Morning Joe 12/2/2011 -- No, I'm the smartest guy in the room, I am!

Joe Scarborough's Gingrich Obsessive Disorder was full blown today after a short remission yesterday. Scarborough is acting like a high school adolescent who thinks it's unfair that Biff is popular when it's so obvious that Biff doesn't deserve it and little Joey does. It's not faaaair!

Scarborough and Michael Steele got into a shouting match when Steele tried to explain Gingrich's rise in popularity with the base. Scarborough took offense at Steele's attempt to help Scarborough understand Gingrich's popularity. Why, doesn't Steele know that the Republican Party is Scarborough's party, and no one konws the party better? How dare Steele disagree with Scarborough! I don't know why these semi-regulars keep coming on the show, really, because it's demeaning when Scarborough's bluster overrides differing opinions, but, it's a gig, I suppose. Scarborough likes to show how he's predicted the fall of each Republican candidate which has made it to the top of the polls ahead of Romney -- Trump, Bachmann, Perry and Cain. Now that Gingrich has made it the top and it looks like he might stay for awhile, Scarborough says he won't predict Gingrich's demise because he's a real challenge. Later on, though, Scarborough did predict that Gingrich would implode. The entire Morning Joe crew laid into Gingrich. It was fun to watch.

Scarborough said Gingrich is not the smartest person in the room, and then accused Gingrich of running for president to sell books. It got ugly. Steele said that the Republican base is tired of faux-elites telling them what they should think. Gingrich has thrown a bomb in the middle of the Pundit Party. Sam Stein and Mark Halperin tried to give their analyses of the Gingrich rise, but they don't really know what's motivating Gingrich's rise.

Sherrod Brown came on the show as the topic changed to supercommittee, debt and unemployment. Brown accused Republicans of obstruction for not agreeing to raise taxes. Scarborough got in a shouting match with Brown when Scarborough accused Democrats of protecting entitlements. Brown gave an example of a 62 year old woman dependent on entitlements. It all turned into a confusion of ideas. Scarborough calmed down and said he does blame Republicans for not making difficult choices regarding tax reform, but this is ridiculous. Republicans want tax reform -- they just don't want to raise tax rates on job producers. Brown's claim was ridiculous, too, because any reform in entitlements wouldn't affect anyone 62 years old. Maybe Gingrich is becoming popular because he can make an argument that's cogent -- Gingrich might not be the smartest person in the room, but he knows enough to make clear arguments.

Then, later, the very smartest person in the room came on the show -- Mika's dad. The first smart thing Mika's dad said is that Europe will be okay because the central banks are doing something. Andrea Mitchell disagreed and said that the Central bank mini-bailout doesn't touch the underlying problems in Europe. Mika's dad, Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski (ZKB), also said that America is one of the most socially unjust countries in the world among industrialized countries because of income disparity. Scarborough didn't challenge this statement, he just asked for clarification. ZKB also said that Greece is the main problem in Europe, but if this was so, there wouldn't be much of a problem. I'm not that smart, but Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Germany's position as the safety net for these countries all appear to be problems -- that and the fact that the people of these nations are resisting austerity measures.

At the end of the program the conversation turned to defense spending, and the consensus is that we spend way to much on defense and mainly because the hype regarding terrorism has given contractors a blank check and no one in government is auditing what's being spent and who's getting screwed. Now, this is smart.

I'll address some of these issues later. It's just too much right now.