Do some on MSNBC sink to Fox News' level?

In the left's post-debate angst-fest, a few MSNBC folks felt it necessary to vent harshly and vent loudly.

Chris Mathews, as one example, suggested President Obama should "bring the knives out," and Lawrence O'Donnell, who I think is a wicked smart man most of the time, referred to an analogy made by a newspaper writer who suggested the debates are like a bullfight, with Obama as matador and Romney as bull. The writer, and by using it, O'Donnell, intimated that we all know how a bullfight ends, metaphorically suggesting Romney would be killed by Obama. 

Really? A murder  metaphor? 

For clarity and in fairness, I repeat: this was not O'Donnell's metaphor, he was referring to someone else's use of it, but... O'Donnell did refer to it to make his point, ergo ipso facto.

Previously and throughout the day, a few other MSNBCers also made some fairly general statements and close-to-mean-spirited remarks, but my goal here is not to detail particular anecdotal shortcomings, it's to make a larger and, I feel, more important point.  

There has been a meme taking shape for a couple years that MSNBC is the left-wing news channel and Fox is the right-wing news channel. It's as if each is the mouthpiece for the corresponding political party. The short answer is no freaking way! 

Considering it's on record that Fox News does receive and follow memos from the RNC (see video of Steve Doocy's direct referral to one such memo on the Fox News morning show last year), there is no argument available to counter this claim. It's a fact. 

On the other hand, MSNBC's talking heads' overwhelmingly negative responses to Obama's performance is fairly effective proof that MSNBC is nowhere near the Obama tank, let alone the DNC's. If it were, MSNBCers would have spun his poor performance far more than was done, which almost wasn't done. Most called it like they saw it: Obama did not show up, he sucked as a debater, and he allowed Romney to walk all over him. 

Full stop. 

Conversely, and to be honest, when has Fox News said a discouraging word about Romney, aside from when it was trying to overtly influence the Republican primary by first favoring an uninterested Christie, then an unqualified/unbelievable Trump, and then "real" condidates Perry, Cain, Gingrich,  Santorum, and finally Romney only when it was clear they weren't going to get their way with who they saw as the "truer" conservatives? But here they are now, offering Romney as the savior of conservative thought, even as they spit over their collective shoulder after the very words leave their mouths. 

In other words, whether some of them like it or not, Fox News is in effective lockstep with the Romney parade; it's all aboard the Romney-Ryan Express. It's full speed ahead, even as Fox News accuses MSNBC of "liberal bias." 

Hello... kettle? This is pot.

Easy, albeit wholly ineffective, arguments are made that MSNBC and Fox News are two sides of a coin, but they aren't. MSNBC has managed, for the most part, to remain "fair and balanced," able to see and present both sides of arguments, and stay above the mean-spirited and hateful opprobrium, by instead offering reasoned and thoughtful presentations, with a few exceptions: Ed Schultz's loaded questions can make him less credible; Martin Basheer's naked sarcasm is quite often tiring; and Chris Mathews recent ranting makes him seem just shrill and annoying, rather than the wise elder he clearly wishes to present. 

This is just so simple. Guys, don't be assholes. Don't be pricks. Olbermann is gone. There's no need to imitate his ineffectual anger, and more importantly, it just makes you look like the schmucks on Fox News. 

Stay above this. Don't go there. Don't drop to that low level in order to make your points. 

You don't have to do it. Look to your colleagues Maddow, Wagner, Hayes, Harris-Perry, et al., for how it's done, because MSNBC's youth movement is excellent and can teach the elders a few lessons in decorum.