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(UPDATED)MSNBC today suspended without pay Keith Olbermann, one of the network's most popular personalities, following the revelation by Politico that he donated to three Democratic congressional candidates and interviewed one of the three without disclosing the donation.
MSNBC President Phil Griffin said in a statement:
"I became aware of Keith's political contributions late last night. Mindful of NBC News policy and standards, I have suspended him indefinitely without pay."
There are a few things going on here: one is that Olbermann did violate NBC's rules against contributing to political campaigns (though many others getting an MSNBC paycheck apparently have as well -- more on this below). Another is that there's a history of tension between Griffin and Olbermann, who told the New Yorker in 2008, "Phil thinks he’s my boss." So it's possible MSNBC was looking for an excuse to fire Olbermann. And, finally, MSNBC may be making a play to show it has more integrity than Fox, whose parent company, News Corporation, gave $1 million each to the Chamber of Commerce and the Republican Governors Association.
Griffin had seized on Fox's donations earlier this year, telling the Times, "Show me an example of us fund-raising." So presented with evidence of Olbermann's donations to Democratic candidates -- even if they are qualitatively and quantitatively different from Fox's corporate donations -- Griffin found himself in an awkward spot.
Meanwhile, MSNBC's replacement for Olbermann tonight, Chris Hayes of The Nation, has also acknowledged giving at least $250 to a friend of his who was running for Congress in Alabama. (To be clear: there is absolutely nothing wrong with this. He is an opinion journalist, and he was not covering his friend.) It appears that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough also gave several thousand dollars to a Republican congressional candidate in 2006. And MSNBC contributor Pat Buchanan has also given to Republicans. Again, these are opinionated commentators who regularly offer their political views.
Interestingly, Olbermann is not the only prominent TV host to contribute to a politician this cycle. Sean Hannity of Fox gave $5,000 to Rep. Michele Bachmann's PAC over the summer, as Salon reported at the time. In response to that reveleation, Fox told a Minnesota newspaper:
Fox News programming head Bill Shine said there's no company policy against talk show personalities giving to candidates, but said Hannity would disclose the donation when Bachmann appears.
"It always good to remember that he's not a journalist, he's a conservative TV host," Shine said. "If he wants to donate to a candidate, he certainly can."
Now, as it turns out, Hannity had Bachmann on after the donation and did not disclose it. Fox's policy, if they followed it, actually makes a lot of sense here. Hannity's entire show is about promoting conservatives candidates and ideas. Olbermann's show is about promoting progressives. Olbermann, however, did not disclose his $2,400 donation to Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) on the same day he interviewed him. That seems more problematic than the donation itself.
UPDATE: MSNBC is now saying that Hayes will not replace Olbermann tonight, though it's not clear why.
On Friday morning, I had a somewhat contentious discussion on Morning Joe with MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell regarding the criticism I wrote of his election-night comments. Salon posted the video last night -- it's here for those who haven't seen it -- and there has been extensive commentary about it in other places. There were issues raised by this dispute that are actually substantive and important, and some of them received some worthwhile attention, but by and large, O'Donnell's refusal to cease speaking for any longer than a few seconds at a time -- the standard form of adolescent cable-TV behavior -- caused the segment to degenerate into one of those cable scream-fests which was ultimately more headache-inducing than enlightening. I have a few comments to make about the substance of these issues -- and O'Donnell has invited me on his show on Monday night to discuss them, though it's unclear if the logistics will work out -- but first there is one point I particularly want to highlight and address.
O'Donnell repeatedly insisted that I had attributed to him views that he did not actually express, and several times repeated that he said none of what I criticized him for saying; after the segment, he continued spouting that same accusation. As I told him both during the segment and after, only the transcript will resolve that question, and -- as I'll demonstrate in a moment -- it does. First, here is the entirety of what I wrote about his remarks:
[A]lmost every time I had MNSBC on, there was Lawrence O'Donnell trying to blame "the Left" and "liberalism" for the Democrats' political woes. Alan Grayson's loss was proof that outspoken liberalism fails. Blanche Lincoln's loss was the fault of the Left for mounting a serious primary challenge against her. Russ Feingold's defeat proved that voters reject liberalism in favor of conservatism, etc. etc.
I wasn't sitting in front of the TV watching MSNBC until numerous people started emailing me and alerting me on Twitter to the fact that O'Donnell was repeatedly blaming liberalism and the Left for the Democrats' political problems. That's how I became aware of what O'Donnell was saying. Beyond that, here is what Salon's Editor-in-Chief Joan Walsh wrote on election night, long before I wrote a word about any of this (I hadn't read this until yesterday):
Strangely, I watched Democrats including MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell try to blame the blowout on whiny progressives.
