This afternoon, the FiveThirtyEight blogger and Times writer challenged Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough to a 21st century type of duel. The terms? If Barack Obama wins, Mr. Scarborough will have to pay up. If Mitt Romney wins, Mr. Silver will pay. The wager? A $2,000 (it was raised from the original $1,000) donation to the Red Cross. The method for laying down the challenge? Twitter, of course. It is 2012, after all.Mr. Scarborough has not taken the bait so far, but that hasn't stopped Ms. Sullivan from finding Mr. Silver's behavior to be unseemly for someone with a desk in the Times newsroom. Mr. Silver is not actually a staff writer at The New York Times--his blog is licensed by the Times and he writes for the paper of record (and the website of record).

"It’s also inappropriate for a Times journalist, which is how Mr. Silver is seen by the public even though he’s not a regular staff member," wrote Ms. Sullivan.

Ms. Sullivan asked the arbiter of Times style, standards editor Phillip B. Corbett, to weigh in.

“I wouldn’t want to see it become newsroom practice,” Mr. Corbet said. Although he doesn't sound like the biggest fan, Mr. Corbett explained that the mitigating factor is that Mr. Silver is a blogger, which is "something like a columnist."

The blogger defense didn't placate the public editor. It is the Times, after all.

"But he is closely associated with The Times and its journalism – in fact, he’s probably (and please know that I use the p-word loosely) its most high-profile writer at this particular moment," she wrote. Flattery can only get you so far. Ms. Sullivan pointed out that the Times is a good brand on any resume.

"When he came to work at The Times, Mr. Silver gained a lot more visibility and the credibility associated with a prominent institution," Ms. Sullivan wrote.  "But he lost something, too: the right to act like a free agent with responsibilities to nobody’s standards but his own."

Ms. Sullivan previously went after freelancer Andrew Goldman after his poorly thought out Twitter outburst. The catch, of course, is that a Times byline may come with expectations, but unless you are on staff, it doesn't come with health insurance.

“I recognize that I have a responsibility to honor the guidelines and conditions of my employment, and I regret that I failed to do so in this matter,” Scarborough said in a statement. “I apologize to MSNBC and to anyone who has been negatively affected by my actions."

The suspension without pay will last for two days and end this coming Wednesday. Scarborough made donations to friends and other candidates running for office near his hometown of Pensacola, Florida. NBC made it clear during its punishment of Olbermann that such donations are in violation of company policy.

nfreeman [at] observer.com | @nfreeman1234

Ms. Gillibrand has been judicious in her television appearances since she became a senator last January, and has reportedly declined invititations to step into what seemed like particularly hostile territory--what with host Joe Scarborough offering to knock on doors for her erstwhile challenger, Harold Ford Jr.

But, after Mr. Ford's exit, and a lunch date with co-host Mika Brzezinksi, Ms. Gillibrand made her Morning Joe debut today. She deflected questions about Mr. Ford and Charlie Rangel, said she had always supported same-sex marriage, and explained that her focus broadened on guns when she became a statewide representative. She sparred gently with Andrew Ross Sorkin on health care reform, which she said would be good for New York.

It didn't break much new ground, but the 12-minute, nationally televised segment suggests that--after an occassionally rocky first year in front of the cameras--Ms. Gillibrand's camp believes she's found her voice.

Mr. Scarborough always makes it a point to awkwardly assert that Mr. Schumer should replace the endangered Harry Reid as Senate Majority Leader, but the host also wanted to needle the senior senator about that other Senate race.

"We've got a new idea for you: Why don't you get a fellow senator who's a billionaire, and then you can fly his G-5 back and forth with him," Mr. Scarborough said. "We're talking about Morning Joe's Mort Zuckerman. What do you think about Senator Zuckerman?"

"To have a good strong partner is the best thing you can do," Mr. Schumer said, adding that it took he and Hillary Clinton a year to forge a good, strong relationship. "As you've seen in the last couple weeks, Senator Gillibrand is showing her stuff. She's a capable person, she's a smart person, she's a hard-working person. It takes awhile to learn this job. It took me my first year or two. She's getting better and better."

Ms. Gillibrand's camp—after a year that's had its rough moments in the public eye—appears to share the same opinion.

"I'm having lunch with Senator Gillibrand today," said co-host Mika Brzezinski as they went to sign off. "So we'll be reporting back. We're going to have her on the show, Senator Schumer."

