In today’s installment of media memory loss, the press seemed to blank on former President Obama’s clemency record and the praise they heaped upon him during his presidency. Early Wednesday morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough and political analyst Jason Johnson defamed President Trump as a ‘dictator’ for exercising his constitutional right of granting pardons and commutations.
In the world of Scarborough, every action, move and step President Trump takes is cause for nationwide panic and concern. This extends to the act of executing clemency decisions that were once hailed as ‘forgiving’ by the media under the Obama Administration:
Let's talk about a President who has um -- who has pardoned war criminals that shot little girls. Pardoned war criminals who killed defenseless prisoners, and then yesterday, of course, pardoned wall street convicts, pardoned politicians who acted in the sleaziest of ways…This is Donald Trump numbing everybody to the future pardons of his co-conspirators, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and maybe even Michael Flynn.
Of course, what Scarborough fails to recognize is that Michael Flynn and Roger Stone’s offenses pale in comparison to those of Puerto Rican terrorist Oscar Lopez-Rivera and Chelsea Manning, both of whose sentences were commuted under President Obama to the delight of his cohorts in the press.
Johnson then proceeded to unleash a ferocious tirade against the President of the United States, labeling him a ‘dictator’ who has zero respect for the rule of law:
Oh, yeah, Joe, and here is the thing, he's always been this guy. It's not new. You can go back to Joe Arpaio…And I think you can't stress enough about basically pardoning a war criminal. You look at what Gallagher did, you know, stabbing prisoners with a knife. His own Seal Team Six said this man is crazy. They said he will kill anything. His fellow soldiers turned him in and obviously Donald Trump is "smarter" than the generals and the soldiers because he pardoned him anyway. What we're seeing here is what proto dictators do, what we're seeing here is what autocrats do where they basically say to the entire public and to fellow politicians, number one, the law is always bent to my will. It's not about what you did, it's not about the laws you break, it's not about the people that you harm, it's about whether or not I think you're important. Whether or not you're loyal to me. And if I like you then I don't care what the law says. So this is the dangerous part. And it's not just the norm breaking, but it makes it difficult for our Justice Department to do their job...
Scenarios such as this one give credence to the redundant term “leftist media.”
Transcript below.
Morning Joe
2/19/20
7:07:42 AM
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Let's talk about a President who has um--who has pardoned war criminals that shot little girls. Pardoned war criminals who killed defenseless prisoners, and then yesterday, of course, pardoned wall street convicts, pardoned politicians who acted in the sleaziest of ways. I mean, this is- I mean, you can- like my old torts professor used to say at the University of Florida, you can see this one coming like a freight train out of the mist. This is Donald Trump numbing everybody to the future pardons of his co-conspirators, Roger Stone and Paul Manafort and maybe even Michael Flynn.
JASON JOHNSON: Oh, yeah, Joe, and here is the thing, he's always been this guy. It's not new. You can go back to Joe Arpaio. Joe Arpaio who was basically racially profiling any brown person in Arizona and President Trump came in and said, okay, you're perfectly fine with this. And I think you can't stress enough about basically pardoning a war criminal. You look at what Gallagher did, you know, stabbing prisoners with a knife. His own Seal Team Six said this man is crazy. They said he will kill anything. His fellow soldiers turned him in and obviously Donald Trump is "smarter" than the generals and the soldiers because he pardoned him anyway. What we're seeing here is what proto dictators do, what we're seeing here is what autocrats do where they basically say to the entire public and to fellow politicians, number one, the law is always bent to my will. It's not about what you did, it's not about the laws you break, it's not about the people that you harm, it's about whether or not I think you're important. Whether or not you're loyal to me. And if I like you then I don't care what the law says. So this is the dangerous part. And it's not just the norm breaking, but it makes it difficult for our Justice Department to do their job...
