I almost never watch "Morning Joe" anymore. This was not a concerted effort on my part. There was no moment when I decided to stop watching; I just sort of drifted away from as it became more and more unwatchable. I thought perhaps the Powers That Be at MSNBC might want to know why they lost this viewer.
Joe Scarborough is an insufferable boor. He is the party guest from hell that shows up, monopolizes the conversation, makes unfunny remarks about the hostess being secretly "hot" for him, criticizes the food before devouring half of it and then tries to excuse his bad behavior by claiming that he was "just kidding," and "why don't you have a sense of humor." I think he reminds a lot of women of their first husband and just why divorce, however painful, is sometimes so worth it.
This boorish idiot, aided and abetted by the "living dead duo" of Mike Barnicle and Pat Buchanan, spend half the morning trying to turn poor Mika Brzezinski, the alleged co-host of the show, into a substitute and infantilized Mom figure for them. Clueless Joe will react to some dumb news item by immediately pretending that Mika's reaction to it is "anti men." He then spends gobs of time pretending to be wounded, wounded because Mom is trying to spank him over some imaginary censorship. How Mika manages to put up with this behavior is beyond me. I would have told the jerk to go to hell and to call Senator Vitter's prostitute service pronto. Clueless Joe obviously wants that "bad Mom and baby boy in diapers" scenario real bad.
The overwhelmingly male cast also has two people who probably have a defibrillator next to them at all times in order to get through the show. Zombies Barnicle and Buchanan serve the purpose of backing up Clueless Joe whenever he makes some idiotic remark so that Joe's rantings actually sound somewhat sane. Having two fossils on the set bleating out "brains, we need brains" every few minutes in response to something Clueless Joe says, however, is not good television. It's insulting, especially to your female viewers.
And Clueless please listen up: you're not cute and adorable when you insult a woman with your remarks and then pretend it's all okay when you put "babe" or "the diva" after her name. It's a belittling habit that tells the viewer that you don't actually care what a woman is saying, but it's okay because you secretly think they are "'hot'and really, that's all that matters isn't it." I understand this gives the fossilized remains of Barnicle and Buchanan a chance to attempt to smirk and giggle as if they were still alive, but it's extremely off putting to a lot of your female viewers.
I gradually stopped watching "Morning Joe" because the show has become a predictable mess. Joe comes on, pretends he is the voice of middle America, immediately casts Mika as the House Liberal and then spends the rest of the show mocking her and engaging in "guy talk" with a mostly male panel of regulars who also spend considerable time mocking poor Mika. Come on, vary the format. Or at least free Mika to give these morons a taste of their own medicine. She gets cast as Mom and most days never gets out of the 'apron and heels' thing long enough to say anything worth hearing. Give her a break.
Also, lose the zombie twosome. I greatly fear a day will come when some piece of Barnicle or Buchanan that didn't get it's nightly formaldehyde bath might break off on national TV and that would be just too gross to handle. Clueless Joe would then blame Mika and her East Coast, feminist superpowers for what happened to the living dead duo.
Now why on earth would I want to watch that?