Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough — prompted in part by the characterization of “brain dead” Republicans in Richard Cohen‘s harshly critical Washington Post op-ed piece — had some choice words about the state of the media in regards to the GOP.

Morning Joe‘s Mike Barnicle expressed skepticism over Piers Morgan ‘s denial of having any knowledge about the phone hacking scandal during his tenure as editor of multiple British tabloids on Wednesday’s show. “Just the clips of that testimony are preposterous,” Barnicle opined. “A newspaper editor who says he only knows 5% of what his journalists were up to?”

On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough shouted down co-host Mika Brzezinski after she sympathized with President Obama for his alleged distaste for politics the way it is today. “It appears that you could make a case that Barack Obama doesn’t like politics,” contributor Mike Barnicle surmised, which Newsweek’s Tina Brown agreed with. “Well who would today?” interjected Brezinski. “Oh come on!” interrupted Scarborough “If you don’t like medicine, don’t be a doctor.

Conservative attention grenade Ann Coulter‘s appearance on MSNBC’s Morning Joe resulted in some predictable shenanigans on her part, but also in shocking silence from host Joe Scarborough following a crass slur of late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Seeking to excuse Mitt Romney‘s position shifts, Coulter noted that Romney had run against Kennedy, and referred to him as “that human pestilence.”

Conservative pundit Ann Coulter appeared on Morning Joe Tuesday and was bleeped out by MSNBC censors, though it was unclear what profanity she had used. “What did I say?” Coulter confusedly asked. “Oh, I said douche bag.”

The title question makes for a bad Paula Cole record, but a good basis for discussion on this morning’s Morning Joe. Co-host Mika Brzezinski led a discussion of the current GOP presidential field’s frequent brain power outages, such as Herman Cain’s Libya whiff and Rick Perry’s debate mega-stumble, pegged to op-eds by The Washington Post‘s Kathleen Parker and Newsweek‘s Paul Begala.

After reviewing disturbing footage of Oakland cops firing teargas canisters on demonstrators, Morning Joe‘s panelists roundly condemned the Occupy Oakland crackdown on Thursday and Mike Barnicle characterized their actions as a “police riot.” “You were watching a police riot,” Barnicle exclaimed. “The Oakland police department has had a series of problems over the last 10 years and that was a police riot you were just watching.”

In the wake of yesterday’s political kerfuffle over President Obama‘s request to address a joint session of Congress on the same day as a GOP Presidential debate, pundits are quickly finding meaning in the schedule conflict. First up? Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough, who saw “speechgate” as evidence of Obama’s political irrelevance, adding that absolutely nobody in D.C. fears the White House. Mika Brzezinski countered with “If this were a Republican you would call the Democrats in Congress disrespectful.”

Today’s Morning Joe featured North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue talking about how her state is preparing for the arrival of Hurricane Irene. At the end of the interview, co-host Mike Barnicle asked the governor how state unemployment might be affected by rebuilding efforts after the storm subsides.

President Obama’s speech yesterday in the aftermath of S&P downgrading America’s credit rating resulted in generally negative reviews from the Morning Joe crew. As Mike Barnicle repeated “why, why, why” would Obama go out with anything to say, Mika Brzezinski attempting to defend Obama, suggested she knows at least one person who thought it was a good speech. Joe Scarborough joked that the one person was probably the President himself.

MSNBC’s Pat Buchanan attempted to justify the Republican position of not accepting a debt compromise with President Obama by suggesting that the last Republican to go along with such a deal was President George H.W. Bush and his reward for raising taxes was one term. Yet none of the other Morning Joe guests in the discussion including MSNBC contributors Ed Rendell, Harold Ford Jr., Mike Barnicle and Jonathan Capehart were buying Buchanan’s argument that Republicans were taking a “principled position.”

The Morning Joe crew discussed the ongoing budget negotiations and the consensus of the table seemed to be that Republicans were still not willing to go along with a compromise, despite a potential deal with a 5:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases, according to The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein. Yet as Mika Brzezinski wondered “are we skewed” in concluding Republicans aren’t putting anything new on the table, Mike Barnicle suggested that President Obama is trying to negotiate with Republicans who do not comprehend “real world” problems.

Republican Senator Jim DeMint appeared on Morning Joe and stated his uncomplicated view on the budget debate: “we need to stop spending more than we’re brining in.” Yet Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle questioned why Republicans were not more willing to negotiate or even “haggle” with Democrats about some potential revenue increases.

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul appeared on Morning Joe and raised some eyebrows on a bunch of issues with the panel interviewing him. Paul joined Newt Gingrich’s dislike of Congressman Paul Ryan’s budget plan, but for the complete opposite reason: “it just wasn’t enough for me,” Paul said, yet “at least he’s going in the right direction.” Although when the conversation turned to foreign policy things got even more interesting.

We’ve written a lot this week about opponents of the Islamic Center near Ground Zero saying ridiculous things or making absurd leaps.

But defenders of the plans in the media say ridiculous things and make absurd leaps too! Let’s not leave these people out.

In the ever-evolving Shirley Sherrod story there is one bit of information that relates directly to cable news – Sherrod’s claim she was pressured to resign specifically before Glenn Beck‘s Fox News show at 5pmET.

It was through this lens Joe Scarborough blasted the White House for being scared of “the guy with the chalkboard.”

This clip from this morning’s Morning Joe is currently making the rounds due to Peggy Noonan’s remark that today’s Mass. special election GOP candidate Scott Brown is popular because he “looks like an American.” Actually, Noonan’s remark may be the least offensive to come out of this morning’s chat session on the subject, Donny Deutsch thinks the fact Brown not black or a woman may offer a “visceral comfort” to voters.

“We’re talking to ourselves. It’s like we have built this conservative ghetto — like the Warsaw Ghetto — where we have put ourselves ideologically in a box, and we shout and scream and yell at each other, but we need to get out and we need to start talking to the center of America where elections are won .”

— Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, in discussion with Sam Tanenhaus about his latest book, The Death of Conservatism, on the echo chamber of current Conservative thought.

You’d have to be living under a rock not to know that Mad Men is debuting its hotly-anticipated third season on Sunday — and everyone’s excited. All that 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.

On Friday, President Barack Obama surprised the Washington Press Corps with an impromptu jacking of the daily press briefing. The president “recalibrated” his statements after some caterwauling from … ahem … everywhere. He called the arresting officer a good cop. He wanted to take back the “stupid” comment and reassure everyone that he had no idea his little statement would obscure his health care initiative.