Last year, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart tore into CNN for “fact-checking” Saturday Night Live. As part of the segment, he commented a number of times on how hosts regularly say “That’s all the time we have,” despite a show that is four hours long and a news cycle that is 24 hours. It was quite an entertaining, and hard-hitting, segment.

I was reminded of this today, as White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs spoke on Morning Joe about the health care summit today. As expected, Gibbs threw out the same old garbage about everyone working together, being adult men and women sitting in the same room, etc. etc. He hammered insurance companies for jacking up rates, most noticeably Anthem in California (though he neglected to specify the company by name- a broad brush against an unnamed enemy always obfuscates best, I suppose). Not to be outdone, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinsk, as well as Andrea Mitchell and another guest whose name escapes me immediately jumped on the bandwagon, talking about how Republicans are playing politics, hoping to portray Democrats as playing politics, etc. NBC News’ political correspondent, on the show for a few minutes before Gibbs, also played the pro-Democrat card, saying that by having a Truth Squad outside the summit in addition to the summit attendees, House Republicans were showing a lack of trust of their own members.

This was incredibly frustrating to watch, and I’m certain my fellow gym attendees were not pleased at my constant yelling at the television. I know MSNBC is in the tank for Democrats, but could they at least be accurate? Could they at least admit the truth about the summit, that Democrats and President Obama do not expect anything to come out of it, except of course a public relations boost?

Two reasons in particular this was so frustrating:

1. According to Fox News’ Major Garrett (emphasis mine),

To shake things up, Obama decided to write a new script – starting with a televised summit and six-hours of health care wonkery. The gimmick is simple: the only elixir for a country soured on secrecy and Democrat-on-Democrat policy wrangling is an all-the-way live, bi-partisan health care talk-a-thon.

The summit, as White House advisers readily admit, is not about cobbling together a bi-partisan deal to break the health care logjam. The point is to show voters that Obama will sit with Republicans for six hours and see if, in spokesman Robert Gibbs’ words, engage in a “robust debate” with “open minds.”

“We’re always better when we’re on offense,” a senior official told Fox. “The summit is us on offense. At the end it will be painfully clear to American that Republicans have absolutely no intention of cooperating on health care.”

Now, I have been arguing that Republicans should go to the summit, fully prepared with policy arguments and specific issues with Democratic proposals. However, talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Laura Ingraham, among other national conservatives, have opposed Republican attendance. As Ingraham put it yesterday (paraphrased, of course), the American people have shown they don’t like the Democratic proposals, including the president’s. By going to the summit, Republicans are like a football team that says, “Nah, ref, we don’t want the field goal that won us the game. Can we put time back on the clock and try an end run?”

I think Ingraham’s analogy is excellent, and the moment Garrett’s report came out yesterday morning, Republicans should have ditched the summit. Why go when a) you have already won, b) when the host of the summit has admitted to not wanting to deal with you, c) the White House is clearly intending to use its proposal to ram reconciliation down the throats of an American public that opposes Obama’s will, and d) the Congressional Budget Office can’t even score Obama’s proposal?

But I digress. Nobody on MSNBC pressed Gibbs about the above points, nor did they bring them up in the minutes I was watching before Gibbs came on. Come on, guys and gals- the public deserves better. Even if you don’t like the truth, it still must come out. At the very least, ask Gibbs why he keeps saying “the American people want XYZ” when they clearly don’t- and, of course, why Gibbs is touting the president’s proposal, which in the Beltway world is an unworkable proposal because the CBO cannot score it.

2. Gibbs talked about insurance company rates being too high, and that while Republicans want a redo of health care reform, “health insurance companies” aren’t going to have a restart. They’ll keep their rates high, according to Gibbs.

Essentially, Gibbs was talking about the proposed rate czar in Obama’s proposal. Since none of the people on Morning Joe seem to know anything about the free market, they were unable to point out the it is government intervention that keeps insurance rates high- among other things, the monopoly exemption that the White House FINALLY supports ditching and the regulations that allow mini-oligopolies in each state, what with the inability to get insurance across state lines. Also, of course, the fact that Medicare underpays, thus shifting costs onto the private market, and since the costs are higher the insurance rates are going to be higher. Work on those three areas, as well as lowering overall private costs through tort reform and Dartmouth Atlas-style payment reform, and you will not only have lower insurance rates, you will demolish big insurance companies, two things Gibbs and Obama allegedly support.

I know I shouldn’t waste time grouching about MSNBC shows- it’s too much like Media Matters, hackishly throwing a tantrum over every little thing. In this case, however, health care reform is so important to the country- both in the bad ways Democrats are pushing it, and the good ways conservatives hopefully will push it once they and Republicans are back in the majority- that I decided to let loose. Maybe I’ll get a Maddow-like headline on The Corner or Hot Air: “Siggins Eviscerates, Excoriates and Slams Morning Joe.” (Hey, if Kristofer Lorelli can dream, so can I.)