JoeSco can't get no respect

Howard Kurtz continues to act as though Joe Scarborough doesn't exist, so that he can suggest MSNBC is as liberal as FOX is conservative. A couple of months ago, Kurtz went to great lengths to downplay the three hours a day that MSNBC hands Scarborough. Today, he just disappeared Scarborough from a discussion of the cable channel's leanings:

N.Y., N.Y.: Once again, I must take exception to the depiction of MSNBC as left- leaning. Rachel Maddow is certainly a progressive "left" leaner and Olbermann, while appearing left-leaning, is actually a libertarian with personality leanings (i.e. he likes Obama and does not like Bill O'Reilly -- I'm sure you can recall how much he did not like Hillary Clinton who was to Obama's left on many issues). Matthews and Shuster are center right with Matthews having a particular fondness for D.C.'s homegrown insular conventional wisdom as dispatched by folks like Howard Fineman (Morning Joe is big on this, too). I would be delighted if there was a progressive news channel but MSNBC is definitely not that channel.

Howard Kurtz: You're entitled to your view, of course. But one way to measure it is by criticism of the two administrations. Olbermann and Maddow criticized the Bush administration virtually every day, and have clearly been more sympathetic to Obama. Hannity has ripped the Obama administration, and O'Reilly has been skeptical to critical, almost every day, and both were more sympathetic to Bush. The same applies to the vast majority of their guests. And Democratic politicians are far more likely to show up on the two MS shows, and Republicans on the two Fox shows.

Note that the questioner mentioned Morning Joe - but Kurtz, bent on equating MSNBC and FOX, pretended the show didn't exist, and that MSNBC consists solely of Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann.