SAYS, “I BET EVERYONE AT MSNBC HAS ‘INDEPENDENT’ ON THEIR VOTING CARDS. OH, WE’RE DOWN THE MIDDLE NOW.”

A brief back and forth between MSNBC host Joe Scarborough and commentator David Shuster over the Iraq troop withdrawal turned heated this morning as the two questioned the journalistic impartiality of themselves and the network.

Most notably, in the clip above, Scarborough sarcastically chided, “I bet everybody at MSNBC has ‘Independent’ on their voting cards. Oh, we’re down the middle now.”

[View the entire argument here.]

Scarborough’s remark came after Shuster accused him of taking it easy on Republican presidential nominee John McCain because the Arizona Senator is a member of “your party, Joe.”

Scarborough immediately took offense to the implication and fired back, “my party, my party loathes me much more than your party, the Democratic Party, loathes me.”

From there the argument digressed into a battle over bipartisanship that made both men look rather foolish. But the accusation from someone like Scarborough — who has tried very hard since leaving Congress in 2001 to shake his conservative image — that MSNBC has left-of-center tendencies may very well stick.