Ms. Gillibrand has so far declined to appear on "Morning Joe"—even before it became decidedly enemy territory, given that the ringleader Mr. Scarborough has made no secret of his affinity for her potential challenger, Harold Ford Jr. But a spokesperson for Ms. Gillibrand told Politico that the women will be having lunch, and that they'd like to get her on the show.

In the meantime, she'll be doing a Facebook video chat this afternoon.

"Doing nothing else, just hanging out," quipped Joe Scarborough.

And then Chrystia Freeland of the Financial Times piped up with the obvious question: "Are you going to keep on calling him a political analyst if he gets to the Senate?"

"He's made no such announcement so we'll keep calling him that until that day," Mr. Geist replied.

"So presumptuous, so presumptuous," Mr. Scarborough scolded.

But with Mr. Ford increasingly acting like a candidate, Ms. Freeland's question became increasingly less presumptuous. And, at some point a few weeks ago, Mr. Ford and NBC agreed to suspend Mr. Ford's contract, according to Politico.

A spokesman for Mr. Ford, Tammy Sun, explained to The Observer in an email: "Harold Ford asked for the leave of absence from NBC as a paid analyst while he weighs a run for the U.S Senate. Consistent with that, he also asked for an unpaid leave of absence from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch while he travels the state, listens to voters and weighs an opportunity to serve them in the Senate."

As Michael Calderone notes, suspending Mr. Ford's contract might not solve all the thorny issues.

Although Ford isn't getting paid right now, there may still be questions about his relationship with the network if he's regularly booked on its broadcast and cable shows, or if it appears he's getting preferential treatment in relationship to senator (and possible primary opponent) Kirsten Gillibrand.

It was a sympathetic platform, while it lasted. 

"If you need help in Elmira, New York or the Upper West Side, I'm your man. I control Columbus and Broadway from 64th to 78th," Mr. Scarborough said at the end of that same segment. "I would knock on every door on the Upper West Side; they love me up there."

The segment began with Mr. Schumer's least favorite subject: His desire (unstated, hypothetical, overwhelmingly probably) to be majority leader of the United States Senate.

"If I had to pick a guy to run the Senate, and I was a Democrat, it sure as hell wouldn't be Harry Reid," Joe Scarborough said. "It would be Democratic Senator from New York--who I just put in an uncomfortable position...Senator Chuck Schumer."

That left Mr. Schumer shaking his head.

"There's no one better at this than Harry Reid and I think people always underestimate him. He's a great leader and I'm totally committed to his leadership. So let's push that aside," Mr. Schumer said.

"Well done!" they said back in the studio.

But Mr. Schumer felt the need to keep going, calling Mr. Reid a "great, great bringer-of us-together, and a good vote-counter. We're going to get the 60," he promised. (In a majority leader-like move, Mr. Schumer took his first hunting trip with Democratic Senator, and health care holdout, Ben Nelson last week. "I got three pheasants," Mr. Schumer told reporters on Wednesday.)

Mr. Schumer then scheduled his own next appearance. "Put me on the show in three weeks, and you'll see, we'll have a good strong health care bill that people like," he said.

"You'll still be talking in three weeks," Mr. Scarborough replied.

Asked about the terror trials, he called the military tribunals establish in 2006 "untested."

"So when the authorities say that this is the best and quickest way to put these people to their ultimate punishment, in my view it should be capital punishment, you gotta take him at his word and go with it," Mr. Schumer explained.

As co-host Mika Brzezinski wrapped things up, Mr. Scarborough had his own send-off: "Future majority leader, Senator Chuck Schumer."

Mr. Schumer scoffed. "Oh get out of here, stop that."

Currently, teams of bankers are combing over every detail of the company's books in preparation for Comcast's imminent purchase of NBC Universal. Morning Joe's struggles will not go unnoticed. Perhaps as a result, rumors have been swirling through the building in recent days that a shake-up is about to hit the show, as some insiders question whether MSNBC can maintain the current staff levels despite having already lost a hefty chuck of its bankable audience.

Read the rest of Felix's analysis here.

Mr. Scarborough put down the newspaper and looked over at Jon Meacham, the editor of Newsweek, who was sitting across the table in the Morning Joe studio. “It’s a very positive article, congratulations,” said Mr. Scarborough. “I know it’s a rough time for everyone in print right now.”