If O'Donnell didn't actually do that, he might want to ask himself why so many people think he did. Did huge numbers of people simultaneously suffer a mass hallucination, or did his comments -- spread out over the course of several hours that night -- create the impression that this was precisely the point he was making?
I've now been able to obtain the videotape and transcript of that evening, and here (with links to the video) is what O'Donnell actually said regarding the three Democratic losses I referenced -- Grayson, Lincoln and Feingold:
O'DONNELL: He was also considered a test case by many liberals making the argument that Democrats made the mistake of going too far to the middle. Alan Grayson went very clearly to the left, and it didn't work in his district.
O'DONNELL: Ed, it's Lawrence O'Donnell. I want to ask you more about Blanche Lincoln. In retrospect, does it look wise to have challenged Blanche Lincoln in a primary and weakened her, if that's what happened, given that she, in fact, did not fight health care all the way? She was a member of the Senate Finance Committee. She voted for the Senate Finance Committee bill. She was one of the pro-choice votes in the Senate Finance Committee, where not all Democrats voted for the pro-choice components of that health care bill.
She, in fact, helped it get out on to the Senate floor. She, in fact, helped it pass on the Senate floor. She did all that. And it was judged not enough by liberals who wanted to take her out in the primary.
ED SCHULTZ: True.
O'DONNELL: They failed. They left a wounded nominee . . . . We may have elected in West Virginia a vote in favor of repealing the Obama health care bill, which Blanche Lincoln enabled to be legislated.
MADDOW: The situation is that Russ Feingold never earned the loyalty of his party because he was so iconoclastic, he went his own way, he made principled votes on things like the Patriot Act . . . he never earned any national favor from anyone but progressives . . . . . he's against someone who has a ton of outside help and a ton of money. He just didn't have anyone supporting him because the national party just never backed him up.
O'DONNELL: What does this have to do with the argument that's going on inside the Democratic Party between progressives and others about how Democrats should run? Did Russ Feingold lose because he wasn't liberal enough? . . . . When we talk about money in races, we have to face the fact that it's not the full explainer that everyone thinks it is. If money beat Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, why isn't it beating Jerry Brown in California? . . . ..
This is about real candidates, this is about real positions they've taken, especially if they're incumbents, like Russ Feingold, and to pretend that voting on Russ Feingold has nothing to do with his voting as an incumbent I think is to ignore the reality of life on the ballot as a Democrat in Wisconsin.. . . .
MADDOW: If you really believe he could have campaigned his way out of this race, I'd love to hear how he could have campaigned differently in a more effective way, but I just don't see it.
O'DONNELL: A liberal was defeated by a Republican -- by voters who had information about this one being a liberal, this one being a Republican. We have to then assume the voters are completely irrational and don't know what they are doing, or we assume that they do know the difference between a liberal and a Republican and they made that choice, based on his being a liberal and him being a Republican, money being whatever it was in that situation.
At times, O'Donnell phrased these views in the form of rhetorical questions and, in the Wisconsin discussion specifically, disclaimed certainty about why Feingold lost, but the remarks that he made as quoted above leave no doubt as to his point. I'm more than content to have anyone compare the summary which I wrote of his remarks to what he actually said. What I wrote was completely accurate. His meaning could not have been clearer, which is why so many people understood it exactly that way.
As for the substance of our discussion, O'Donnell -- in standard cable TV form -- basically had one simplistic point he repeated over and over: exit polls show that only a small minority of voters (a) self-identify as "liberal" and (b) agree that government should do more. There are so many obvious flaws in that "analysis." To begin with, exit polls survey only those who vote; it excludes those who chose not to vote, including the massive number of Democrats and liberals who voted in 2006 and 2008 but stayed at home this time. The failure to inspire those citizens to vote is, beyond doubt, a major cause of the Democrats' loss (see the first reason listed by CBS News for why the Democrats lost: "The Democratic Base Stayed Home"). Alienating your own base by moving to the Right via Blue Dog dependency is obviously a bad electoral tactic for Democrats, and O'Donnell's little stat does nothing to negate that; to the contrary, it bolsters that point, since the Democratic base of 2006 and 2008 stayed at home this year. O'Donnell's fixation on those who voted, while ignoring those who chose not to vote, necessarily excludes a major factor in the Democrats' loss.
But more important, voters don't think the way that cable TV personalities think. Voters don't run around basing their vote on this type of vapid sloganeering: who is a liberal? who is a conservative? who wants big government and who wants small government? It's true that the word "liberal" has been poisoned and it's thus hardly surprising that few people embrace it as their political identity. But, as I documented during the segment and O'Donnell steadfastly ignored, large majorities support positions routinely identified as "liberal," including the public option, greater restraints on Wall Street, preservation of Social Security and Medicare, etc. They can say they are not "liberal" but their specific views on substance prove otherwise.
