video As the Eric Massa story continues to unfold, the media's wall-to-wall coverage of it becomes thinner and thinner. On last night's Countdown, fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell spent 3 entire segments on the Massa story, alternately cracking wise about the Navy and obsessing over the sexual slang term "snorkeling." Drew Grant points out the offensiveness of some of O'Donnell's treatment, but the show was also guilty of the lesser crime of dullness. (more...)

video Okay, we get that some left-leaning members of the MSM are (rightfully!) pissed at Eric Massa for using the Democratic Party's shortcomings as a sort of scape-goat for his own alleged sexual misconduct, but MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell took it over the line tonight on Countdown when he set out to use the stories some of Massa's former Navy-mates to find out if those tickle-fights and "Massa Massages" were pro-the-course on the high seas. (more...)

video Marc Thiessen is a former speechwriter to George W. Bush, and author of Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama is Inviting the Next Attack . This morning he was invited on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning to discuss President Obama's counter terrorism efforts, and came upon a spirited, relentless and indefatigable Lawrence O'Donnell, who truly tore into Thiessen to a degree rarely seen on even the most intense cable news programs. Host Joe Scarborough had to interrupt the "discussion" to go to commercial break, basically taking O'Donnell out of the equation. Who says liberals are soft on defense? (more...)

video Lawrence O'Donnell was subbing for Countdown host Keith Olbermann last night, and dedicated part of the program to Alabama freshman congressman Parker Griffith, who announced on Tuesday that he was leaving the Democrats to join House Republicans. Not only did O'Donnell take shots at the GOP's inclusion of "that dwindling category of Republican, the moderate Republican," he posited the real reason behind Griffith's party switch: to get booked on Fox News. Transcript of the segment:

O'Donnell: After 12 months in congress, Alabama freshman congressman Parker Griffith announced yesterday morning that he was leaving the Democrats to join House Republicans. The move was reportedly in the works for some time, though it came as a surprise to Alabama Democratic party chair Joe Turnham who called Griffith "one of the most liberal people I have known." Just like the failed moderate Republican Dede Scozzafava In New York, Griffith earned RNC chair Michael Steele's stamp of approval, probably a temporary stamp. As to the reasons for the defection, Griffith today realized one of the fringe benefits of being a Republican, getting booked on Fox News. Griffith: I have found that the far left tilt of the Democratic Party no longer welcomed me or my ideas and so I made the decision. O'Donnell: Of course Griffith immediately slots into that dwindling category of Republican, the moderate Republican. The category that so many in the GOP are trying to purge. Erick Erickson, of the blog Red State, spoke for the conservative fringe yesterday, writing quote, "Griffith was an extremely endangered Democrat, we should now hope him to be an extremely endangered Republican in a primary. We can pick this guy off and get a real Republican in that seat."

As we noted yesterday, earlier this week Sarah Palin was handed the ignominious 'lie of the year' award by non-partisan political fact checkers Politifact.com for her "death panel" explanation of parts of the health care bill earlier this past summer. Last night on Countdown Lawrence O'Donnell wondered how Palin would ever recover from the shame of such an award, to which we said: ha! Because really, she's Sarah Palin, this is barely a blip on the 2009 scale of Palin (anyway, she's apparently too busy banning bloggers to concern herself with much else). (more...)

video Now that 2009 is slowly, finally coming to an end, Sarah Palin is getting her comeuppance in the inevitable end-of-year lists. Sort of. Yesterday Politifact.com, a fact-checking website, selected "death panels" as its number one lie of the year: "Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest." (more...)

You'd have to be living under a rock not to know that Mad Men is debuting its third season this Sunday. For the past month fans have been inundated with Mad Men Twitter avatars, Mad Men window-dressings, and Mad Men-themed websites. All this smoke-filled, sexed-up, whiskey-splashed glamour is enough to make one long for the heady days of the early Sixties — who knew advertising could be so compelling? We know who — the folks at Morning Joe, currently representing the most harmonious blend of advertising and editorial on the airwaves. Don Draper himself couldn't have topped it (and he might even have switched out his whiskey for a Venti Frappucino). From there, the comparisons suddenly seemed obvious. So, in the tradition of merging the media beat with whatever pop culture sensation we're currently obsessed with (Harry Potter and the Media Muggles, anyone?) we thought it would be fun to cast the Mad Morning Men (and Women) of Morning Joe. Hey, what else are you gonna do until Sunday at 10? (more...)

