisia was in chaos and Egypt began descending into chaos and Al Jazeera was all over it with more live satellite reports more often from the region than CNNI and I found myself watching Al Jazeera more as a result.

Al Jazeera is something of a taboo subject here in the US. It got pigeonholed early on as not being on the “US side” because of some of the segments it aired. After watching Al Jazeera for prolonged periods I feel that label is not an accurate description of Al Jazeera’s purpose as a news organization, particularly after what’s happened in Tunisia and Egypt. But that’s another subject for another day.

Back in the Gulf War in CNN had a coming out party of sorts for how it dominated coverage of the war. The playing field evened out with the Iraq War as MSNBC and FNC matched CNN’s level of coverage. But with Tunisia and Egypt you would see Al Jazeera is now having the kind of moment CNN had twenty years ago. Well you would see it if you could get Al Jazeera here. It’s little wonder Egypt just banned Al Jazeera today because of its coverage, one step further than Iraq went when it put handlers all over CNN’s people a few days after the war started.

NBC News in a Comcast World…

Variety’s Paul J. Gough, and there’s a name I haven’t cited here in too long a time, writes about NBC News in the new Comcast World Order…

Amid the turmoil at the NBC broadcast network, NBC News has remained solid. Despite the defection of Katie Couric to CBS, the retirement of Tom Brokaw and the death of Tim Russert, “Today,” “NBC Nightly News” and “Meet the Press” have remained on top of the ratings. MSNBC, once an also-ran in the cable wars, has found its competitive footing thanks to the leftward tilt driven by the success of Olbermann’s nightly “Countdown” broadcast.

That void in MSNBC’s lineup now presents an immediate challenge to Capus and MSNBC prexy Phil Griffin to maintain the cabler’s momentum with the personalities now peppering the cable news net, chiefly Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O’Donnell and Ed Schultz.

Susan Crawford, a Cardozo Law School professor who is writing a book about the NBC-Comcast merger, says she expects no immediate change in NBC News.

“I think Comcast will see it’s in its best interest to maintain the status quo at NBC,” she says.

That status quo includes keeping MSNBC’s liberal posture.

“It would be wrong to say that Olbermann’s exit represents a change in programming philosophy,” Cochran says. “At the same time, this demonstrates that no matter how good the ratings, NBC News executives will determine when a host has crossed the line.”

NBC News declined to comment for this story, as did Comcast Corp., which until the deal closes has no operational control over NBC.

Certainly Comcast is saying all the right things. Burke was at the NBC News upfront presentation last week, and spent 20 minutes backstage talking with MSNBC host Maddow.

I’m Back. The Blog? Not as Much…

So I got out of customs at SFO and found two voice mails from the previous hour from my mom on it. I knew immediately it was bad news and my intuition proved damningly prescient. Three days ago my 82 year old father fell and practically destroyed his hip. The good hip, not the one he smashed to pieces three years ago.

I periodically kid my mom about blocking her from the blog but dad’s health has really put her through the ringer the past six years. She went through hell and back three years ago with the last hip fracture and the prolonged hospitalization, the MRSA contraction, the painfully slow rehabilitation that was only partially successful, the life changes she had to make. Marriage vows are easily given, particularly the part about “in sickness and in health”, but she’s really adhered to that. The love between the two is subtle but enduring for over 60 58 years now (jet lag contributed to severe date calculation issues last night). Few people can make it together that long these days and I honor her for that.

The first hip fracture was a baptism by fire for her and it was hell. But it at least gave her the experience to be prepared for what’s now coming around again for the next few months. Hopefully, he’ll be able to recover from this again, though the damage done was far worse this time.

In any case between this sudden crisis and jury duty looming large for me next week, I’m not prepared to announce a full time resumption of the blog at this time. It will be sporadic for the time being.

