Joe Scarborough Offers Up a Big Dose of Revisionist History on Morning Joe
Joe Scarborough did his best to attempt to rewrite the failings of conservative governance we've suffered over the last few decades along with some of his own history, surprise, surprise with a big assist by some of his fellow panel members, Jon Meacham, Mika Brzezinski and Willie Geist.
While discussing some of the right's disdain for the current crop of Republican presidential candidates, Scarborough throws out the first whopper during the segment, that George W. Bush was not really a conservative. The New Yorker's David Remnick notes that the Republican Party doesn't seem to be the “party of ideas” any more and here's how Scarborough responds.
SCARBOROUGH: Two things have happened over the last decade. One, the election of George W. Bush... a man who claimed to be a conservative, but The New Republic had it right in 2000. Bush was for big government and he was for big business. The New Republic predicted it. I remember the cover of it.
And yet conservatives went along for the ride for the better part of eight years, they let him double the national debt without complaining. They let him engage in a Wilsonian foreign policy where he spent his second inauguration talking about ending tyranny on the four corners of the globe. They remained silent. They betrayed their values. They forgot everything they said in the 1990's and they sold their soul to have power in the White House. And then Barack Obama got elected. And then they lost their mind.
These Democrats have had the Bush derangement syndrome and they did. But then what did they get? Obama derangement syndrome. So it because less about ideas and it became more about destroying Obama and Jon Meacham, that's why they stopped focusing on balancing the budget, on having restraint.
Scarborough seems to have a pretty short memory because by his own definition here, he's part of that problem he's complaining about, and he apparently doesn't remember that he claimed that we won the Iraq War back in 2003 while berating anyone who dared to speak out against it. For a reminder of Scarborough's previous statements, go read Extreme Liberal's Blog here -- Joe Scarborough – A Look Back At His Previous Statements About War! Here are a couple of the quotes from Scarborough among many that they dug up in that post:
“Maybe disgraced commentators and politicians alike, like Daschle, Jimmy Carter, Dennis Kucinich, and all those others, will step forward tonight and show the content of their character by simply admitting what we know already: that their wartime predictions were arrogant, they were misguided and they were dead wrong. Maybe, just maybe, these self-anointed critics will learn from their mistakes. But I doubt it. After all, we don’t call them ‘elitists’ for nothing.”
(MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, 4/10/03)“Sean Penn is at it again. The Hollywood star takes out a full-page ad out in the New York Times bashing George Bush. Apparently he still hasn’t figured out we won the war.”
(MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, 5/30/03)
And as they noted, he contradicted himself on that in 2007:
Isn’t that funny? We won the Iraq War in 2003 and I MISSED IT! So someone tell me why I should be listening to Joe Scarborough blather on, pretending like he’s a dove. So I looked a little further and found this from Mr. Scarborough in February of 2007…
Even if you agree with me that this war was worth fighting as long as we believed Saddam Hussein had WMD’s aimed at America, at some point you have to face the facts: the Bush administration was wrong about those weapons, wrong about the nuclear program, wrong about their refusal to quell rioting early, wrong about Bremer’s gutting of the Iraqi army and police force, wrong about refusing to kill or capture al Sadr in 2003, wrong to tell the generals not speak of the coming insurgency, wrong to stubbornly refuse to give generals the troops they needed to win this war, wrong to make the “Mission Accomplished” declaration, wrong for the VP to claim that the insurgency was in its death throes and wrong to push a surge plan that the president’s top generals opposed.
Joe Scarborough will say whatever the hell he wants as long as it suits his current situation. His photo should appear next to the definition of hypocrite in the dictionary. He seems to get away with it most of the time, though.
And here's more on Scarborough's previous flip flopping on Iraq from North Coast Blog -- Joe Scarborough and the Iraq War:
Joe Scarborough just wrote a column for Politico in which he discusses the Iraq War. As he acknowledges in the article, he was a supporter. [...]
