RE: MSNBC vs. Tim Carney

If you were listening to Robyn's news update near the close of today's "Glenn Beck Radio Program," you likely heard the sound of Hell freezing over.

Glenn and Pat sort-of sided with an MSNBC host's treatment of one of the cable network's guests on live air. You can get caught up with the original story here and CNN's Howard Kurtz's take on it here.

Glenn rightly pointed out that guests who are being brought on a show are prepped for the show and everyone knows what's going to be discussed -- and if a guest veers off-topic or throws a curveball or essentially misrepresents himself (mostly to get himself on TV), the host is within his rights to get that guest back on topic.

However, that's not what happened with this recent kerfuffle. (I should first note that Tim Carney is a good friend and former co-worker of mine.) Here are two very important facts to consider when discussing whether or not anchor Tamron Hall was correct when she cut Tim's mic.

1. Carney is under contract with MSNBC. He's a very well-known conservative-libertarian entity at MSNBC who is has a legally binding agreement to come on their airwaves (and not appear on other networks). He wasn't (and isn't) a random guest who might have misrepresented himself to the show's producers.

2. According to Carney, “The question I was sent for the Romney bullying segment was ‘Does the story matter?’ So I was answering it, not dodging.”

With what Tim says -- and I fully trust him -- MSNBC was way out of line.