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Vacation's over -- and so is Jane McGarry's long career at NBC5

By ED BARK
You apparently haven't arrived on MSNBC unless you've been suspended.

Political analyst Mark Halperin was the latest to join the list Thursday, even though he first was goaded by Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.

Halperin first asked if the seven-second delay button was operative before he ventured to say what he really thought about President Obama's press conference Wednesday. Both hosts urged him to go ahead with assurances that anything too dicey would be bleeped out. Halperin then said, "I thought he (Obama) was kind of a dick yesterday."

Scarborough, previously suspended for making unauthorized donations to Republican candidates, was somewhat taken aback.

"What are you doing!?" he exclaimed. "I was joking. Don't do that!"

The hosts then chastized an on-camera guy in the control booth after he said he'd pressed the wrong button.

Halperin, author of the best-selling 2008 presidential campaign chronicle Game Change, quickly apologized both on the air and in a subsequent MSNBC news release announcing his indefinite suspension as one of the network's analysts. "We apologize to the President, the White House and all of our viewers," the MSNBC statement said in part. "We strive for a high level of discourse and comments like these have no place on our air."

The "high level of discourse" part is particularly funny.

"Um, we're going to have a meeting after the show," a frozen-faced Brzezinski said on the air Thursday. That was funny, too.

Keith Olbermann, former host of MSNBC's Countdown, also was suspended by the network -- for unauthorized contributions to Democratic candidates. He then left MSNBC and launched a new version of Countdown earlier this month on Al Gore's Current TV network.

Olbermann should have a field day with this, provided that you can find Current on your cable or satellite menu. Countdown airs at 7 p.m. (central).

MSNBC hosts David Schuster and Ed Schultz also received badges of honor, er, suspensions, for what were deemed inappropriate mouth movements. Schuster accused Hillary Clinton of "pimping out" daughter Chelsea during the 2008 campaign while Schultz branded analyst/author Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut."

Here's video of Halperin's Morning Joe moment.