Scarborough Calls 'Preposterous' Sullivan's Claim Obama Intentionally Set Contraception Trap for Conservatives

February 12th, 2012 2:54 PM

Newsweek's Andrew Sullivan published another gooey, sycophantic article about Barack Obama Sunday this one claiming the object of his affection intentionally inflamed today's contraception controversy to trap his opponents on the right.

When the subject was raised on NBC's Meet the Press, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough quickly set the record straight calling Sullivan's piece "preposterous" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

BILL BURTON, FORMER DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY, FOUNDER OF OBAMA SUPPORTING PAC PRIORITIES USA ACTION: I think the President has governed exactly as he campaigned and exactly the kind of guy he was even back in the State Senate where he avoided huge controversies and tried to be a leader and bring folks together. And I don't think anybody should be surprised about the kind of President that he’s been given the campaign he ran. And if you look at Andrew Sullivan’s piece today, I think that that’s actually a good snapshot at who the President is. He’s done a great job of trying to push his opponents into territory that leaves them outside while the President can chart a course towards the middle.

Sullivan - who hysterically described himself last month as a "conservative-minded independent" - must be thrilled to know that someone so close to the White House loved his article enough to refer to it on national television.

For viewers with better than lukewarm intelligence quotients hoping for some balance, Scarborough came to the rescue:

JOE SCARBOROUGH, MSNBC: Well, let me just say Andrew Sullivan's piece is preposterous because he claims…

DAVID GREGORY, HOST: This is in Newsweek.

SCARBOROUGH: Andrew Sullivan claims that Barack Obama saw this coming all along, and he was just setting his enemies up in a trap…

GREGORY: I don’t buy that part of it.

SCARBOROUGH: Which means that he was trying to set Joe Biden up in a trap and John Kerry up in a trap, etc.

So even the left-leaning Gregory didn't "buy that part" of Sullivan's piece.

That likely didn't matter to Sullivan who at this point seems to have gone completely Chris Matthews in his support for the President and therefore was likely far more delighted with Burton's seal of approval.

But what should we expect from a guy who last month called all of Obama's critics "dumb?"


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