But far more important still, what voters care about are not cable-news labels, but results. Democrats didn't lose because voters think they're too "liberal." If that were true, how would one explain massive Democratic wins in 2006 and 2008, including by liberals in conservative districts (such as Alan Grayson); were American voters liberal in 2006 and 2008 only to manically switch to being conservative this year? Was Wisconsin super-liberal for the last 18 years when it thrice elected Russ Feingold to the Senate, and then suddenly turned hostile to liberals this year? Such an explanation is absurd.
The answer is that voters make choices based on their assessment of the outcomes from the political class. They revolted against the Republican Party in the prior two elections because they hated the Iraq War and GOP corruption (not because they thought the GOP was "too conservative"), and they revolted against Democrats this year because they have no jobs, are having their homes foreclosed by the millions, are suffering severe economic anxiety, and see no plan or promise for that to change (not because they think Democrats are "too liberal").
People like Lawrence O'Donnell predictably don't understand this because none of that is happening to them. In their world, what matters are facile, superficial political labels and trite, McGovern-era Beltway wisdom: Dems have to Move To the Center. But voters are rejecting Democrats because of their perceived policy failures, not because of cable news bumper stickers. As this superb Mother Jones analysis demonstrates, the trite "wisdom" of people like O'Donnell could not be more empirically false:
The most widely accepted narrative to emerge from the 2010 midterm elections, in which Democrats took a "shellacking" and lost the most congressional seats since World War II, was this: Sick of liberal overreach, voters -- especially independents -- shifted their favor to the right, choosing Republican candidates in huge numbers.
Not so, according to a new exit poll by the firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. The firm's findings, released Friday, show that voters weren't necessarily allying themselves with the GOP, but rather were voicing their disapproval with Washington as a whole, and especially with the federal government's inability to restart America's economic engine. To wit, voters polled gave equally poor favorability ratings to both parties as well as the tea party, the poll found.
What matters most to voters isn't political nit-picking or Washington drama but the economy, plain and simple. As pollster Stan Greenberg, a former Clinton White House staffer, put it, "While this clearly was a blow...to the president and Democrats for failing to fix the economy, there's very little indication it was an affirmation of conservative ideology and agenda. In fact, we were rather surprised in many ways at the fact that the voters, in large numbers, are still looking for larger answers to an economy that's not working for them in a situation that they find for the country very worrisome."
That jobs-centric conclusion probably isn't so revelatory for most Americans. After all, outside the Beltway, where such political narratives thrive, is where most unemployed people live. But it's a welcome corrective here in Washington, where the conventional wisdom suggests a GOP revival supposedly spurred by voters' newfound embrace of the Republican Party's ideas, however scarce they may be.
People aren't running around thinking: who is a liberal and who is a conservative? They're running around thinking: we have no jobs and no economic security, and thus will punish those in power. As I made explicitly clear in my original post about O'Donnell -- and people like this and this should learn to read a little bit better -- my objection to his comments was not that the massive loss of Blue Dogs proves that conservative Democrats can't win. Democrats didn't lose because they're "too conservative" any more than because they are "too liberal." My objection was that he was attempting to derive shallow meaning from the loss of specific liberal candidates -- see, voters don't like liberals! -- when that plainly was not what motivated voters; merely to negate his reasoning, I pointed out that if one did want to use O'Donnell's fundamentally flawed method (i.e., look at which candidates lost and that's how you know which ideology voters rejected), then one could far more easily make the case that they were rejecting conservative Democrats, since Blue Dogs are who bore the brunt of the bloodbath.
People are suffering economically and Democrats have done little about that. Beyond that, they failed to inspire their own voters to go to the polls. Therefore, they lost. By basing their power in Congress on Blue Dog dependence -- rather than advocating for the views of their own supporters and implementing those policies -- they failed, and failed resoundingly. Building their party around a large number of muddled, GOP-replicating corporatists not only creates a tepid and failed political image, but far worse, it prevents actual policies from being implemented that benefit large number of ordinary Americans. Democrats repeatedly refrained from advocating for such policies in deference to their Blue Dogs, failed to do much to alleviate the economic suffering of ordinary Americans, and thus got crushed. Anyone who thinks that Democrats lost because they were "too liberal" -- rather than because Americans are suffering so much economically -- is wildly out of touch, i.e., is a multi-millionaire cable TV personality who has spent decades wallowing in trite D.C. chatter.
