The smartest show(s) on TV - news & newstalk

Morning Joe on MSNBC is the smartest weekday show on TV. Worthy of the crack of dawn time slot. The View used to be the smartest weekday show on TV, but not any more. With each of the hosts having obviously more compelling professional interests, they've gone totally daytime.

The Situation Room on CNN is a contender, but whenever Wolf Blitzer takes a day off they put a cupcake (intended as a gender neutral disparagement) in the anchor seat. Blitzer is one of the best cable TV journos, and does news, news, without a lot of biased blather. Occasionally his attitude betrays his personal leanings, but in these days of yappity dog broadcast journalism, that puts him high on the Russert scale.

On weekends, it's still Meet The Press. I like Fareed Zakaria GPS for a smart TV show but Fareed is entirely too smug. He's condescending, who needs that? Christine Amanpour is a great journalist but doesn't do This Week very well, it's just not a good fit. She shined, however, with her coverage of the Egyptian revolution, but the Mideast is her beat. For the normal news week she's just not incisive enough.

Update: I apologize for that cupcake remark. After a couple of days, Candy Crowley filled in and she's no cupcake.

I also admire the Andrea Mitchell show on MSNBC, but it comes at an awkward time of the day so I don't often catch it.