I guess it’s nice to hear Scarborough acknowledge that he supported this fiasco, but this statement is somewhat misleading. Notice how he mentions that 75% of Americans supported the war. If you didn’t know Scarborough’s past, you might assume he was just one of many Americans who went along with the President. But he was much more than that, as he had his own cable show on MSNBC at the time, Scarborough Country, and he used that platform to become one of the loudest cheerleaders for the war. And, he enthusiastically mocked people who were against it. Joe Scarborough contributed to a climate that made it more difficult for rational voices who opposed the war and questioned the Bush/Cheney/Rove propaganda machine on WMD. He didn’t just go along; he helped lead the parade.
And here's Joe Conason from 2009 rebutting Scarborough's claims that it was the current health care bill that ballooned the deficit -- Conason Reminds Scarborough That The Iraq War and Tax Cuts Ballooned the Deficit.
And if Scarborough wants to talk about "Obama derangement syndrome", here he is comparing President Obama to Kim Jong Il.
This also seems to be a habit of Scarborough's with trying to pretend that conservative "principles" aren't bankrupt. They're just not being followed well enough by our politicians. Bob Cesca caught this bit from back in 2009:
With a straight face, Joe Scarborough was just telling Katrina vanden Heuvel that “Reaganism” isn’t bankrupt — it “just wasn’t followed.”
Yeah, okay, Joe. Massive defense spending, corporate deregulation, conservative social policy and tax cuts for the super wealthy “weren’t followed.”
Reaganism was followed quite faithfully and it’s been a colossal failure.
You can go watch that entire exchange on MSNBC's site here if you've got the stomach for it.
Okay, moving on and back to the segment. Next up, we get the "America is a center-right country lie which I'm not going to rehash again since it was already debunked in this post where Mrs. Greenspan was trying to redefine what a "centrist" is -- Andrea Mitchell Cites Recent Gallup Poll to Paint Romney as Centrist and Obama as Liberal where I linked the lengthy Media Matters report you can read here -- The Progressive Majority: Why a Conservative America is a Myth. Here's Scarborough and Meacham from the clip:
MEACHAM: I think personally what you're seeing is that conservatives have won the essential argument, I believe.
SCARBOROUGH: They have. We live in a conservative nation now and there is... that's just the reality. We are a center-right nation.
Uh... no we're not Joe. They got some push back from The New Yorker's David Remnick, but par for the course it fell on deaf ears with Scarborough.
REMNICK: I really disagree on a lot of issues. This is the year of gay marriage being normalized throughout the country. This is an administration that got health care through no matter what you may think of it. I think there are a lot of issues where this is not a center-right... on social issues there's still Rick Santorum waving the flag. There are other candidates waving the flag, but generally...
SCARBOROUGH: If you're talking about gay marriage, that is a Libertarian strain. That is Americans saying get out of our wallets and get out of our bedrooms.
REMNICK: But it was a movement not initiated by Ron Paul.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, it is a movement, let's face it though (crosstalk). It is a movement that 80 percent of Americans don't really care about, don't want to talk about and when George Stephanopolous and other people...
REMNICK: Which you could have said about civil rights...
SCARBOROUGH: Well, I wouldn't compare it to civil rights. I would not compare gay marriage to people getting beaten and killed and lynched in the South...
More revisionist history from Scarborough. Gay marriage and LGBT rights are a civil rights issue and if he doesn't think there's any violence against those communities, maybe he can spend a whole two minutes using the search engines and bother to read a couple of articles on the topic like this one -- Crimes against LGBT community are up, despite social gains and this one -- Violence Against Gays and Lesbians .
And Scarborough wasn't done with the hackery yet there. It continued with him trying to paint President Bush and President Obama as equally responsible for our debt and deficit. As we've noted here over and over again, our current deficit is primarily due to George W. Bush and not the Obama administration.
I don't remember Scarborough ever carping about Bush's record on anything until it was very obvious that he'd trashed our economy and the invasion of Iraq was a debacle, and even now, he continues to play the all sides are equal game with President Obama.
He wrapped things up with one of the most ridiculous statements of the entire segment which is that if President Obama just says he'll sign that god awful failed Simpson-Bowles plan that couldn't even make it out of the committee assigned to put it together, it will assure his reelection, with Brzezinski nodding in agreement.
The only reason Americans are “tuned into” the issue of the debt and the deficit is because of fear mongering that we see from the likes of Scarborough and his pals in our corporate media on their television sets everyday.
