In the Trump years, Morning Joe was perpetually doomy and gloomy. So it's more than a little weird when Joe Scarborough reacts to Joe Biden's declining competence and poll ratings by breaking out the cheerleading.
Joe was back Tuesday after a long break from the show, and his first thought was, gosh am I proud of America! You almost wondered if he would break into song...
I’m really proud of what I’ve seen from my country, from America over the past few weeks. Again, I know that sounds disconcerting because over the past several weeks, whether it’s been at dinner or whether I’ve met people in the neighborhood, wherever I see people, they’re just talking about how bad things are going in this country. But I don’t see it that way.
Scarborough sounded like he was reading a canned statement, and he couldn't summon a word of blame for Biden.
It was particularly odious of Scarborough to tout all the people evacuated from Afghanistan and use that to exploit the memory of 9/11—and the "let's roll" heroes of United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania—in an attempt to shift the onus from Biden for his failures.
First, let’s talk about the greatness. Think about this now. And again, we aren’t saying this enough. The United States of America did something no other country ever could do or ever would do. We airlifted 120,000 frightened souls out of Afghanistan. And Americans saved their lives . . . And the C-17 pilot who, as David Ignatius recounted in the Washington Post, roared down a Kabul runway in a plane that was overloaded with 823 desperate Afghan evacuees, double its capacity. And as they were rumbling down that runway, and a nervous co-pilot asked if the packed plane could lift off in that intense heat, the pilot answered, just watch me.
It’s a moment that took me back to the beginning of our war on terror, when Todd Beamer whispered the words 'Let’s roll' on Flight 93 before it was taken down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe deflecting blame from Biden for his Afghanistan fiasco was sponsored in part by GMC, Liberty Mutual, and Amazon.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
9/7/21
6:27 am EDTJOE SCARBOROUGH: So, it’s very good to be back as we go to break. I just want to say, really good to be back. And there are a few things I've wanted to say over the last week or so. And so, my guess is that a lot of you are going to probably disagree with what I have to say because I just haven’t heard it much coming out of the halls of Congress or from other TV news shows, but here it goes.
I’m really proud of what I’ve seen from my country, from America over the past few weeks. Again, I know that sounds disconcerting because over the past several weeks, whether it’s been at dinner or whether I’ve met people in the neighborhood, wherever I see people, they’re just talking about how bad things are going in this country.
But I don’t see it that way. You know, I am positive, and I’m positive even though I thought, unlike about 75% of Americans, I thought we should have kept some troops in Afghanistan.
But what I’ve seen this past month has highlighted both the greatness and the goodness of America and Americans. First, let’s talk about the greatness. Think about this now. And again, we aren’t saying this enough. The United States of America did something no other country ever could do or ever would do. We airlifted 120,000 frightened souls out of Afghanistan. And Americans saved their lives . . . And the C-17 pilot who, as David Ignatius recounted in the Washington Post, roared down a Kabul runway in a plane that was overloaded with 823 desperate Afghan evacuees, double its capacity. And as they were rumbling down that runway, and a nervous co-pilot asked if the packed plane could lift off in that intense heat, the pilot answered, just watch me.
It’s a moment that took me back to the beginning of our war on terror, when Todd Beamer whispered the words let’s roll on flight 93 before it was taken down in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. And as Carlos Lozada wrote in the Washington Post this week, the passengers of that ill-fated flight quitely voted in the back of the plane whether to rush the cockpit and take their own plane down to protect other Americans on the ground.
. . .
And the stories of the goodness of Americans who are now coming together, coming together from the left, from the right, progressives, evangelicals, coming together to welcome these Afghan refugees to our shores. I have no doubt that despite all of our failings and our flaws, we as a nation will continue stumbling toward the light. Just watch us. We'll be right back.
