The folks at MSNBC as well as parent NBC should sit up and take notice of something Joe Scarborough said on Monday's "Morning Joe."
"There are not enough people that are either Republican in the mainstream media or talk to people on the telephone at least one a month...who actually understand what the Republican Party is" (video follows with transcript and commentary):
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: There is another point that I have brought up that a lot of times in the national media they will look at these fringe candidates and say, “Oh look what this is saying about the Republican Party of today.” And it happens every four years. And I will say humbly, there are not enough people that are either Republican in the mainstream media or talk to people on the telephone at least one a month in the mainstream media. The Vanderbilt voice, exactly, who actually understand what the Republican Party is.
And I will say it again. Michael Steele, I'll direct this to you. The Republican Party is like my dad always was. He was a Nixon guy. He was a Ford guy. He was -- you know, he wasn't even a Reagan guy in '76 as conservative as he was. He was a Ford guy. I asked, “What's wrong with you, dad?’ You know, in 2008, he was a McCain guy. Remember? Do you remember what my dad said to me when McCain was at 2 percent, Mika, and I was flying back from Florida up here, he wasn't feeling well and what were his words to me?
MIKA BRZEZINSKI, CO-HOST: Watch him. I forget.
SCARBOROUGH: You were supposed to remember because I've told this story a thousand times. You've got to be a better straight man than that.
BRZEZINSKI: Watch him!
On point one, Scarborough was 100 percent right. The idea that there are so few Republicans/conservatives in the mainstream media severely limits the ability of the press to properly report GOP issues.
It's kind of like all of these news outlets having meteorologists covering sports or the economy. It just doesn't work.
But Scarborough's second point was foolish, for maybe his father always went for "the solid guys that could run this country and they would hope that they would be conservative enough," but that doesn't mean that's always the wise choice.
Ford lost to an absolutely unqualified disaster in 1976 as did McCain in 2008. How'd that work out for you and the country, Joe?
Fox News chairman Roger Ailes might point to this as an example of Scarborough tacking "to the center" and not acting "like a conservative."
I'd agree.
In 2008, the GOP tacked to the center with McCain and got its head handing to it. In 2010, thanks to the Tea Party, Republicans made a serious right turn resulting in their largest midterm election victory in decades.
If Scarborough can't see this obvious distinction, maybe he needs to talk to more real conservatives rather than those the mainstream media he's now a part of falsely present as such.