The Republicans have long lived by what they call "The Buckley Rule": always support the furthest Right candidate who can plausibly win. This year, knowing that it would be a wave election, one that would sweep in huge numbers of Republicans in districts where they ordinarily couldn't get elected, they changed that to: support the furthest Right candidate, period. That's because they believe conservatism will work and want to advocate for it. Democrats don't do that. The DCCC constantly works to prop up the most "centrist" or conservative candidates -- i.e., corporatists -- on the ground that it's always better, more politically astute, to move to the Right. Even in the pro-Democratic wave years of 2006 and 2008, the Democratic Party blocked actual progressives and ensured that Blue Dogs were nominated, even though the anti-GOP sentiment was so strong that any Democrat, including progressives, could have won even in red districts (as Alan Grayson proved).
With that strategy, the Democratic Party now reaps what it has sown. Its message and identity are profoundly muddled, incoherent, unclear, uninspiring, and self-negating. Worse, its policies are mishmashes of inept half-measures that, with a handful of exceptions, produce little good for anyone (other than Wall Street, the Pentagon and other corporate interests). They are perceived as -- and are -- beholden to Wall Street, special interests, and the corporations they vowed to confront. They are without any ability to confront the massive unemployment crisis and financial decline the country faces. And as a result of all of that, they lay in shambles. Anyone who can survey all of that and cheer for the strategy which Democrats have been pursuing -- let's build our majorities by relying on GOP-replicating corporatist Blue Dogs -- or who thinks that this election loss happened because "Democrats are too liberal," resides in a world that has very little to do with reality. And that's true no matter how many times they repeat the simplistic snippets of exit polls to which they've obsessively attached themselves.
POLITICO reported this morning that MSNBC's Keith Olbermann made three campaign contributions to Democratic candidates. A short time later, MSNBC president Phil Griffin suspended Olbermann "indefinitely," citing "NBC News policy and standards." Some have claimed that the NBC News ethics policy doesn't actually apply to MSNBC. But assuming it does -- does it also apply to CNBC?
As I wrote earlier, CNBC primetime host Larry Kudlow donated money to a Republican congressional campaign this cycle. Hosts Gary Kaminsky and David Faber donated to Mitt Romney's PAC and a GOP candidate.
Suze Orman, financial adviser and host of CNBC's "The Suze Orman Show," outdid the other listed NBC Universal personalities (and made CNBC a bit more bipartisan) with two $28,500 donations to the DNC and one $10,000 donation to California's "No on 8" campaign for marriage equality.
Are hosts on the Consumer News and Business Channel held to the same ethical standards as NBC News employees? Are CNBC hosts and contributors not expected to be keep up the appearance of objectivity? If not, why not?
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene
Unless Kudlow got explicit permission from the president of NBC News, this places him in direct violation of the NBC News ethics policy that led to the indefinite suspension of MSNBC host Keith Olbermann today:
"Anyone working for NBC News who takes part in civic or other outside activities may find that these activities jeopardize his or her standing as an impartial journalist because they may create the appearance of a conflict of interest. Such activities may include participation in or contributions to political campaigns or groups that espouse controversial positions. You should report any such potential conflicts in advance to, and obtain prior approval of, the President of NBC News or his designee."
MSNBC host Keith Olbermann made campaign contributions to two Arizona members of Congress and failed Kentucky Senate candidate Jack Conway ahead of Tuesday’s election — a potential violation of NBC’s ethics policies.
Olbermann, who acknowledged the contributions in a statement to POLITICO, made the maximum legal donations of $2,400 apiece to Conway and to Arizona Reps. Raul Grijalva and Gabrielle Giffords. He donated to the Arizona pair on Oct. 28 – the same day that Grijalva appeared as a guest on Olbermann’s “Countdown” show.
The piece also notes that MSNBC president Phil Griffin tweaked Fox recently for the $2 million in corporate donations that it gave Republican Party groups.
It seems like there are two issues here: one is whether an opinionated host like Olbermann should be allowed by his employer to give to political candidates. And the other is whether, if he does contribute, he should disclose that fact when he interviews said candidates. The first question is debatable; the second seems like an issue of basic ethics.
It's also worth noting that Fox's Sean Hannity, who is a rough analogue of Olbermann on the right (except more powerful and popular), gave $5,000 to Michele Bachmann's political action committee in August, as Salon reported at the time. We asked a Fox spokeswoman about this at the time, but she declined to give a statement.
That Hannity contribution came on Aug. 31. Two weeks later, on Sept. 17, he interviewed Bachmann on his Fox show and did not disclose the donation.
