With Fox News being the network that generally deems Politico reporters unworthy of their airwaves, MSNBC has always been the suburban Virginia news outlet’s go-to cable news network.
Especially “Morning Joe,” where Politico Playbook proprietor Mike Allen makes regular crack-of-dawn appearances.
Except on Monday things were markedly different. As The Mirror reported Monday, on the very day that Politico rolled out an extensive brand new redesign of the site, co-host Joe Scarborough sharply dismissed Politico as the site he reads after The Washington Post. Scarborough even has a blog he quasi-maintains in Politico. So it was especially surprising that he’d ding the pub like that.
But it didn’t stop there. On Monday, co-host Mika Brzezinksi also dismissed a Politico story as sexist. After all, if there’s one ass she has to kiss more than Politico‘s it’s that of President Obama‘s top aide Valerie Jarrett, who she consistently and weirdly refers to as her “friend.” She and Joe made a very public statement when they recently hand delivered flowers to her at the White House after her back surgery, something they could have easily done privately. The act of going to the White House was, clearly, more important.
In a lengthy story Mika wrote for MSNBC.com that published Monday morning, Mika again defended Jarrett as her “friend” and said she got to know her when writing her book, Knowing Your Value. Mika attacked a story in Politico and explained that “strong female advisors” often receive the “most catty and hostile criticism.” She didn’t reveal the Politico author, but mentioned it was a woman.
The story she’s referring to is “Fire Valerie Jarrett” by Carol Felsenthal, which ran over the weekend in Politico magazine.
Mika probably didn’t like that Felsenthal wrote that Jarrett should be moved out of the way. “Push her into the East Wing, where she can hang out with Michelle Obama and the White House social secretary, or give her an ambassadorship—or something—but for Pete’s sake get her out of the way of the hard work of governing that needs to be done.” She later added, “If her role in this administration reflected reality, Jarrett would be called ‘First Big Sister’ to both Michelle and Barack.”
These two sentences in Mika’s essay are especially troublesome for a journalist:
Mika wrote, “Whether it’s an event with the SBA or a celebration of business owners in Detroit, I have stood next to Valerie at the end of one of her 16 hour, three city days and asked her ‘How tired are you?’ I remember her saying at a dinner inside a pickle factory in Detroit, ‘This is what I love.'”
Are we supposed to feel for Jarrett that she sweats it out in a pickle factory or that she’s tired? No doubt she will be beholden to Mika until the end of time. But sucking up to an administration official who Mika should be covering is unfit for a journalist on any news show. Even MSNBC, clearly in the tank for the Obama Administration, should be better at faking unbiased reporting than this.
On another note, that’s quite a mouthful of insults for Politico, a site that supposedly has a relationship with “Morning Joe.” So is Politico on the outs with the supposedly popular morning show?
Something is obviously awry.