Scarborough dismisses Mika's binder obsession: 'Romney will win in a landslide'

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough on Thursday warned co-host Mika Brzezinski that if she continued to discuss her concerns over the way Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney diminished pay equality with his story about "binders full of women" then the GOP hopeful would "win in a landslide."

As the male panelists groaned, Brzezinski opened her discussion of Romney's debate "binder" story by noting that that the former Massachusetts governor's recollection about asking for names of qualified women was most likely a "lie."

"I just don't think that's what this campaign should be about," Time's Mark Halperin said, refusing to address the question.

"What? Us calling out facts?" Brzezinski wondered. "It shouldn't be about that? I'll totally disagree, it appears, with everybody at this table. It is insulting. At the debate the other night, Mitt Romney talks about how there weren't enough women and so he sought them out and then 'binders of women' were brought to him, which is a whole funny thing, but that's not true."

"I just don't think that parsing individual statements said live during a debate [is appropriate]," Halperin insisted.

"That was a prepared story," Brzezinski pointed out. "He was prepared to be asked about women and told that story... And if you want to go deeper into it, it takes you all the way until you're running for governor to realize there's not enough women in the workforce? But then it turns out, it wasn't even his decision to look for more women to fill his offices with, but it was actually MassGAP, it was organizations of women that put together these two binders and gave it to both candidates and presented them to both candidates. That's just totally different than what he said at the debate."

But at that point, Scarborough had clearly had enough of the topic and called Brzezinski's "concern" a "ridiculous, ridiculous argument to make."

"I hope the Obama administration and I hope liberals focus on binder-gate for the rest of the campaign," Scarborough continued. "It's ridiculous. If this concerns you, I guarantee you this is your concern. That's not the concern of a waitress that is trying to keep her two jobs and Youngstown, Ohio right now."

"Keep talking about binders and Mitt Romney will win in a landslide," he added.

Co-host Willie Geist observed that Romney's answer about giving women "shorter hours so they could get home to cook dinner" also showed an unacceptable view of women.

"He was talking about flex time," Scarborough replied. "And I can tell you, there are women across America that work for companies that have great foresight... they have great flex hours."

"Well, that's good, I'm glad he's for flex time because we'll be at work less since we're paid less," Brzezinski quipped.

"Whatever," Scarborough shrugged.

UPDATE: Brzezinski has been championed by none other than Cher, who tweeted about the discussion this morning.

"I'm so fucking angry!" wrote the multimedia diva.  "There r NO WORDS. These men did everything but pat her on the head & say 'now Mika you be Quiet While the men talk politics!"

She followed up with, "Who do they think they are!  She was bringing up a point that IS IMPORTANT TO US!"  Later, she wrote, "There would be NO Morning Joe W/out Mika!  I remember when her father came on the show & cut Joe in half b4 joe even felt the knife!  Mika is her father's daughter no matter how gently it goes between them!  When her back is against the wall she IS a Brzezinski!

Watch this video from MSNBC's Morning Joe, broadcast Oct. 18, 2012.

(h/t: The Blaze)