I think they may have set a record with this one with just how many B.S. talking points you can cram in between one set of commercial breaks and I didn't even include some of the beginning where they were making excuses for why no one likes the current crop of GOP presidential candidates. Quite a feat, even for this bunch.
best friend when tuning into the show...Joe is rude and a blowhard with a loose grasp of fact and truth..Perfect repub!
Amen
The good life is a day at the beach.
He looks like a gangster. You can't hide hate and narcissism. It comes out.
"Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob"
-= Franklin Delano Roosevelt =-
Whenever they get a Progressive on, I'll hold my nose and listen. No one pisses me off more on that channel, he has to go.
so early in the morning. At least the Weather Channel has some good music.
"Parachutes are allowed in checked or carry-on baggage, but may not be worn in flight."
---Southwest Airlines
...making love but it is a tad better than Fucks and friends.
Most conservatives these days do. They can't seem to remember what was happening last year, never mind the last administration.
"and then they lost their mind."
So conservatives really ARE a hive mind!
There's always free cheddar in the mousetrap, baby. - Tom Waits
Don't forget, history didn't start until January 20, 2009. That's the point where everything bad happened, and it was all caused by the filthy n*gg*r in the White House.
"Whatever your particular problem is, I promise you, the Republicans are not the least bit interested in solving it. They are interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who's to blame for it."
...Scarborough was part of the problem, but people can change and at least Scarborough is willing to call Republicans out these days when they say or do something particularly stupid (which is more than can be said for many or even most pundits who support the GOP). Furthermore, while Scarborough might have supported Bush in 2003 (even though he might find it more convenient to pretend that he was never really in Bush's corner), I distinctly remember that Scarborough lost a huge amount of his respect for Bush as a result of the administration's failures in relation to their response to Hurricane Katrina. As was the case for many conservatives, I think that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back and opened his eyes.
And for the record, Scarborough is at least partly right -- Bush is a neoconservative, which is not really the same thing as a conservative (or at least not quite). Yes, Bush was a social conservative -- he probably would never have been chosen as the Republican presidential candidate if that had not been the case, given how far the party has drifted to the right over the past couple of decades. However, he was definitely not the fiscal conservative that many Republicans conveniently fooled themselves into believing he was. Let's remember that the Project for the New American Century (which included Bush's own brother as well as a number of people who would later become part of the Bush administration) was gunning for regime change in Iraq during the Clinton administration. Frankly, I'm convinced that the War In Iraq was inevitable once Bush was ensconced in the White House. If 9/11 had not happened, some other pretext for invading Iraq would have been devise. If Bush had been a genuine conservative, I think he would have made a much greater effort to show respect for the Constitution and also to make certain that the war was funded responsibly instead of cutting taxes at the same time.
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
But he's changed now.
Are we really at a point where disagreeing with the thrust of an article means somebody is condoning murder? Get a grip.
Once again, I find myself reading a CnL post and I'm not really sure what the beef is. Scarborough is kind of a tool, no question, but the part that was highlighted in bold and made much of as some kind of ridiculous revisionist history is his admitting what actually happened. For once a conservative actually points out the issue that Republicans clearly were happy to let Bush do whatever he wanted and are hell-bent on destroying Obama no matter what damage it does to the rest of the country, and that's still something to chastise him over? I just don't get it.
I'm starting to feel like a resident troll, always finding issue with stuff from the site, but it is just plain weird that you guys keep making up controversies when you have so many obscene realities to deal with in the political world.
When I clicked on the link in this post, I noticed that the article criticized him for saying one thing in 2003 and something different in 2007. First of all, Scarborough made those comments seven years before this article was written (in 2010)...is it so impossible that the man might have changed his mind about a few things in that stretch of time? I for one know I have. For another thing, as one comment on that site points out, quite a few people on both sides of the political divide were still supporting the war in 2003 only to change their minds as time went on. I remember only too well that it took a lot of courage -- more than most people had -- back in 2003 for someone, let alone a public figure, to voice opposition to the war and criticize the Bush administration openly because he or she risked accusation of being "anti-American."
