MARK HALPERIN: Do we have the seven-second delay today? I want to characterize how I thought the President behaved.

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: We have it.  We can use it–right [Executive Producer] Alex?

JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah, sure, come on, take a chance. Have faith.

BRZEZINSKI: Let’s see what happens.

SCARBOROUGH: I’m behind you.  You fall down, I’m gonna catch you.

BRZEZINSKI: And the precedent has been set on the show, so you’re good [a reference to Joe dropping an f-bomb back in 2008, leading to the installation of the seven-second delay].

HALPERIN: I thought he was kind of a dick yesterday.

SCARBOROUGH: Oh my God.  Delay that!  Delay that!  What are you doing?  I can’t believe you–I was joking! Don’t do that! Did we delay that?

(Transcript courtesy Newbusters.)

Ouch, there’s a lot of things I could say about President’s performance yesterday, but that’s not one of them…. Look I’m no fan Barack Obama, you don’t have to like or even respect him, but he is the President of the United States and you do have to respect the office he holds… While I might agree Mr. Halperin’s assessment of the president’s performance, his remarks were still inappropriate. You don’t call the President of the United States a “dick” — period.

Anyway, Mr. Halperin has apologized and MSNBC rightly has suspended him indefinitely.

“Mark Halperin’s comments this morning were completely inappropriate and unacceptable. We apologize to the President, The White House and all of our viewers,” in a statement by MSNBC spokesperson Jeremy Gaines. “We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air. Therefore, Mark will be suspended indefinitely from his role as an analyst.”

~ ~ ~

“I completely agree with everything in MSNBC’s statement about my remark. I believe that the step they are taking in response is totally appropriate,” Halperin said in a statement. “Again, I want to offer a heartfelt and profound apology to the President, to my MSNBC colleagues, and to the viewers. My remark was unacceptable, and I deeply regret it.”

That said the President was clearly posturing and playing to his base yesterday by resorting to the same tired, old partisan class warfare rhetoric. This country faces a serious financial crisis driven by debt and a lack of economic growth.

Washington’s policy makers can’t simply turn a blind eye to that and keep spending beyond our means. No amount tax increases is going to close the budget gap, particularly not while the economy is teetering on the edge of a cliff. Raising taxes now could easily push our already weakened economy back in recession or depression.

Washington’s policy makers have to face reality and make real, what some would call draconian, spending cuts. Not only in discretionary spending, but also through entitlement reform. Whether you agree with Republicans or not they have at least offered a plan. All the President has offered is demonetization and demagoguery.

Related

• The Deficit Is Worse Than We Think – Lawrence B. Lindsey, Wall Street Journal
• President Obama’s war on facts — Jonathan Strong – The Daily Caller

Mr. Olberman reportedly donated $2,400 apiece to the campaigns of Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway and Arizona Reps. Raul Grivalva and Gabrielle Giffords in violation of NBC policy, which prohibits its employees from working on, or donating to, political campaigns unless a special exception is granted by the news division president.

Wow, personally, I suspect NBC has been looking for an excuse to indefinitely suspended Mr. Olberman without pay for a long time and he’s finally given them the opportunity.

I don’t like Keith Olbermann or his brand commentary and I’m certainly not going to miss him (not that I ever watched him), but this is a lousy way to get rid him… There’s just something distasteful about barring political employees from making political contributions in my book.

Update (Monday, November 8, 2010): Color me surprised, MSNBC has reinstated Keith Olbermann effective Tuesday… I would have bet almost anything that given his dismal ratings reportedly high salary he was toast after news of this  non-scandal scandal broke.

Related

• Wheels Within Wheels: Is Keith Olbermann Kerfuffle Just a Publicity Stunt? – Tommy Christopher, Mediaite

“I think the American people have had it with this situation where the middle-income people in our country are not protected from the ramifications of the risk-taking and the greed of these financial institutions,” Pelosi told MSNBC….

She blames bush and those risk takers. If MSNBC had any back bone (which I know they don’t) they should counter with “But Madam Speaker, is it not true that you own several million dollars worth of stock in AIG which the Federal Reserve just bailed out?”

Talk about hypocrisy.

If MSNBC, or anyone in the media for that matter, wanted to commit an act of journalism they’d ask her why Democrats opposed the Bush Administration’s reform attempts in 2003. Or why they blocked the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005 that John McCain co-sponsored?

Hell if they were really interested in practicing journalism they ask Barack Obama how he managed to rack up $126,349 in contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in only four years in the senate?

Ed Morrissey has much more detailed analysis at Hot Air:

With the financial sector in turmoil today, the media and the politicians have started throwing around blame with the same recklessness as lenders threw around credit to create the problem.  Politically, the pertinent question is this: Which candidate foresaw the credit crisis and tried to do something about it?  As it turns out, John McCain did – and partnered with three other Senate Republicans to reform the government’s involvement in lending three years ago, after an attempt by the Bush administration died in Congress two years earlier.