Major network?  It’s difficult to remember sometimes, but MSNBC is a part of NBC News and not an arm of Ringling Brothers.  However, the clowns do come out at night, and Larry O’Donnell led the parade last night with one of the more ridiculous demonstrations of outrageous outrage in recent American broadcasting.  O’Donnell takes Tagg Romney’s joke about wanting to take a swing at President Obama when Obama kept asserting that his father was lying during the debate, and turns it into this Johnson-measuring moment that went on for almost three minutes.

And it wouldn’t be complete without the gratuitous class-warfare nonsense, as O’Donnell whines about his underprivileged childhood as a way to suggest that Tagg can’t handle himself mano a mano:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c6e6YD8w6WI

Real Clear Politics calls this “a tense moment.”  I’d use other adjectives, such as “embarrassing,” “idiotic,” “puerile,” and “unprofessional.”  This is, though, apparently what NBC News believes enhances their credibility as a news organization.  Hey, they have nowhere to go but up from this.