MessNBC

Just when you thought the freefall of Joe Scarborough's and Mika Brzezinski's MSNBC morning show couldn't get worse, the couple got themselves in hotter water when they found themselves apologizing to a competitor news channel known for its friendly coverage of Donald Trump.

Conservative author David Frum joked that Pete Hegseth, Trump's pick for Secretary of Defense and the weekend Fox News host with the spell-checker-unfriendly name, has been so drunk that he was too drunk even for Fox News' liking, which doesn't bode well for his fitness for leading the U.S. military.  A producer told Frum through an earpiece that his commentary was no longer necessary, and Mika Brzezinski apologized to Fox News for Frum's flippant remark.  

Since when does an MSNBC host feel a need to apologize to a rival network that's constantly ridiculing her own?  Uhh, when she knows that the incoming President will have your head if she dares let someone bash his favorite "news" channel?    

Frum, who's no dope, published a piece in The Atlantic suggesting that fear of retribution is driving editorial decisions at MSNBC these days, and he suggested that Brzezinski's apology was an extension of her and Scarborough's efforts to mend fences with Trump, which they did by going to Mar-a-Lago on November 15 to lick his boots out of fear.  Scarborough got upset, claiming that he and Brzezinski went to Mar-a-Lago to get a "read" of Trump as he prepares to return to power.

I think they got a read of how he would govern (or something like it) in a second nonconsecutive term by listening to him blather over the past four years. 

Neither Joe Scarborough nor Mika Brzezinski seem to be able to get the Mar-a-Lago debacle behind them, mainly because they can't admit that they did anything wrong.  Scarborough cited reporters from other news outlets - with Brzezinski coaching him by offering examples in a low-register voice, as if she were Nancy Reagan trying to give Ronald sotto voce coaching on what to tell the press - spoke on background with Trump, but to this day neither he nor his wife have offered any transcript or videotape of them talking to Trump.  It wasn't a proper interview.  They went there to smooth his ruffled feathers, and now they're trying to stop anyone on their show from ruffling his feathers again by bashing his favorite news channel or his Cabinet selections.

And what about the fear factor that Frum pointed out?  "Let me tell you something," Scarborough said, "you can talk to anybody that's worked in the front office of NBC and MSNBC over the past 22 years tell you I'm not fearful. You talk to anybody who served with me in Congress, they will tell you - not fearful of leadership. Now? Not fearful." 

Paging Queen Gertrude.  Someone is protesting just a wee bit too much.

Anyway, I've given up on MSNBC largely because of these two.  Yes, there are some commentators on the channel who haven't given up on calling Trump to account, such as Nicolle Wallace, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O'Donnell, but as I said before, it's only a matter of time before either they get cancelled or MSNBC goes down swinging after it's spun off from Comcast as part of a separate company - something that would definitely not have happened if Kamala Harris had won the Presidency last month.  And the sooner Joe and Mika quit or get fired, the better it will be for everyone else involved.  They're dragging down the whole channel, what with other hosts furious with them and with ratings continuing to plummet like a stone.  Maddow is likely to come up with some groundbreaking reporting that exposes Trump as a bigger fraud than we already know he is, but who cares when MSNBC's ratings are so bad that her relatives are the only ones still watching her?

And after Michael Steele's ridiculing of Bernie Sanders on his (Steele's) own show for calling for the Democratic National Committee to root out corporate donors, I'm sort of glad I've found alternative political analysis on YouTube.