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
The Mouth That Roared every morning but I guess it is so I can keep kicking his ass with emails. He is an immature jerk and his partner, Jane, is just as bad. Yesterday morning he kept on and on about how wonderful Twinkies are and how Mika shouldn't badmouth them. As usual, he helled at the top of his lungs lest he not be noticed talking everyone else. I have begun to notice how embarrassed Ed Rendell and meek Harold Ford when he starts one of his revisionist rants. To make matters worse, nobody on that program does any research or hires anyone to do research. They should also consider using a teleprompter. This morning Blow Joe gave Bain Capitol credit for saving Pizza Hut, and, again, did so at the top of his lungs in order to make a fool of himself at a higher volume (they were involved with Dominos). Then, Ed Rendell parroted the Pizza Hut line. I tell you, the show is becoming worthless. The evening group does a much better job of reporting verified facts.
The good life is a day at the beach.
I was watching that too when they talked about which pizza company Bain took over. It made me doubt myself because I was so sure the guest on Up a couple of weeks ago said the company was Dominos. And it made sense that it was Dominos because the man on Up talked about how bad the pizzas became at Dominos due to Bain. Then Dominos had to admit their pizzas sucked and do a whole ad campaign about how they were going to improve them.
I don't recall Pizza Hut admitting their pizzas sucked or even trying to improve them.
Just this mistake on Joe's show proves that he not only doesn't know what the hell he's talking about, neither do some of his guests.. I watch the show and bite my tongue because sometimes he does have guest who I sincerely want to listen to and hear their opinions. Unfortunately, when these guests are on Joe will invariably make fun of them or shout them down. There are other mornings when I might as well be watching Fox and Friends as the conversations are very much the same.
Say what you mean. Mean what you say. But don't say it mean.
The only thing that distinguishes conservatives is the extent of their reactionary thinking and the level of delusion invested in the glorification of a mythical "then"!
watch Morning Joe??? Maybe a better question would be: Why would anyone watch Morning Joe??
I s'pose it could be possible to cobble together a whole Brain if you gathered up all the cells between Joe and Mika. I've rarely watched any part of the show, but the few times I've made the mistake of turning to MSNBC at that time, I've heard nothing but lies and rants from Joey, and drivel and prissiness from Mika.
MSNBC could get better mornings rating by running reruns of the Pee Wee Herman Show.
"Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of Stupidity" - Frank Leahy
I agree, though I watch(too much I'd admit) - I guess I watch for the different guests that are featured (Bernstein, Lawrence and Charles Blow) but you are so right. Joe berates everyone on his show that disagrees with him - poor Mika! She tries but have to cower to her boss most of the time. Love it when her dad is on and when Chris Matthews is on. I hate the false equivalencies that Scarborough indulges in and his columns in Politico are the most shallow things ever written - I feel less intellectual after reading his articles every time. If Willy wants some "news we can't use" check a Joe Scarborough column.
..watches this bullshit.
All of MSNBC's shows have poor ratings, but Joe's ratings are by far the worst, constantly in the shitter.
I can't get mad at Joe making crap up for the same reason I can't get mad at those Sunday morning Beltway village wankathons: Their ratings are consistently abysmal; nobody watches their bullshit.
When Fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in excess body fat & carrying a misspelled sign.
Good thing hardly anybody watches this low rated cesspool of Reslug lies and blatent shit in the morning. I guess the majority of people prefer to keep their breakfast down.
Joe isn't the only one. I'm hearing this from several right-wing pundits and Blimpbaugh has been running this BS for a while.
Bush failed because he wasn't conservative enough. Funny, how he was the Lord-Protector of conservatism to these people beforehand.
I don't believe in God. Teach a man to be a good citizen and you have solved the problem of life.
-Andrew Carnegie
...the fact is that Limburger isn't a real conservative either. His definition of "conservative enough" means someone like himself...a racist, sexist, egotistical, nationalistic Social Darwinist who absolutely refuses to let anyone or anything (including ethical principle) stand in the way of what he wants. The fact is that if Bush had been a real conservative, Limburger would have despised him because Bush would not have been quite so quick to invade Iraq and would not have been willing to erode civil liberties in the name of "national security". Bush's problem was not that he was "not conservative enough"...his problem was that he was a spoiled little boy in a grown man's body who believed that the world revolves around him and that it is required to meet his every expectation (which is probably why when it didn't, it was somehow never his fault).
