While their colleagues at MSNBC spend hours of airtime mercilessly bashing Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, the folks on Morning Joe took a different position Wednesday.
Much to the surprise of this author, Joe Scarborough and Willie Geist claimed that if Cain were a Democrat, the media would be "swooning over" him just like they did Barack Obama (video follows with transcript and commentary):
TINA BROWN, DAILY BEAST/NEWSWEEK: He does have a great deal of appeal. I could actually see a Romney-Cain ticket, actually. I think that they would, might be incredible as a ticket.
JOE SCARBOROUGH, CO-HOST: Cain has optimism down. He’s had this sort of cheery optimism.
WILLIE GEIST: You and I have talked about this. If Herman Cain were a Democrat…
SCARBOROUGH: Oh my God.
GEIST: …the pieces that would be written about his story the way they were written about Barack Obama’s story. He came from the segregated South.
SCARBOROUGH: Yep.
BROWN: Absolutely.
GEIST: …and his father a janitor…
BROWN: It’s very moving.
GEIST: …A driver for Coca Cola executive. The first to go to college. Worked for the United States Navy. Rose up, served on the board of the Kansas City Federal Reserve. Was a star executive at Pillsbury, with Burger King, ran Godfather’s Pizza. That is a great American story.
BROWN: It is.
SCARBOROUGH: Could you imagine the Vanity Fair spread on Democrat Herman Cain? I mean, could you imagine the book deals, the $4 million book deals on Herman Cain? It would have be, Manhattan would be swooning over Herman Cain much like they swooned over Barack Obama four years ago.
BROWN: I think he’s no less unlikely than a Barack Obama kind of figure.
Tina Brown agreeing was equally surprising: "I think he’s no less unlikely than a Barack Obama kind of figure."
When you think about it, this was quite a statement: great American success stories are only considered great by the media if the subject supports their political views.
To be sure, this is by no means surprising to conservatives, but to hear it so publicly acknowledged by a couple of liberals on the most left-leaning so-called news network in the nation was rather jarring.
Of course, turn on MSNBC at any other time today and you'll be treated to commentator after commentator aggressively attacking Cain.
Nevertheless, we can still appreciate the rare moment of sanity on an otherwise abomination of televised journalism.
