On Tuesday's Morning Joe, Scarborough's theme o' the day was that Republicans are so horrible, the mainstream media shouldn't "play it down the middle." Don't worry, Joe: they don't.
As if they ever did?
The Media Research Center, NewsBusters' parent, is celebrating its 35th anniversary. And every day over those decades, MRC and NewsBusters have documented the way the MSM have played things with a strongly leftist tilt. Scarborough insisted you can't play it down the middle with former Newsweek editor and "historian" Jon Meacham.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: How do, how, how do Democrats, how do major news networks, how exactly are you down the middle when you have one party that's actually defending the rule of law and constitutional norms, and another party who says, well, if Donald Trump does it, doesn't matter, there is no such thing as top secret classified documents. If Donald Trump lies about an election, we have to play that down the middle. How do you play that down the middle?
JON MEACHAM: I don't think you can.
Meacham knows: When he was editor of Newsweek, they ran the covers "We Are All Socialists Now" and "The Biblical Case for Gay Marriage."
He proposed an "alarm-clock test."
The alarm clock test: when the alarm clock goes off, and you're getting up to start your day, what's the goal of that day? And don't worry, this is not a lifestyle segment.
What's the goal of that day? Is it to, as Theodore Parker said, bend the arc of a moral universe toward justice? Or is it just to score points, create heat, attack your rivals and your foes who you see as enemies, no matter what?
No matter what reason says, no matter what the facts say, no matter what your own conscience says. If that's your goal, then you get what we have now. On the, particularly on the center, over to the right.
The center and the right are against facts and reason—by implication placing the Dems in the arc-bending-toward-justice business.
Hello? Meacham said that to Joe Scarborough? The guy who regularly rides hobbyhorses of anti-Republican slurs into the ground? Calling Republicans "fascists," trashing "Moscow Mitch" [McConnell], going on about "bedbugs" in a Trump resort. Joe Scarborough: bending the arc of the universe toward . . .Terminix?
Scarborough also whined about Republicans recently calling for a change to the Constitution. He was presumably alluding to resumed calls for a constitutional convention.
Changes to the Constitution? Ya mean, Joe, like Democrats calling to abolish the Electoral College, and the entire institution of the Senate? Those changes?
On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough saying that Republicans are so horrible that the mainstream media shouldn't "play it down the middle" was sponsored in part by Etsy, Prevagen, Subway, AT&T, and Lincoln.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
9/6/22
6:40 am EDTJOE SCARBOROUGH: How do, how, how do Democrats, how do major news networks, how exactly are you down the middle when you have one party that's actually defending the rule of law and constitutional norms, and another party who says, well, if Donald Trump does it, doesn't matter, there is no such thing as top secret classified documents. If Donald Trump lies about an election, we have to play that down the middle. How do you play that down the middle?
JON MEACHAM: I don't think you can.
. . .
The alarm clock test: when the alarm clock goes off, and you're getting up to start your day, what's the goal of that day? And don't worry, this is not a lifestyle segment.
What's the goal of that day? Is it to, as Theodore Parker said, bend the arc of a moral universe toward justice? Or is it just to score points, create heat, attack your rivals and your foes who you see as enemies, no matter what?
No matter what reason says, no matter what the facts say, no matter what your own conscience says. If that's your goal, then you get what we have now. On the, particularly on the center, over to the right.
. . .
SCARBOROUGH: Katty, I saw this weekend, a lot of Republicans now want to change the constitution . . . This is a party that is getting more extreme by the moment. When you have a former president calling the FBI vicious monsters, when you have Republicans calling them the Gestapo, when you have Republicans talking about defunding the FBI.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The Trump-appointed head of the FBI.
SCARBOROUGH: Trump-appointed head of the FBI.
Exactly how do we, how do we play that down the middle? So Trumpists don't call us biased? There is no playing that down the middle.
