Kos Banned From MSNBC

Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas Zúniga has been banned from MSNBC. The reason is a stupid fight Kos got into with Joe Scarborough on Twitter. Scarborough tweeted the White House job offer to Joe Sestak was of Nixon proportions. That was rather overblown but Kos brought up the conspiracy theory about the death of Scarborough's Congressional aide Lori Klausutis.

markos: Like story of a certain dead intern. RT @JoeNBC: Luckily for the White House, the media has been negligent on this story since Day 1.

Kos blogged that he doesn't believe Scarborough is responsible for Klausutis's death. It is in poor taste for Kos to bring up the death of a young woman whom Scarborough knew on Twitter.

Scarborough fired back.

JoeNBC: @markos Unbelievable. You have a long history of spreading lies suggesting I am a murderer. This is the 3rd or 4th time by my count.

I don't think Kos was accusing him of being a murderer. However, there are several crackpots on the internet that have conspiracy theories about Klausutis's. It is easy to see why Scarborough would be so sensitive.

Kos was told by MSNBC president Phil Griffin via e-mail that he will not be invited to MSNBC.

Markos,

Blog if you must, but here is my on the record statement to you which I ask that you print in full:

Yes, after I became aware of the ugly cheap shot you took at Joe on Twitter, I asked the teams to take a break from booking you on our shows for a while. I found the comments to be in poor taste, and utterly uncalled for in a civil discourse.

I'm hoping this will be only temporary and that the situation can be resolved in a mature fashion, but until then I just don't know how one could reasonably expect to be welcomed onto our network while publicly antagonizing one of our hosts at the same time.

The DailyKos community has been among the most supportive of MSNBC, and we continue to appreciate that support.

I find it fascinating that Twitter has become so powerful that two high-profile political figures and MSNBC can get entangled into a high school-level chat room fight. I don't have a horse in this fight but Kos and Scarborough really need to chill out on Twitter.