It didn't take long for MSNBC to unveil one of its favorite talking points in response to Hillary Clinton's email scandal at the State Department.
Wednesday, the day after a grisly press conference where Clinton tried to answer for deleting thousands of emails and why she had a personal server in the first place, host Alex Wagner posed a question the network loves when Democrats are in tight spots.
"To the Trey Gowdy part of the equation, there is a danger here for Republicans which is a frequent danger, that of overplaying their hand," she said. "The fact that Trey Gowdy has said before Secretary Clinton's testimony has even begun that he may need to talk to her twice, is he at risk of overstepping here?"
The question concerned Gowdy, a South Carolina Republican heading up the House Benghazi select committee, and his desire to see all of Clinton's State emails, particularly those regarding the deadly 2012 terrorist attack. But it's part of a larger pattern at MSNBC, where any and all scandals of Democrats are so frequently marginalized in favor of those daring to probe them.
This might come as a shock, but MSNBC has concern-trolled plenty of other times when Republicans criticized or investigated Democrats over various malfeasances. On the IRS scandal, the VA scandal, Obamacare's myriad problems, the Benghazi investigation and President Obama's executive amnesty, MSNBCers have posed some variance of the question, "Are Republicans in danger of overreaching" or "Are Republicans in danger of overplaying their hand?"
Or in the case of more partisan hosts like Rachel Maddow, Al Sharpton and Melissa Harris-Perry, simply calling it "Republican overreach."
This has been done for the past six years in service of President Obama, but now there's another presidential campaign brewing and another Democrat to steer into the White House. As the Clinton email saga continues developing, look for more network gasping about the GOP going over the top through dastardly actions like asking questions and filing subpoenas.
It's not exactly clever, but it's an easy way to shift negative stories about Democrats to narratives about Republicans and their darned scandal-mongering. The press often goes for it.
Other favorite MSNBC talking points including claiming Republicans "hate" Obama and accusing the GOP of "delegitimizing this president" and "unprecedented obstruction."