Olbermann: More Write Ups…

The Washington Post’s Paul Farhi peels back another layer of the Keith Olbermann/MSNBC onion…

One person intimate with MSNBC’s management, however, said there were strong indications that the timing wasn’t coincidental. With Olbermann’s patron, NBC chief executive Jeff Zucker, no longer part of the company’s leadership, “the timing was right” to seek the removal of the successful but difficult host and anchor, said one person familiar with the principal players who spoke on the condition of anonymity to maintain a relationship with the company.

Farhi also has Phil Griffin on the record…

“We’re in great shape,” Griffin said. “. . . I don’t think we’ll lose a beat.” He added: “I love what we’re doing, and I love what we’ve achieved as a network. I’m confident about our future.”

Parker Spitzer Crunch Time…

Lost in all the Olbermann news and the MSNBC schedule reshuffle that resulted from it is the impact this has on CNN and Parker Spitzer.

MSNBC clearly wanted to minimize the damage done at 8pm and that’s why it chose to slot Lawrence O’Donnell at that hour; I would surmise largely based on how O’Donnnell held on to Olbermann’s numbers during the month he filled in on Countdown last year.

But just because MSNBC is trying to minimize the damage doesn’t mean 1) there won’t be any, and 2) that this isn’t an opening for CNN. 8pm is now more in play in the battle for 2nd place starting Monday than it was as of Friday. That’s a fact, much as MSNBC would prefer not to ponder it.

But the window for trying to take advantage of this opening will be short and this puts all kinds of pressure on CNN to do something right now about Parker Spitzer. Dump Parker, dump Spitzer, dump both, can the EP, can the format…something! CNN cannot afford to not do a shake up right this very minute. And I imagine that Jautz and Company are evaluating their options at 8pm, knowing that they have an opening, not a big opening but an opening nontheless, to maybe get some numbers at MSNBC’s expense.

Jansing & Co. Comes to Twitter (finally)…

When Jansing & Co. launched I noted the lack of any social media tie in to the program. Well it took a while but it appears both the show and the host will now be on Twitter. Of course they will have to actually tweet to make it really work.

More on the Olbermann/MSNBC breakup…

The New York Times’ Bill Carter has some details on the breakup of Keith Olbermann and MSNBC…

For the last several weeks, Mr. Olbermann and the network have been in negotiations to end his successful run on MSNBC, according to executives involved in the talks who requested anonymity because the talks were confidential. The deal was completed on Friday, and Mr. Olbermann made the announcement on his final “Countdown” hours later.

Friday’s separation agreement between MSNBC and Mr. Olbermann includes restrictions on when he can next lead a television show and when he can give interviews about the decision to end his association with the news channel.

The executives involved in the discussions confirmed that the deal carries limitations for Mr. Olbermann in terms of when he can next work on television, though he will be able to take a job in radio or on any forum on the Internet. The deal also prohibits the host from commenting publicly on the deal, the executives confirmed.

Related: Josh Marshall over at TPM, who was on the last episode of Countdown, blogs about what things were like on the set…

I doubt I would have had any heads up or known anything was happening if Olbermann was going to go off the air. But I was a bit more stunned than I might otherwise have been because I was just over there. And I did not have any sense that there was anything any different than normal going on. Everything seemed calm and pretty sedate. I didn’t sense anything different in Keith’s manner or affect (though it’s not like we’re tight and I would have been the person to notice.) There were a few more people than I’m used to seeing in the studio — maybe two or three, seated, who seemed to be there to watch. (Something I don’t remember seeing before.) But nothing that made me think twice that anything odd was going on.

Olbermann Out/O’Donnell In/Schultz to 10/Uygur to filll in at 6pm

Only Keith Olbermann’s surprise exit from MSNBC could get me to blog 8,000 miles from where I usually blog. I don’t have much to say except…

1) MSNBC had to have armored itself with all sorts of non-besmirch clauses, though it’s not clear Olbermann agreed to them. But if he did, that means you may not be getting a lot of the juicy dirt you’re hoping for regarding how this went down.

