Joe Scarborough Runs From Rachel Maddow

By all appearances, Joe Scarborough walked Off MSNBC's "Race To The White House" after an exchange with Rachel Maddow. The Huffington Post has the story.

The panel was discussing the effect of Sen. Obama's personal and professional relationships on his campaign when Rachel and Joe disagreed. Joe started to challenge Rachel's argument that relationships only become an issue when a political opponent makes them an issue, but she cut him off, "Let me make my point and then you can dismiss me." She then finished with an example of a McCain campaign co-chair in Florida's bathroom activities.

After a commercial break, Joe prefaced his rebuttal to Rachel's point by saying "I don't engage in Crossfire-type debates and certainly I don't want to talk about what people do in bathrooms." When he finished speaking, and after David Gregory had shut Joe vs. Rachel down, John Harrow came on camera. Then, viewers can hear Joe taking off his microphone (2:47 into the below video). When the panel picture came back, no Joe.

After the jump, MSNBC's version of the story and some brief analysis.

The HuffPo piece contains the following really believable update:

Update from MSNBC spokesman Jeremy Gaines to Huffington Post: "Joe didn't walk off. He chose not to participate in the final couple of minutes of the discussion because he felt the conversation didn't fit his role as a political analyst."

Sure, TV stars always de-mic themselves in the middle of a segment when they feel like it. That "producer" guy in the credits? Purely a figurehead.

I'm not even sure what that statement means. Are they saying that he literally didn't walk off? Did he stay in the studio, but crouched out of camera view? Did he leave by some other form of ambulation, perhaps crawling, swaggering, maybe skipping?

It is tempting to read all kinds of gender politics into this, but I will resist. Rachel Maddow has a prepossessed quality that a lot of liberals lack, a way of stuffing an opponent and cutting to the chase while looking completely reasonable that has made her a popular contributor to MSNBC. She recently filled in for Keith Olbermann on Countdown, after having taped a pilot for MSNBC, leading many to speculate that a Maddow show is on the horizon.

It is easy for me to imagine that Scarborough, when confronted with any liberal with Maddow's skills, would blow a fuse and head for the hills.

Finally, you can add this to the pile of awkwardness that is Political Smackdowns! (Smacks Down?) that I need to add next time I update my list.