video All things popular must eventually make their way to Hollywood (or thereabouts) so this news shouldn't really suprise anyone. Just in time for Thanksgiving -- when everyone will have some extra turkey recovery time on their hands -- some enterprising filmmakers (and some well-known conservatives) have apparently whipped together Tea Party: The Documentary Film. (more...)

video Maybe Friday was an exceptionally slow news day. In fact, in a week of all Twilight, Oprah, and Going Rogue, real news did seem to cease. But does that really give Countdown -- with Lawrence O'Donnell sitting in for Olbermann -- license to forgo their headline story altogether in favor of a highlight reel replaying all of the Sarah Palin jokes from across television this week? Is no one on the Countdown writing staff funny? (more...)

VIDEO Was President Obama's trip to Dover Air Force Base early Thursday morning to salute the caskets of 18 dead American soldiers as they were returned to American soil from Afghanistan a moment of presidential piety, or an irresistible photo-op? And could it have been both? (more...)

video The Morning Joe team flashed back to around 2005 this morning, as co-host Joe Scarborough and regular guest Lawrence O'Donnell went at it over weapons of mass destruction, the lead up to the war in Iraq and the Bush administration. All this came about after some more harsh comments aimed at Pres. Barack Obama by former VP Dick Cheney last night. (more...)

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It's 1993 again! Last night, Countdown fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell ran a segment on the "vast right-wing conspiracy." Riffing off of Bill Clinton's Meet the Press appearance, in which the former president said that the conspiracy is "as virulent as it was" during his presidency, but not as big, O'Donnell and guest David Neiwert of Crooks and Liars went one further and agreed it was bigger and nastier. Does the claim hold up? (more...)

Former Republican House Majority Leader Tom Delay made his long-awaited debut on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" on Monday, and the media's reaction yesterday seemed to focus on showing that "The Hammer" is a tool. While the spectacle of Delay cutting a rug and talking about "getting in touch with (his) feminine side" has undeniable trainwreck appeal, is it really appropriate to pile on a guy who is clearly having fun at his own expense? This Countdown segment includes Delay's rehearsal, and his cha-cha=cha performance, plus fill-in host Lawrence O'Donnell's hammering-home of his new Delay nickname, "Indicted Tom Delay."

O'Donnell and his guest are actually rather kind to Delay regarding his performance, but their unmistakable glee at his misfortune saps a lot of fun from the segment. The judges, too, seem to delight in pointing and laughing at Delay, instead of crediting him for really going for it. They miss the point, that the humor of the performance is that it is surprisingly accomplished. While I could knock Delay for his "feminine side" remarks (I dare him to say that at the late Patrick Swayze's Road House), I'm more dismayed at Jack Cafferty's reaction, and Huffington Post's seeming agreement with it: Now, Jack Cafferty is not a guy I would expect lots of sensitivity from, but when he's basically joking that Delay is making himself a target for prison rape, I would expect HuffPo to point out that this is not such a funny idea. Newsweek's Holly Bailey comes close to laughing with Delay, not at him. Seriously, we already get it, Delay's not a prince of a guy, and Dancing with the Stars is not a night at the Met. Mocking Delay in this situation is the boring, obvious choice. It reminds me of a piece of advice that Sergio Leone once gave to Clint Eastwood. "Shoot your love scenes like action scenes, and your action scenes like love scenes." In this case, when the story is this funny on its own, it's funnier to play it straight, and vice versa.

VIDEO Sometimes an interview goes off the rails, and it's very obvious where things started going poorly. But Lawrence O'Donnell's interview-like segment (it would be giving it too much credit to actually call it an "interview") with GOP Rep. John Culberson of Texas yesterday was awful and shouty from start to finish. It left an agitated Culberson bashing MSNBC as a network after being interrupted for the umpteenth time. As Joe Scarborough described it on Twitter, "Lawrence O'Donnell (aka Crazy Larry) erupts on congressman." Let's take a look at what happened. (more...)