2) The Last Word gets the 8pm slot. This is interesting because of what it implies…that The Last Word will go to five nights a week. This makes O’Donnnell’s cris crossing the country every week that much more difficult. What might end up happening is that Fridays will air from Los Angeles.

3) The Ed Show moves to 10pm. But does MSNBC finally cave in on the Friday Doc block and take Schultz to five nights a week? MSNBC’s statement does not discuss this. If Schultz ends up losing an hour a week, he can’t be too thrilled with that.

Update: According to Brian Stelter, Ed’s getting the short end on this deal. MSNBC will never give up its coveted Friday Doc Block, even when the guy who originally came up with the concept (Jeff Zucker) is no longer around.

4) MSNBC is still dancing with Cenk Uygur but still won’t get down on one knee and propose. Uygur’s 6pm ET move is not permanent. Not yet. The fact that MSNBC still won’t commit full time to Uygur after all this time and all the filling in he’s done is noteworthy.

Julie Banderas Demoted?!??!

Twitter’s on fire today…well…the Julie Banderas Twitter fan club is on fire today…over the apparent news that Banderas will be doing reporting for the New York Bureau going forward. (via J$)

No, I’ll be fulfilling a reporter role for the ny bureau RT @BenYurcho: JB, u not doing the FR on weekends

This is all in a state of flux at the moment. A permanent weekend replacement hasn’t been announced yet but at least in the short term it appears Harris Faulkner will be doing weekends on FNC including Fox Report Weekend.

No, Harris Faulkner. I will be reporting from the bureau. See u on the air ltr RT @theFoxFanatic: @JulieBanderas so is Shep anchoring again?

Now will the cable nets stop making news and interrupting my packing please…

Free for All: 01/15/11 – 01/30/11

Behave yourselves…

Isha Sesay Joins AC 360…

It seems there’s always something that happens after I throw up a blog stopping trip announcement and today is no exception. CNN announced that CNNI’s Isha Sesay is joining the AC 360 team.

Isha Sesay Joins Anderson Cooper 360° Beginning Monday, January 17th

Isha Sesay is an anchor for CNN International based at the network’s global headquarters in Atlanta. Sesay joins the Anderson Cooper 360° team and will provide news updates throughout the hour. She is expected to appear on the program on a nightly basis while still continuing her duties at CNN International.

In addition to her role on AC360, Sesay anchors 10am ET edition of International Desk Monday through Thursday from Atlanta. She also hosts and reports for Inside Africa, CNN International’s award-winning, weekly program dedicated to providing viewers with an inside look at political, economic, social and cultural affairs and trends in Africa.

Blogus Interruptus…

SFO – DXB – MLE

Or, to be more aeronautically accurate…

(For the uninitiated…and boy should you consider yourselves fortunate…snorkel backstory here)

So, after finally achieving piece of mind with the snorkel I lost, found, got confiscated, got repatriated, got lost by the airline, was found in NYC, got destroyed on the North Shore of Oahu which caused me to endure many months of psychotherapy, I was finally in the proper state of mind to be able to purchase a new snorkel and I used it last year on Maui.

However at the end of my trip I left the snorkel alone in the rental car which was subsequently broken into and all my belongings, including the snorkel, were stolen. Now I was pissed. It’s one thing to go through all I went through with my first ever snorkel but to have the second one stolen so soon after I bought it? That’s annoying.

I filed a report with the police but never heard anything. I resigned myself to the notion that I’d have to buy yet another snorkel but then I discovered that the US Government knew where my snorkel was all along and didn’t tell me. I found this out purely by accident while reading through the latest of the Wikileaks State Department cable releases. *

Free for All: 01/14/11

What’s on your mind?

Tweet of the Day…

Piers Morgan:

Have passed @KeithOlbermann follower count before I even got on air. Ouch.

Really…that was a great line. I’d love to see those two tangle on the internet.

Jonathan Wald Interview…

Forbes’ Lacy Rose interviews the Team Morgan-est member of Team Morgan, Jonathan Wald…

What will differentiate Piers Morgan from all of the other big personalities on the TV dial?

