Morning Joe: Mika Brzezinski

I want to start off this blog with the first real post on the subject of Mika Brzezinski. Brzezinski is the co-host of the program Morning Joe on MSNBC weekday mornings, and while she isn't the cast member (and I do use the term cast member intentionally because this program is pure theatre) on the show who is most consistently wrong, that honor goes to none other than the host, Joe Scarborough (who I will most certainly be discussing on several occasions, I would imagine), she is the character who is most maddening. It almost seems as if she exists purely to further this charade that Scarborough is perpetrating that he is anything other than an extreme right-wing partisan (check that, a partisan hack).

I don't remember precisely when Brzezinski started to annoy me, but one of the themes from a few months back that I can vividly remember that led to my irritation was Brzezinski's over-the-top defense of Sarah Palin. Okay, I get the female solidarity thing to some degree, and even I thought that the story about Palin's wardrobe was way overblown (because there certainly is a double standard in the way women are judged by their looks versus men). However, Brzezinski's defense of Palin ventures into the absurd as exemplified by this MediaMatters clip:



Brzezinski has no evidence to back up her claims, but yet she's just certain that so many people thought that Palin won that debate. I've never quite understood why Brzezinski was so in favor of Palin. Perhaps Brzezinski looked at Palin as a potential triumph for the feminist cause, but I could easily argue that Palin's election (with John McCain) would have been an absolute disaster for feminism. Luckily this is something that we avoided.

More recently, though, I've been disturbed by Brzezinski incredibly superficial and vacuous analysis provided on the program. As a case in point, here is a clip from a recent broadcast of Morning Joe where the cast discusses a recent Democratic National Committee (DNC) web ad likening the Republican Party to the show Survivor:



I would submit to Brzezinski that there is no need for her to whine. The DNC is doing its job. As evidence, at the end of the 109th Congress, whose term ended on January 3, 2007, Republicans held 55 Senate seats (Democrats held 44 and one caucusing independent) and 229 House seats (Democrats held 202). And at the end of the 110th Congress, whose term ended on January 3, 2009, Republicans held 49 Sendate seats (Democrats held 48 and two caucusing independents, with President-Elect Obama having resigned from the body) and 198 House seats (Democrats held 235). And finally in this 111th Congress, Republicans hold 41 Senate seats - no check that, 40 Senate seats (need we forget that Arlen Specter bailed from the party to go to the Democrats) (Democrats hold 57 seats - which is soon to go to 58 once this Minnesota mess is finally cleared up and Al Franken is seated - with the Democrats also having two caucusing independents) and 178 House seats (Democrats hold 256 House seats). So let's recap, in the last two election cycles, the Democrats have added 14 (or 15 depending how you look at the numbers) Senate seats and 54 House seats. Don't worry Mika, it looks to me like the DNC is doing its job just fine.