Justin Elliott is a Salon reporter. Reach him by email at jelliott@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @ElliottJustinMore Justin Elliott
Clockwise, top left: Nancy Pelosi, Rand Paul, Christine O'Donnell and President Barack Obama
2:00 AM EDT: Candy Crowley just leaned over from her pundit table to yell at the pundits at the other pundit table. I didn't know that was allowed! Now they are babbling about Sarah Palin -- I cannot stand it. MSNBC is waiting patiently for Harry Reid to deliver what I'm sure will be a stirring speech. Fox is playing a Republican victory speech montage. Meanwhile a reporting error in Colorado is getting a lot of play, but no one is talking about the very weird reporting error in Minnesota that made gubernatorial candidate Mark Dayton briefly look like he was cruising to an easy election. Megyn Kelly is already referring to "Speaker Boehner." Bret Baier was reallllly impressed with Boehner's wonderful, emotional speech. Roland Martin is getting pissy. Harry Reid has finally wandered out.
Here's Carl Paladino's "concession speech," in which he threatens Andrew Cuomo with a baseball bat:
Hah, Fox cuts to Reid way, way late -- they had a bunch of gold commercials to fit in. Reid is just not very good at delivering these inspiring platitudes. And Fox cuts away from Reid for Britt Hume to talk.
1:05 AM EDT: Alaska closes. We won't know what's going to happen then for a while. Pat Caddell and Frank Luntz are not convincing me to un-mute Fox.
Earlier, Kasich explained campaigning: If you're just negative, you can't win. But if you're negative and people are angry, you win!
Meanwhile, Chris Matthews is talking about guys who go to NFL games, from Scranton, and how they are going back to Republicans. He is delivering his Senate campaign strategy, actually. Babbling about making jobs. Steel and subway trains.
Matthews: "DO I HAVE TO MAKE THIS CASE LOUDER? I WILL MAKE IT LOUDER."
And John Kerry wrote this, I guess because dude doesn't care anymore.
12:25 AM EDT: CNN goes to Nikki Haley as Fox cuts away from her to call Illinois for Mark Kirk. "What a rebuke to the president," Karl Rove says. Because Barack Obama is why this flawed candidate barely lost to another horribly flawed candidate to replace a hilariously flawed interim senator appointed by Rod Blagojevich.
Way to go, Obama -- you just got rebuked.
Fox so thrilled about Kirk and divided government that they're ignoring Pat Toomey victory speech. MSNBC cuts to Sestak. (Chris Matthews is positive this seat woulda been his, by the way.) Sestak's kids are adorable -- perhaps little girl should've made more campaign appearances.
"This country's run by the good people that run it, and the bad people, too." -- Chris Matthews.
12:15 AM EDT: Giuliani on Fox: "We'll find out tomorrow if the president is an ideologue, or a pragmatist. I've never known!" Yes, I'm looking forward to learning this as well, and I'm glad Rudy has kept an open mind about it up till now.
Tonight I learned that even when he is obviously gleeful, Charles Krauthammer still looks like some impossible combination of the world's smuggest and most miserable lizard puppet.
"A lot of our viewers will remember Jan Brewer," Wolf Blitzer says. (She is the governor of Arizona, as it said on the screen at the time.)
Fox still fantasizing about Democratic senators switching sides. Now switching to Nikki Haley acceptance speech because why not.
11:45 PM EDT: John Boehner will be brief, "because we've got work to do." Calling it: The Fox News "seat the new Congress now" campaign begins tomorrow. Thank god we've put guys who look like this back in charge. (That's the basic message of that "Mad Men" show, right? I've never watched it but I think it's about how shit was awesome back when guys who looked like John Boehner ran everything.)
Boehner also acknowledges that with great power comes great responsibility, because, like Spider-Man, he was once bitten by a radioactive carrot.
Oh, god, Boehner's crying. Where is Sharron Angle to tell him to man up? Ten minutes after the new Congress starts he'll be just as loathed as Nancy Pelosi, so I'm glad he's enjoying this moment.
11:40 PM EDT: Chris Matthews suggests Colin Powell for chief of staff. Old moderate Republicans are still univerally recognized as the wisest of god's creatures. (Other plus: He can make our case for war with Iran to the U.N., as David Broder has suggested.)
Olbermann to Ed Rendell: Governor, I just wanted to note, for the record, that you asked Rachel what she'd do about the chief of staff situation, and not Chris.
Then:
Olbermann: "We're gonna take a break."
Matthews: "Let's take a half-hour break!"
Michael Steele is on Fox repeating "the firing of Nancy Pelosi" over and over again. Also this election sends a message to people "in the halls of power, wherever those are."
Roland Martin and Donna Brazile look really sick of listening to Erick Erickson. At some point while I was watching MSNBC Mad Hatter Wolf Blitzer shouted "CHANGE PLACES!" and now Spitzer's in the middle of the table.