Mr. Meacham nodded. The Times article, said Mr. Meacham, was a vote of confidence for everyone in the news business, like Newsweek and Morning Joe, who was fighting the good fight and producing serious journalism. Mr. Scarborough agreed. He was committed to the mission. Hard news, politics, intellectual rigor. MSNBC had made a bet, said Mr. Scarborough, that audiences would reward them for steering clear of tabloid fodder. “We don’t dumb down here,” said Mr. Scarborough.

On Monday’s program, one similarity between Newsweek and Morning Joe was left unspoken—namely, that both are catering to significantly diminishing audiences. Newsweek has lowered its rate base twice in the past two years and will do so again in January. Likewise, Morning Joe is struggling to hang on to viewers. So far this fall, from Sept. 1 through Nov. 13, according to The Observer’s analysis of Nielsen numbers, Morning Joe has averaged 357,000 total viewers and 124,000 in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic—down 35 percent and 43 percent, respectively, from the same time period last year.

Of course, Morning Joe is hardly the only cable news show to suffer a steep decline from last year’s election high. But over the past eight months, Morning Joe has been slipping not only in overall ratings, but also relative to its competition. Not long ago, Morning Joe—like MSNBC’s prime-time lineup—was seemingly well poised to push past CNN into the No. 2 position in cable news (Fox News’ Fox & Friends maintains the top position by a wide margin). To wit: In March of 2009, MSNBC executives announced that Morning Joe had topped CNN’s American Morning in the demographic for the entire month—the first such victory for the network’s morning programming in more than seven years. At the time, MSNBC press releases regularly referred to Morning Joe as “the fastest growing cable news morning show.”

These days, it looks more like the fastest shrinking.

The first two weeks in November have been particularly rough. Morning Joe, during this stretch, has averaged just 315,000 total viewers and 102,000 in the 25- to 54-year-old demographic—and while the show remains competitive in total viewers, it is now regularly finishing in fourth place in the demo, not only behind American Morning (397,000 total viewers; 149,000 in the demo) but also behind Headline News’ Morning Express with Robin Meade (303,000 total viewers; 190,000 in the demo).

“We want higher ratings, and we’re going to get them,” MSNBC’s president, Phil Griffin, told The Observer on Tuesday morning. “It ebbs and flows with what’s going on in the world. But I think 2010 is going to be great for us.”

In late September, The Observer speculated that the imminent debut of an Imus in the Morning simulcast on the Fox Business Network would pose a problem to Morning Joe.

But for the time being, MSNBC executives continue to discount Mr. Imus’ potential impact on Morning Joe. “Imus is not even a blip on the radar,” said a MSNBC spokesperson. (Nielsen does not currently provide ratings data for shows on FBN.) Mr. Griffin called Mr. Imus a “non-player.”

The Morning Joe dip comes at a particularly anxious time at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Currently, teams of bankers are combing over every detail of the company’s books in preparation for Comcast’s imminent purchase of NBC Universal. Morning Joe’s struggles will not go unnoticed. Perhaps as a result, rumors have been swirling through the building in recent days that a shake-up is about to hit the show, as some insiders question whether MSNBC can maintain the current staff levels despite having already lost a hefty chuck of its bankable audience.

On Tuesday morning, Mr. Griffin shot down the rumors. There was no shake-up in the works, he said. The show’s unique marketing partnership with Starbucks, he explained, was still flourishing and evidence of the show’s continued desirability to advertisers. The state of Morning Joe was strong. “The numbers are down, and they’re probably down for everybody,” he said. “It’s basically a three-way tie for second place in the real scheme of things. I’ll take the quality of Morning Joe’s audience.”

“You can’t find anything like it in the morning,” he added. “CNN, the other day, when we’re showing the president, is doing a story on balloon boy. Or they’re doing Michael Jackson. We’ve got a smart, strong audience. Morning Joe gets more buzz, and that’s because we actually talk about what’s going on in the world that’s important. I believe in the show.”

fgillette@observer.com

More from Felix Gillette:

Watch Your Backs, MSNBC! Imus Can See You!

On Morning Joe, Chris Matthews Praises His Old Nemesis Mark Leibovich. Sort Of.