Never trust anyone who insists that patriotism requires you to blindfold yourself with the flag.
And poor Mika had to sit there like her usual lump while dad ripped Scar to pieces.
Zbigniew V, Scar
..that someone on the internet decided to take this hack on ..please keep it up!!!!!
He is an insufferable, misinformed bully that that everyone is afraid of!!!!!!!!!
Thanks!
I can't watch it, did he try to sell a book too?
scarborough derangement syndrome
Ditto!
~albabe (The Writer/Artist Formally Known As Al Gordon)
http://www.comicon.com/gordon/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al_Gordon
First, Dems did not have "Bush Derangement Syndrome". Bush was guilty of everything he was accussed of, and much more. That is not derangement, that is fact and acknowledging reality.
Second, the gay rights fight IS like the civil rights movement, because gays are being beaten, killed, etc. as the civil rights workers and leaders were. It is just not happening on the same scale. But it is happening.
Personally, I don't consider having the right to marry a state issue, because I want a complete separation of church and state. So, in my view, ALL marriages, straight, gay or cross species (Santorum, Man on Dog) should only be recognized by the state as civil unions, but with all rights afforded to gays, straights, etc., equally.
If your church does not want to recognize your gay marriage, Jesus H. Christ, find another church, or even better, renounce monotheism, it's all bullshit anyway. But don't drag our government into the "marriage" argument, lets go all civil unions and for those of you clueless enough to be Southern Baptist or Cathoilics, well, you're a lost cause anyway.
And I do sincerely apologize. Ya ever get in those moods where nothin makes sense? I apologize. It belongs too me bud. I was being an ass.
Keep on keepin on.
What is your conceptual, continuity?
You cant build Rome in 1 day. Look at Mika. What no ones talking about is that George Bush Jr. was just doing what republicans have been trying to do for decades. Starve the beast (drop taxes) and excellerate spending! George walked into a serious surplus the same time Dr. Rice denied the worlds most famous memo: Bin Laden determined to strike inside the US! Thank god Americans are so easy!
Mattyroc
and go to where he belongs, the fux up the US channel.
Last week, I think it was their last day in Iowa, the conversation was going against Romney and Joe's guests were feeling sorry for Gingrich being destroyed by negative ads. Joe didn't like it... so he got up off his stool and just started talking to the civilians sitting in the background... with his LIVE MIC still on... talking over his studio guests... and bringing the "on-camera" conversation to a grinding halt. He acted like a five-year-old who's feelings were hurt, and decided to take his ball and go home.
He left the Congress (or more accurately decided not to seek his next term) after one of his staffers - a lovely young woman (apparently) was found dead in his offices'. There are some folks who ascribe to the theory that Mr. Scarborough had some role in the surprising demise of an otherwise healthy 25 year old woman. Relax before you get too trollish.
So Joe's accusation is that Dummya wasn't a conservative. Got it. That's the same weasel-ly excuse we've been hearing from the right ever since it became clear that no amount of propaganda or Faux snooze cheerleading could hide the fact that he was an incompetent fool and a criminal. So nothing new there.
Here's what I don't get; who exactly do these daft fuckers consider to be a "real" conservative? Joe speaks about it as if there has been a previous President that would fit their definition of conservative. And who would that have been exactly? In Joe's lifetime there simply has not been a President that fits the current wingnut definition of conservative. So really the "not a real conservative" criticism of Bush is just the wingnut catch-all for the failings of every GOP President, past and future. It's perfect really, because it's unlikely that any person nutty enough to be accepted as being a real conservative could ever get elected, and if he/she did somehow manage to get into office, the policies would be disasterously unpopular once the idiot voters get a taste of what they really mean, much as they are right now in Wisconsin. How long until the failed wingnut wave of 2010 is described by Joe and others as 'radical' and therefore not really "conservative"?
The only way these asshats will ever embrace a pol as being truly conservative is if that person is popular and successful, which is asking the impossible given that conservative policies are insane and doomed to failure.
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