11:30 PM EDT: Olbermann cuts away from New York loser Carl Paladino, "at the risk" of missing "some story about a drunken sailor." Joe Trippi is now pretty sure that Obama will lose Pennsylvania in 2012. Karl Rove says the Great Lakes states will all have Republican governors, ignoring some of the states on the Great Lakes that will not have Republican governors. (Like Minnesota -- where I think Mark Dayton will take it -- and New York.)
On Fox, Karl Rove -- who really wants to help Democrats keep the Senate -- is advising Democrats to abandon the president and, I guess, just be Republicans.
11:15 PM EDT: Useful corrective to the forthcoming media narrative about Obama voters turning against him, from the Times: "Tonight, just 46 percent of those who voted said they cast a ballot for Mr. Obama in 2008." You may recall that a majority of the electorate voted for Barack Obama. So is this "Obama turning moderate independents against him" or is this the usual trouble turning out younger, poorer, more liberal voters in the midterms? (And would a more liberal agenda on financial reform and healthcare have increased the number of these angry voters?) But, whatever, whatever Evan Bayh will say tomorrow is right, the Democrats must immediately raise the retirement age, to fix The Deficit.
Only CNN goes with Cuomo's victory speech. (Mike Huckabee is on Fox -- I assume he's dropping some homespun wisdom about Christmas.) Andrew apparently slammed Paladino but I was listening to everyone on MSNBC commiserate about Russ Feingold at the time.
On Fox they are explaining that Democrats were warned that advancing their agenda would cause them seats, and also if the GOP wins the House but not the Senate that will be good for the GOP because then Democrats will stall their "pro-growth agenda" leading directly to Obama's defeat in 2012. Up next, Rudy Giuliani!
10:25 PM EDT: Michele Bachmann has a 4-point plan: keep the taxes the way they are, repeal the healthcare, and I missed the other ones. I think they were "
And that was a very memorable interview! Chris Matthews to Michele Bachmann: "Are you hypnotized?" Bachmann: "I think the American people are the ones who are finally speaking tonight, they are coming out of their nightmare." Matthews: "Thank you Congresswoman Bachmann, who appears to be in a trance."
Not sure why the Bachmann people agreed to this -- though I imagine it was under the condition that not a single other member of the MSNBC panel was allowed to speak to her.
Oh hey, Cantor's on now. This is a Republican victory lap on MSNBC -- they're trolling liberals. Maddow trying to corner Cantor on tax cuts versus deficit rhetoric. It's not working. Though it led to Eric Cantor saying: "There's no tax cuts. Nobody's gettin' a tax cut." Good thing they didn't run on that!
And they move on to Lawrence O'Donnell who asks Cantor about voting to raise the debt ceiling.
The fact that all of you made Cantor look like a tool who refuses to admit that Republicans can't live up to their empty rhetoric on the deficit does not actually mean that you won, guys. He just went on your network to upset your viewers.
Who will be the next Republican hotshot to join the "MSNBC salt in the wounds tour '10"? I hope Ed interviews Boehner!
(Meanwhile, Geraldine Ferraro and Sarah Palin are hanging out on Fox, because why not.)
10:10 PM EDT MSNBC is now having a policy debate. This is the one night of the year that horse-race coverage is more useful and important than a substantive policy debate. Oh, wait, good, here comes Ed.
Joe Trippi, on Fox, looks like a sad man. But he points out that Republicans have "let three or four" Senate seats "that they could've won" go, by nominating crazies. They quickly move on to Juan Williams babbling about The Tea Parties. He fails at making any sort of point.
Brit Hume says Obama inspired many people, and his wave was a positive endorsement. But this wave is mostly about being mad and rejecting things, angrily, though Republicans haven't earned a victory. (Karl Rove disagrees because voters love Republicans.)
And congratulations to John McCain and Tweein' Chuck Grassley!
Candy Crowley says we'll hear "the Rubio message" from everyone else tomorrow -- America's Greatest and Largest Political Team on Television agrees that Marco Rubio is perfect, in every way. And Tim Pawlenty is looking impossibly smug on Fox right now.
9:45 PM EDT: Unrelated headlines: Vitter returning to Senate! Rubio wins three-way! Rubio also announces that the United States is the single greatest country in the history of mankind -- although despite it's incredible greatness, it is apparently extremely fragile, as two years of moderate Democratic rule is enough to send it straight to hell.
Rubio knows America is great not because he read it in a book, but because he's seen it with his eyes.
CNN gives up on Rubio and cuts to commercial while Fox and MSNBC stay with it. Whoops, MSNBC goes to O'Donnell concession speech as Olbermann says "get your popcorn." (No one is going with Chuck Schumer's acceptance speech, which is obvious proof of media bias.)
