Sarah Palin's Guilt by Association

Rachel Maddow and Mike Murphy clash twice on Meet the Press

On Sunday's Meet the Press, Republican strategist Mike Murphy and liberal news anchor Rachel Maddow clashed twice. The first skirmish broke out when Murphy took a broad swing at both MSNBC, Maddow's network, and Fox News. (Start the video above at 2:25):

Murphy: "There is a kind of freak show business now... We have one-party cable networks now, one of each, and what that does is dumbs down the debate."

Maddow, visibly irked by the idea that she works for a one-party network, jabbed back:

Maddow: Wait...Joe Scarborough [a conservative MSNBC news anchor], which network is he on? Which one-party network?

Murphy: He's on your liberal network.

Maddow: How is that a one-party network?

Murphy: I would take your prime time and Fox prime time and say it is... the same dance toward the dumbing of debate.

Then, after a brief retreat to their corners they resumed their fight over Sarah Palin's new book. Maddow criticized Palin for teaming up with a writer who had ties with an alleged "white supremacist." Murphy interjected:

Murphy: Sarah Palin's a lot of things, but she's not a white supremacist.

Maddow: I don't think she is. But when you can pick anybody, why would she pick somebody who's associated with the League of the South?

Murphy: That's sort of guilt by association stuff... it is so...not important to the central questions in the country right now. But that's what cable TV has become.

Maddow got the last word:

Maddow: It's guilt by choice. It's guilt by choice.