Piers approaches things from a different angle. Politically, he doesn’t have a dog in the fight because he’s from Great Britain. So automatically he approaches it as an outsider observing from the inside, which I think is a strength right now.

Secondly, we have the luxury of time and going very deep. We just interviewed Condoleezza Rice for a show to air during our first week, and I was struck by her openness. It was a Condoleezza Rice that we had never heard or seen before because it was this really in-depth conversation. I don’t think there’s any other place in the cable landscape that does that.

Or there’s a moment in the interview with Oprah where she looks at Piers and then to her friends off camera and says, ‘Wow, Piers is going deep here.’ That is just something you don’t get on any other interview show.

Free for All: 01/13/11

What’s on your mind?

Nancy Grace Gets 9pm Live Hour Until Dr. Drew Launches…

TVNewser’s Chris Ariens writes that Nancy Grace will get a temporary 9pm live airing on HLN until Dr. Drew’s show launches…

Quit While You’re Ahead…

Now Piers Morgan has gone too far. Yesterday Greta Van Susteren took a few awkward jabs at him and he responded in kind on Twitter. However, rather than let things lie there Piers just had to do it again this morning…

EXPOSED: @gretawire at a PARTY in DC, took @KimKardashian as her guest. Awkward.

Further bombshell for @gretawire – her Fox colleague @denniskneale was at my @TheTinaBeast party and actively ENJOYING himself. #damning

Any more photos of @gretawire or other FOX stars at a party, any party, gratefully received. #keeping’emhonest

Poof! And just like that whatever sympathy I had for Morgan on this spat just went up in smoke. First of all, Greta never said she didn’t do parties, just that FNC didn’t do big posh pre-launch parties. So Morgan’s escalation today just looks silly. The Dennis Kneale sighting is a bit awkward but hardly that germaine. Morgan should have just quit while he was ahead. His original response struck pretty near the right tone. This one is overkill and more reflective of Morgan’s personality than anything else. And now instead of appearing in the light of a victim, he now appears in the light of the aggressor.

Related: TVNewser’s Alex Weprin notes that FBN threw a big launch party. No, it’s not FNC related exactly but it does undercut Van Susteren’s argument to some extent.

Robyn Meredith joins Blomberg…

Bloomberg TV announced that Robyn Meredith has joined the network as a correspondent…

ROBYN MEREDITH JOINS BLOOMBERG TV AS HONG KONG-BASED CORRESPONDENT

Network continues to boost television staff in Asia-Pacific

New York, January 12, 2011–Bloomberg Television, the global 24-hour business and financial news network, today announced that best-selling author and journalist, Robyn Meredith, has joined the network as a Hong Kong-based correspondent.

Meredith, who has a decade of experience reporting on Asia and global economic trends, will cover business and financial news for Bloomberg Television across the Asia-Pacific region. She is the author of the 2007 New York Times best-seller, “The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us.”

Morgan-Mania-Overload?

Greta Van Susteren takes a few jabs at CNN and Piers Morgan for the big posh to-do they had the other night…

Update: Well I made a mess out of that first sentence, didn’t I? Forgot the link and did a crappy editing job to boot. Fixed.

It is so different over here at Fox than CNN. I can’t imagine Fox News Channel or friend of Fox News Channel having some fancy “launch party” at a fancy NYC upper east side address with a bunch of celebrities for a new cable news show. It seems so out of touch with the rest of the country, doesn’t it?

At Fox we just get hired and go to work (and we are very glad to have our jobs!) We can celebrate later (and we have.)

What Greta seems to miss here is that the launch of Piers Morgan Tonight is very dependent upon the cult of personality of Piers Morgan and the guests he’s going after are not the guests FNC tends to go after to that degree. It’s a different target audience and it plays by different rules. If Morgan was going to do a Hannity or an O’Reilly type show or even an On The Record type show his party last night would indeed look very out of place. But considering what he’s trying to do and where he wants his show to go, it’s not that out of place really.

It is interesting to watch Greta throw out the Culture War card with that crack about “It seems so out of touch with the rest of the country”. That kind of “it’s not what we do so therefore there must be something wrong or otherwise out of whack about it” reverse snobbery is not something that I would have expected from her. O’Reilly? Oh yeah…his whole FNC career has been staked out in the Culture War battlefield. Hannity? Sure, though more in an ideological/political bent. Greta? No. Sure it probably would appear out of touch to anyone who isn’t interested in A-D list celebrity interviews or power player profiles on a day in day out basis. But not everyone feels that way…and there is a sizable chunk of people who are interested in that admittedly overly superficial world that is celebrity. Not I, but the purveyance of tabloid magazines, tabloid websites, tabloid TV news shows, and the frequent tabloidization of cable news shows those people do exist.

One thing Piers Morgan’s show has going for it that no other show on cable news does is catering to a singular demographic not catered to by any other show or channel in cable news save maybe Joy Behar’s HLN show. FNC and MSNBC spend 5 of their 6 primetime hours doing political bombast (If forced to choose, I would put On The Record over The Last Word in terms of which is less political). CNN currently spends each primetime hour doing something different. At 6pm it’s trying to fill Larry King’s shoes but without following in King’s bland boring softball throwing footsteps. You can accuse Piers Morgan of many things; being bombastic, egotisical, a sh** disturber…but one thing you can’t accuse him of is being as deathly boring as Larry King has always been on CNN. You can be successful and boring at the same time and King was. Morgan aims to be successful and not boring…the anti-Bill O’Reilly of the celebrity circuit if you will…someone who matches O’Reilly’s level of smugness and self-certitude but isn’t uncomfortable with his celebrity status to the point that he tends to shun the circuit as O’Reilly does.

There will be an audience for this. Whether it’ll be enough to overtake MSNBC and Maddow is an open question (forget about Hannity and FNC). But it should be enough to instantly make it the highest rated hour in CNN prime. When you have the format Morgan’s show does, the glad-handing and celeb parties – like last night’s – are all part of that world. It’s how you stay in contact and stay in the game in the world Morgan travels in. Call it a “necessary evil” if you will…

This morning I read the reports on this party but decided it wasn’t newsworthy enough for posting on ICN because it lacked news value…its benefit was only as PR value for CNN. But just because I didn’t think that party was newsworthy doesn’t mean I didn’t understand its significance, importance, and necessity.

Update 2: Piers, being Piers, responds to Greta on Twitter…

Oops, looks like someone’s just the teeniest weeniest bit put out that she didn’t get an invite -

Dear @gretawire I think you need to get out more. We always used to when I worked for Mr Murdoch. Come and party with me, love Piers x

Probably doesn’t help poor @gretawire ‘s mood that she has to see this out of her Fox office window each morning –

Tuscon Memorial – Coverage Notes

TVNewser has a wrap up of who’s anchoring what and where for tonight’s memorial service in Tuscon, Arizona. Post your comments and reactions to the coverage here…

Free for All: 01/12/11

What’s on your mind?

AC 360 to air AIDS Special…

CNN announced that AC 360 will be airing on special on AIDS this Friday…

Anderson Cooper 360° to Air AIDS Special

Hope Survives: 30 Years of AIDS will Air Friday, January 14th at 9pm ET

CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360° will dedicate a special hour to AIDS in America as we approach 30 years since the first diagnosis. The special will focus on the role stigma continues to play in the spread of HIV both here in the U.S. and around the world, and how through education and scaled up prevention there is hope for an HIV-free future generation. The show will also explore the latest medical breakthroughs and discoveries.

