Mika: Sanders' Rape Remarks Irrelevant, But OK to Attack Santorum If He Had Written Them

June 1st, 2015 9:36 AM

Mika Brzezinski just can't contain her liberal bias. On today's Morning Joe, Mika admitted that the the MSM has a double standard when it comes to reporting controversial things that Democrats and Republicans have done or said. Yet she promptly turned around and applied that same double standard to Bernie Sanders and Rick Santorum.

Discussing Bernie Sanders having written in 1972 that women fantasize about being raped, Mika agreed that if Rick Santorum had written the same thing, the press would go crazy.  However, Mika claimed that wouldn't be because Santorum's a Republican, but rather would be due to "his record and his views."  When Joe Scarborough said there'd be no justification for jumping on Santorum, Mika disagreed: "there's a little bit of one."

Note also that Mika warned Willie Geist against dismissing the Sanders remarks, telling him he'd be "killed online." That was presumably a reference to items such as this one last week by this NewsBuster.  The difference is that then, Mika tried to stifle discussion of Sanders' remarks, whereas Willie was simply saying that the same standard should be applied to Republicans and Democrats.   

WILLIE GEIST: I tend to agree with [Sanders] that this should not be --

JOE SCARBOROUGH: What he wrote 43 years ago, Willie? What is wrong with you?

MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Oh, don't say that! You'll get killed online.

WILLIE: But, but, I hope we hold all candidates on both sides to the same standard: that what you did 43 years ago, unless a heinous crime, may not be relevant in 2015. Both parties, please.

MIKA: Exactly.

JOE: You brought up, Willie, the greatest point last week about how it's 43 years ago, and I'm going, yeah, it's 43 years ago, and even conservative blogs are going, yeah, it's 43 years ago, and you're like wait a second, the Washington Post put Mitt Romney on the front of its newspaper because he may have given a boy a haircut 50 years ago when he was 17 years old.

MIKA: What?

WILLIE: The prep school incident.

JOE: Oh, he's prep school bully. Yeah, and again, I wonder if Rick Santorum had written --

MIKA: -- I think you're right --

JOE: -- and we asked this question last week, that women like to be raped --

MIKA: Oh my God, that would be another story --

JOE: -- and that men, whatever, I won't even repeat it.

MIKA: That's because his record and his views are -- it's not because he's a Republican.

JOE: There's no justification for that.

MIKA: Okay, I'm not going to launch into that.

JOE: Don't even try to justify that.

MIKA: I think there's a little bit of one.  But I totally agree there's a double standard.