In Recession, Money Honeys Get Company from Grumpy Old Dudes

"By the way, congratulations on Mark Leibovich's piece," Mr. Matthews said to Ms. Abramson, referring to a feature in yesterday's Times about the last days of Mr. Kennedy's life.

Some sixteen months earlier, the author of said feature, Mark Leibovich, had profiled Mr. Matthews for the Times magazine. It wasn't pretty.

A year-and-a-half later, Mr. Matthews appeared almost ready to forgive the Times author. Almost.

"[Leibovich] saved his generosity over a lifetime, he saved that generosity for this piece," said Mr. Matthews on Thursday morning. "Don't you think he rationed it well?"

Joe Scarborough, the host, burst into laughter: "Oh, Matthews! Are you suggesting he didn't ration it for your piece?"

Everyone smiled.

Ms. Abramson, perhaps not fully clued into the joke, kept praising Mr. Leibovich.

"I'm sure Leibovich is very pleased," said Mr. Scarborough.

Last year, Mr. Leibovich began his profile of Mr. Matthews thusly:  "Whenever Chris Matthews says something he likes, which happens a lot, he repeats it often and at volumes suggesting a speaker who feels insufficiently listened to at times."

And sure enough, before Morning Joe cut to a commercial break, Mr. Matthews tried out his punch line about Mr. Leibowich one more time.

 "He did save all that generosity and...gave it to Teddy," said Mr. Matthews, grinning.

"The first couple of weeks I was on MSNBC, every night I would come home and she would meet me at the door and stare at me and say, 'Stop acting like a jackass on national TV!'" said Mr. Scarborough. "She said this back in 2003. I said, 'Well, that's what I'm getting paid for. They hired me for that reason.'"

"She said, 'You need to be more like Tim Russert,'" he continued. "My response was, 'Well, honey, they already have one of those.' She said, 'They need another.'"

Nearby, Mr. Scarborough's on-air partner, Mika Brzezinski, smiled. She was standing next to Donald Trump, who was wearing a pink tie. Mr. Trump slung his arm around Harold Evans and gazed around the room, which was packed with Morning Joe regulars.
 
Jack Welch, Mike Barnicle, Ray Kelly, Willie Geist, Leslie Stahl, Donnie Deutsch, Mark Halperin, Erin Burnett, Ana Marie Cox, Phil Griffin—they had all gathered at the media watering hole on 55th Street in Manhattan to fete the publication of Mr. Scarborough's new book, The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise.

A few minutes earlier, Tina Brown of the Daily Beast—in hyperkinetic hostess mode—had introduced Mr. Scarborough. "This man is so incredible," she said of MSNBC's morning political talk show host. "He's the only person, other than my husband, who has seen me at that time of the morning."

She ceded the microphone to Mr. Scarborough, who gamely launched into his stump speech on what's ailing the Republican party.

"Conservatives always like to talk about Ronald Reagan," said Mr. Scarborough. "They remember Reagan's ideology but they forget his temperament."

Mr. Scarborough told a story involving Colin Powell, Ronald Reagan and the Oval Office. The punch line  involved Mr. Reagan ignoring Mr. Powell to gaze out the window at some squirrels, which were eating some acorns that he had recently sprinkled in the garden.

"Reagan temperamentally was incapable of hating," said Mr. Scarborough. "If people wanted to fight, scratch, claw and yell, he always rose above that. That's what the Republican Party needs to do. ... If Reagan were alive today, he wouldn't be calling Barack Obama a communist. He wouldn't be calling the next Supreme Court justice—what did he call her?"

Mr. Scarborough scanned the room in search of someone who could recall what Rush Limbaugh had called U.S. Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

"A racist?" said Mr. Scarborough. "A reverse racist. This is insane."

"When I hear Rush Limbaugh and others calling Colin Powell a 'liberal' I just have to laugh because there is nothing liberal about Colin Powell's approach towards foreign policy," he said. "So what is a conservative? A conservative conserves taxpayer dollars. A conservative doesn't engage in military adventurism. A conservative doesn't add seven trillion dollars to entitlement programs that are already going bankrupt. A conservative shows restraint."

"The Republican party either reforms or it dies," he added. "Hopefully, they will look at this book and take some cues and actually start acting conservative again."

Everyone clapped, and then promptly returned to vodka tonics and passed mini crab cakes.