More of the worst journalism possible from Morning Joe this morning. McCain spokesperson Nicolle Wallace came onto the show and said that Obama was receiving more from the oil industry than McCain. She cited but did not quote a report on the subject from the Center for Responsive Politics. This sounded incorrect to me since it had been widely reported that McCain had received several times as much money from the oil industry as Obama. Immediately after her appearance, Scarborough read an email from the Republican National Committee quoting the Center for Responsive Politics report that through June 30th Obama had received $7,000 more from Exxon $42,100 to $35,166) and Chevron ($35,157 to $28,500) than McCain. The email was read uncritically and went unchallenged.
Well, it took me about two minutes to find the Center for Responsive Politics report and see how misleading this talking point was. It's right there in the article, which is quoted below.
The anti-gay attack machine worked before; will it work again? I'm a contributing writer for queer media cites AfterEllen.com/AfterElton.com, and today they're running my article that asks just that question of a wide variety of media and political figures including Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, Congressman Barney Frank, Joe Scarborough, AmericaBlog.com's John Aravosis, and a number of others -- including Karl Rove himself.
Good ole Joe Scarborough! He did it again this morning, but this time, it made me laugh.
For those that wonder how I can stand to watch this pompous GOP gasbag so early in the morning, it's because his best gems come VERY early on in the show. For the past three days he's popped off with some lovely fuck-up (that his producers are quick to correct at the nearest commercial break, I'm sure).
Yesterday, it was his misquote of Michelle Obama's statement about being proud of her country for the first time in her adult life. Even though her original statement sounded bad, what Joe twisted it into was purely disgusting. I didn't enjoy hearing what he said, but it certainly gave me insight into how he thinks.
Today it was beautiful! While Joe was busy pontificating about how effective McCain's new "Celebrity" ad is, and trying to illustrate the idea that celebrities/rock stars are substanceless, bubble-headed nothings that couldn't care less about the world they live in, he compared Obama to U2 frontman Bono!
On Morning Joe this morning, Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs sure had an impressive performance.
Interviewed in the last hour, Gibbs held firm aganist the usual badgering and stubborness of Scarborough's questions, especially when the GOP talking head pressured him on John McCain's pathetic assertion that Obama had skipped visiting the troops in Germany and used the troops in Kuwait for political advantage.
Well we knew it was going to happen. What? The inevitable backlash from the corporate media, on Obama's successful "Presidential" overseas trip.
Despite the denials of numerous respectable pollsters (democratic & republican alike), this morning on Morning Joe, Both Chris Matthews and Joe Scarborough, stated that Barack Obama is "suffering from the Bradley effect." I couldn't believe what I was watching. I was aghast.
Why? They said it was because of 4 recent battle-ground state Quinnipiac Polls (that originated up to 13 days ago), current Gallup polling (where they claim Obama is not surpassing 45%), the lack of a bounce from his international trip and the alleged fact that he "underperforms in exit polls; it's the Bradley Effect" they surmised. I will deal with all four points after the break.
These charges are totally inane, and reckless (and border on Broadcast Racial Profiling), for such highly paid media/political pundits.
Aren't we tired of words like "exotic", "different", "not like us" and "can he sit down in a diner, somewhere in Ohio and talk/relate to a customer", with out relevance/facts? But this latest ethnic gaffe, is totally irresponsible; even for these two.
One has to wonder: Do Joe Scarborough's constant slip-ups prove he is shilling for McCain, or is he just incompetent?
Actually, there's very little doubt in my mind, because the errors are always in McCain's favor.
The latest occurred this morning. I don't have a transcript, so this is just a paraphrase. They were talking about a recent poll [UPDATE: see correction below] that shows Obama up by only two points, within the margin of error (43-41).
You can see the Republican shills heads exploding all over the place after this week with the McCain gaffe machine and the stellar Obama overseas trip. Apparantly Joe Scarborough just couldn't take it any more. Here's what he had to say this morning:
"Look let me tell you....and I know a couple of hosts ran this last night and made a huge deal because some liberal blogger picked it up. I will guarantee you the host that ran it, were waving their arms, had no idea whether the Sunni Awakening, or, or or, the surge began at the same time. They also, anybody that would argue that the Sunni Awakening would have survived in Al Anbar Province, without the surge, anybody that would make that argument is so ignorant of the facts on the ground in Western Iraq, in Al Anbar Province, and what the Sunni sheiks were doing throughout 2007, that they are too stupid to be on TV. And I hope they don’t carry that argument much longer because it is laughable."
I'm sure, like so many self respecting liberals who find themselves with limited viewing options early in the morning, I constantly find myself tuning in to the I.Q lowering debacle that is "Morning Joe".
The diary title is a bit extreme and I'm aware someone else has added a tiny diary about Joe Scarborough berating Rachel Maddow today (he also happened to play the famous numbers game to humiliate her, a lovely primate maneuver) but I must say, the glove really fits in this particular case. The fun-filled anger inducing video of him and maddow can be found over the speedbump.
Lacking an intellectual arguement to convince Rachel Maddow, Rhodes Scholar, to his side, Scarborough resorted to the oldest gimmick toward women.....Can't defeat them....Put them down. Joe's response: that Rachel has the Clinton cackle.
Such a sexist should not be in Prime time or anytime. Such a disgusting display of ignorance and disrespect toward a woman, and one who is clearly his superior in intellect, is not worthy of any moderator.
Scarborough clearly needs sensitivity training and if that fails, get him off the air, please.
Over the past few weeks the issues of unity, partisan politics, and media objectivity have been hotly debated. As I listen to people sharply divided on issues like civil liberties, gun control, and the war it’s gotten me to wondering the reason we’re all in this country together anyway.
Why did we go through the Civil War? Why didn't Lincoln just propose 'the divided states of America'? Or a ‘two sides of America’- the South could be the lower east side and the north the upper east side of the nation (visually speaking). Today we have more intricate titles for these distinctions- we have red and blue states. (Which always always seems to conjure up thoughts of Dr. Seuss.) And just for the fun of muddling it all, the media has recently introduced the term ‘purple states’. And now we can’t just chop the country in half; there’s no one region that’s completely red or blue. Wanna declare the northeast Democratland? ‘Not so fast’ says New Hampshire...
This is my first diary. It started with Keith Olbermann and quickly went downhill. My concern for what people are spewing and claiming themselves "informed" terrified me... and so this rant was born.
I am a journalist and once upon a time a high level celebrity flack. I KNOW how this game is played, and I was gobsmacked by the abuse of the airwaves.
Join me -- and let's consider what they don't want us to see.
