MSNBC and Steele

Amanda Carpenter | February 02, 2009 4:52 PM

MSNBC has been vehemently questioning new RNC Chairman Michael Steele's call on the GOP to oppose Barack Obama's $825 billion spending bill today.

I appeared earlier this afternoon for one of these hits with anchor David Schuster and it seems to me a few things are going on here.

All of the anchors are "'wondering" if Steele is an "obstructionist" because he thinks the stimulus bill is bad policy and if the Senate will listen to him. So, it seems to me, there are dual storylines MSNBC is pushing: 1) That Steele is an "obstructionist" because he doesn't roll over for Obama and 2) he will have his first "loss" if all the Senate Republicans don't vote against the bill like the House GOP did."

(In my segment Schuster also asked me to justify how Steele has "any credibility" on the economy by pulling out statements he'd made as Maryland Lt. Governor I'd never seen with no context, but that's beside the point...)

Am I reading too far into this? Do you think they are trying to set Steele up for failure?

This is, after all, the network that Chris Matthews declared "opened its heart to change" and whose viewers populated the National Mall on inauguration day.

I really want to believe there are producers, reporters and anchors at MSNBC who are interested in news and issues (rather than being an arm of the Democratic Party) but when programming, throughout the day, takes a consistently negative tone on the new RNC Chair it's pretty clear there's an agenda.