On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough made a pitch today for pure Democrat partisanship. Commenting on the prospect that the Senate will not support a bipartisan commission to investigate the Capitol breach of January 6th. Jonathan Lemire, who along with his role as an MSNBC analyst doubles as an Associated Press reporter, suggests that Mitch McConnell's opposition to the commission is a "cynical political play."
Scarborough said Pelosi and Schumer should instruct their respective committee chairs to use their subpoena power to conduct the investigations. "Democrats control the House. Democrats control the Senate. They can run these commissions. They can set them up any way they want to set them up. They've got the power of subpoena. They can call anybody they want to call."
That's correct. So why the need for an independent commission?
AP's Jonathan Lemire let his own anti-Republican light shine through. With Mika Brzezinski having the day off, Lemire substituted for her as co-host. He invited Michael Steele, the former Republican Party chairman-turned-Lincoln Project Republican-trasher, to comment on the January 6th commission situation:
LEMIRE: Mitch McConnell gave an impassioned speech, denouncing what happened on January 6th and saying that of course that the president fueled that violence at the Capitol and that nothing like this should ever be allowed to happen again. Since then, he’s done everything in his power to walk the other way, and walk away from those remarks. And here, blocking a bipartisan commission to investigate truly what happened there. I’m going to let you just go here, Michael. Is this yet another cynical political play from Mitch McConnell?"
STEELE: I think the Democrats should just push through it. You’ve made the play to bipartisanship. You wanted America to see it full frontal. And the Republicans have said basically to the country, screw you. And so now I think the Democrats say, all right, let’s give this to the committees and let’s go and do the investigation.
What's outrageous is that in addition to serving as an MSNBC political analyst, Lemire has retained his gig as a White House "reporter" for AP. How are the two roles compatible? How can readers trust Lemire's objectivity as a "reporter" when he goes on MSNBC and sounds like every other left-wing "analyst?"
Note: There are good reasons to investigate what went wrong with Capitol security on 1/6. Congress has been doing that in committee for months. What the proposed commission does is suggest that somehow the Capitol breach has a gravity on par with 9/11. It doesn't.
And when it comes to a "cynical political play," such as what Lemire whined about regarding Mitch McConnell: Joy Reid has said that the 1/6 commission is going to help make 1/6 a "seminal issue" for Democrat victory in the midterms. It doesn't get more cynical than that!
Moreover, Democrats screamed that there were multiple committees investigating Benghazi. They saw that as a Republican attempt to damage Hillary. The liberal media could have seen that as a serious look at embassy security. But they didn't.
Morning Joe urging Democrats to push through investigations of the Capitol breach on a purely partisan basis was sponsored in part by Lincoln, Liberty Mutual, and Sandals,
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
5/20/21
6:09 am EDTJOE SCARBOROUGH: I’m a little confused here. Which is nothing new. I was confused last night when I was watching a strike zone the size of a county fair, but we’ll get back to that later.
So, the Democrats, what you always hear from fund-raisers moving into any election, they go, oh, we’ve got to win the House. I know you don’t think it means a lot — we’ll get subpoena power. Oh, we've got to win the Senate. You don’t want the Democrats to have subpoena power, or you don't want the Republicans to have subpoena power and go after our president.
I’m a little confused. Democrats control the House. Democrats control the Senate. They can run these commissions. They can set them up any way they want to set them up. They've got the power of subpoena. They can call anybody they want to call. And of course, Chuck Schumer can do it in the Senate as well. I’m sure he’ll get 50 votes for that. Or not even 50 votes. Just tell your chairman, chairwoman, go, go do this. Go investigate. Go. You’ve got the power of subpoena.
I’m not really sure why people are wringing their hands over not having a joint committee?
. . .
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Michael Steele, do you remember, former President Trump’s second impeachment trial, when Republican and Senate leader Mitch McConnell gave an impassioned speech, denouncing what happened on January 6th and saying that of course that the president fueled that violence at the Capitol and that nothing like this should ever be allowed to happen again.
Since then, he’s done everything in his power to walk the other way, and walk away from those remarks. And here, blocking a bipartisan commission to investigate truly what happened there. I’m going to let you just go here, Michael. Is this yet another cynical political play from Mitch McConnell?
. . .
MICHAEL STEELE: I think the Democrats should just push through it. You’ve made the play to bipartisanship. You wanted America to see it full frontal. And the Republicans have said basically to the country, screw you. And so now I think the Democrats say, all right, let’s give this to the committees and let’s go and do the investigation.