O'Donnell is not wearing her ladybug costume -- probably why she lost, actually -- and she comes out by announcing "we have won." Breaking...? (Fox is ignoring her and having Hannity chat with Doug Schoen instead.) O'Donnell also says she instructed Chris Coons to watch her 30-minute infomercial. (I know you already "won," Christine, but it is too late to convince your opponent to vote for you.)
O'Donnell: "We've got a lot of food, we've got the room the whole night." As a friend points out, this would be the best episode of "Party Down" ever.
9:15 PM EDT: In a hilarious mixup, Joe Perry is now governor of Texas and Rick Perry is touring with Aerosmith and feuding with Steven Tyler.
Meanwhile, Rand Paul victory speech! Oh god those were Rand Paul's kids playing Dad's victory party? They look a little bit like the sort of young men who pay tribute to a certain aquatic religious figure, if you know what I mean.
This is an EPIC victory speech from Rand Paul. The theme is how if the Senate is so Deliberative, why don't they Deliberate on HOW FUCKIN' AWESOME AMERICA IS. The other theme is that government cannot create jobs or prosperity, and no benevolent leaders will help us -- he will go to the United States Senate and demand that they stop attempting to make things better, for anyone, in the name of liberty.
"I will ask the Senate, respectfully, to deliberate upon this: Do we wish to live free, or be enslaved by debt?" And the Senate will say, "You're a freshman junior senator from the minority party, go to hell."
9:00 PM EDT: 2012 presidential contenders named so far, tonight: Evan Bayh, Marco Rubio. Anything is possible when you have to spend hours of airtime explaining easily explainable things in new and interesting ways!
Reader Casey notes that everyone on the MSNBC panel (especially Larry O'Donnell and "even Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Eugene Robinson") seems to be intentionally baiting Rachel Maddow by a) praising Bayh and b) blaming the unions and the primary for Lincoln's loss.
Palin on Fox explaining that Democratic victory in West Virginia is repudiation of Barack Obama and his agenda. Palin: Christine O'Donnel's defeat is "not a surprise"! Palin goes on to ask that Karl Rove look at the "exit polls" that show that Mike Castle "would've lost to Christine."
Oh, New York's in. "Carl Paladino showed early promise," Bret Baier inexplicably claims, but sadly he couldn't eat enough Democrats to gain an advantage over his opponent, Mr. Sandra Lee.
8:40 PM EDT: Richard Blumenthal will go to the Senate -- or at least years from now he'll claim he served in the U.S. Senate. Linda McMahon will go back to killing wrestlers. Perriello loses in Virginia, which proves that President Obama will be a one-term president -- he should probably hand over the keys to the teleprompter to Hillary, right now.
While Fox focuses on Perriello, MSNBC much more interested in Manchin in West Virginia. And Fox moves on to Alan Grayson losing! O'Reilly on Alan: "I've seen lowlifes -- never lower than him. Except for the criminals." (I'm going to assume by criminals" he means Ollie North and Glenn Beck.)
(Electable Blanche Lincoln has lost and no one in the world misses her. Here's former White House staffer Kal Penn celebrating.)
Michael Steele just finished defending his tenure on CNN and has moved on to MSNBC.
8:20 PM EDT: Fox breaking story of people who don't call themselves Tea Partiers but still vote for Republicans wide open. Also: Florida Tea Party supporters went 84 percent for Marco Rubio and 89 percent of Kentucky Tea Party supporters voted for Rand Paul. (Who did the rest of those Tea Partiers vote for? Cleon Skousen?)
Then Fox said "ELECTION ALERT" and cut to some sort of wedding band playing at Rand Paul's headquarters. And then they went to commercial.
8:15 PM EDT: Joe Trippi and Juan Williams and Karl Rove is a weird panel. At least there are only three of them.
Wolf Blitzer: "Everyone remembers Christine O'Donnell..." like, from like 10 seconds ago, when you last heard about her. Meanwhile a bunch of incredibly safe incumbents have won. Karl Rove says Christine O'Donnell was "right on the issues" but also, he suggests, she was a weird lady who said crazy things.
Fox would like to just keep talking about Marco Rubio, rising star, self-made guy. When will he run for president? Juan Williams says he'll win the Hispanic vote! MSNBC is more interested in the Democrat who won Mike Castle's Delaware House seat. Keith Olbermann has said "bellwether" one hundred times. Bill O'Reilly says Arianna will hire Alan Grayson.
7:45 PM EDT:CBS calls Delaware for Chris Coons, because of Gawker, and sexism. World War II history enthusiast Rich Iott has lost, just as Rick Sanchez predicted.