In addition to Anderson Cooper’s in-depth interview with Sir Elton John about his foundation’s work to end the disease, the show will also include interviews with Academy-award winning actress Mo’nique, Project Runway’s Mondo Guerra, Phill Wilson, Founder and Executive Director of the Black AIDS Institute and co-founder of Greater Than AIDS, a new national movement developed with the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. The special hour will also feature emotional clips from famous personalities on their personal “Deciding Moment” that changed how they think about the disease and inspired them to get involved, including Academy-Award winning actress Susan Sarandon, actress Sharon Stone, singer Barry Manilow, basketball legend Kareem Abdul Jabbar, comedienne Margaret Cho, Author Maya Angelou and Jeanne White Ginder, the mother of the late Ryan White.

Press Releases: 01/11/11

MSNBC (1)

MSNBC Debuts New iPad App Featuring “The Rachel Maddow Show”

Viewers Can Join the Maddow “Watch Party” and Read Real-Time Tweets While Watching the Broadcast

NEW YORK – January 11, 2011 – The MSNBC Digital Network today announced the launch of a new MSNBC cable app featuring “The Rachel Maddow Show” application for the iPad. MSNBC’s free iPad app launched with the “The Rachel Maddow Show” and will soon feature additional MSNBC programs. The iPad app offers consumers a new way to engage with MSNBC. Viewers can now enjoy Maddow’s smart look at politics, pop culture and current events on an additional platform.

Burt Dubrow Tapped to Helm Dr. Drew’s HLN Show…

HLN Vice President of Programming Bill Galvin’s memo announcing that Burt Dubrow will be the Executive Producer of Dr. Drew’s HLN show…

To: HLN /CNN colleagues
From: Bill Galvin
Date: January 11, 2011
Subject: Executive Producer Announcement

Please join me in welcoming Burt Dubrow, who will be the Executive Producer of the new Dr. Drew show set to launch this spring on HLN.

For brevity’s sake I’ll refrain from detailing all of the credits in Burt’s illustrious career, a fascinating path that led to EP roles with Discovery, MTV, GSN and ABC, just to name a few. Along the way, Burt became known as an innovator in the daily talk show genre, highly regarded for his ability to launch shows and develop talent. The likes of Jerry Springer and Sally Jessy Raphael enjoyed ground-breaking and sustained success under Burt’s creative guidance.

In his new role with HLN, Burt’s initial vision for the Dr. Drew show aligns with the network’s brand promise and, very importantly, with Drew’s own hopes for the show. He’s already started to meet key contacts at his new home base in the LA Bureau and will begin to take the lead in staffing the rest of the show team.

To this day, Burt describes himself as a “student of television,” while Drew calls him “a driving force.” Scot Safon notes that “Burt has a track record of building very successful programming around top talent…in Dr. Drew, he’s getting the chance to break some new ground on the TV landscape.”

Burt mentioned to me that he’s genuinely flattered to be a part of the HLN family. Given his long list of professional accomplishments, I believe the HLN family is fortunate to now call Burt one of our own.

Free for All: 01/11/11

What’s on your mind?

Morning Joe Profile…

The Daily Beast’s Howard Kurtz interviews Joe Scarborough…

The host of Morning Joe portrays himself as unchanged since he was elected with the Class of 1994—except in stylistic terms. “People on the hard right think I’m a sellout,” he says, clad in his TV uniform of navy blazer, white shirt, and red tie, “and yet they can’t name one issue where I’ve changed ideologically. Deals don’t get done if you’re constantly insulting the other side. I’ve told them it’s counterproductive to call Obama a Marxist. I caught so much flak by calling out Republicans when a few of them, like Sarah Palin, made things up like death panels, or obsessing over his birth certificate.”

Other Republicans have declined to take on Palin, says Scarborough, because “they’re just scared. They want her voters.”

Oddly enough, Scarborough refuses to acknowledge that the GOP center of gravity has moved to the right, which seems beyond dispute. Perhaps he views the Tea Party movement as an echo of his renegade brand of politics in the Gingrich House. But his gang eventually compromised with Clinton on a balanced budget and welfare reform, and Scarborough says he’s since had “several great talks” with the former president, who invariably thanks him for being fair to Hillary in 2008.