Ohio and Florida gubernatorial races are neck-and-neck, with Rand Paul supporters stepping on all necks involved.
7:30 PM EDT: Wolf Blitzer is literally impossible to pay attention to. If Manchin wins, it is either evidence that there is or isn't a "wave," according to the CNN panel. Ed Schultz explains the West Virginia race: Manchin is well-liked in West Virginia, despite his "suffering a tragic loss of life." Man, a Republican hasn't lost to a dead guy since Ashcroft in 2000.
And, oh god, Chris Wallace has a little whiteboard. He does not have enough room on his little whiteboard to list the House races he is actually talking about. (Thoracic surgeon Larry Bucshon is leading in Indiana 8 -- good cycle for Tea Partiers with medical degrees.)
7:15 PM EDT: Hooray, Shep's on! Also Rand Paul and Dan Coats are Senators now. It is too early for David Gergen to make any definitive statements about anything. Eliot Spitzer is talking up a storm. Kathleen Parker has not yet said a word.
6:55 PM EDT: Juan Williams refers to John Boehner as a "compromising, deal-making leader" who is "willing to play ball." Howard Fineman reports that the Rand Paul people love Mitch McConnell. Charles Krauthammer announces that this Senate election is a "comeuppance" for "arrogance."
6:30 PM EDT: Sarah Palin has advice for Barack Obama -- oddly it is exactly the same advice that most reasonable centrist columnists will offer Obama tomorrow: Move to the center!
(Wolf is just doing his patented "randomly throwing it to people in different places and pretending to understand what they say and then throwing it to someone else for a while and then wandering over to a table full of pundits" thing.)
6:20 PM EDT: First Luke Russert sighting! Russert can confirm that John Boehner is at his apartment, right now. He closes by declaring John Boehner the probable speaker of the 113th Congress, which is the one after the next one. Up next on Fox: Governor Sarah Palin! (Wolf Blitzer has moved on to Yemen terror.)
6:10 PM EDT: Chris Matthews repeats his final word from the end of the 5 p.m. hour (subject: better words would've saved President Obama) at the beginning of the 6 p.m. hour on CNN. Why didn't Obama explain all his deficit-busting spending? It is true that Obama never explained that the deficit is massive in large part because revenues plummeted due to a massive global financial crisis, and we can't expect voters -- or Chris Matthews -- or understand things unless the president explains it slowly and clearly. ("All 435 House seats at stake tonight," CNN graphics claim. News, I'm sure, to the hundreds of safe incumbents.)
Keith Olbermann: "Chuck has the special numbers."
5:45 PM EDT: Bret Baier and Megyn Kelly have an amazing night planned for us. With "the touch screen" and "the Fox big board!" ABC News is planning good things, too. They even uninvited Andrew Breitbart from their election night coverage, which led, predictably, to a big tantrum (ACORN Soros Media Matters Soros etc.). CNN already has 400 people at a big table saying incredibly predictable things to Wolf Blitzer. Glenn Beck is predicting hyperinflation, after the break. First polls close in 15 minutes -- exit polls indicate that John Boehner is already our new President.
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene
I think the real reason Major Garrett quit Fox for the newly revamped National Journal was so that he could appear on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." It was probably embarrassing for Garrett to be unable to appear on the show that all his friends did, because he was stuck with the clowns of "Fox & Friends."
That speaks to a problem that neither Fox nor NPR can solve, because neither want to solve it, which is the polarization of American media. For a certain amount of marketing points of view, Fox actually wants to keep that polarization and say, look, we're different. We're dramatically different; you can see how we're different. And if you like that difference, you better come over here and you better stay here. That is an embedded part of the marketing that surrounded what happens at the news division at Fox that's been incredibly successful.
I would imagine that NPR -- which, in its news-gathering operations, seeks a mass general audience -- works to exploit this "polarization" a bit less than Fox, where the business model is based on flattering, scaring and enraging one specific subsection of the population. (Old white conservative people with money to spend on gold.)
Garrett added that it's unsurprising that Fox promptly hired Juan Williams after NPR let him go for saying that he was scared of Muslims in their "Muslim garb," because Fox is where you go if "you are outraged." Outraged and terrified of Muslims.
Speaking of false equivalencies! Slate's Will Saletan compared Juan Williams to Shirley Sherrod, because both people got fired after saying things that ended up in Internet videos. The difference is, one person told a heartwarming story about overcoming prejudice, and the other one said it was OK to be prejudiced because Muslims are scary. (Ta-Nehisi Coates explains the difference in more detail.)
Alex Pareene writes about politics for Salon. Email him at apareene@salon.com and follow him on Twitter @pareene More Alex Pareene
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