Joe Scarborough: I Can Name 200 House Republicans More Qualified Than GOP Presidential Candidates

December 13th, 2011 12:08 PM

MSNBC's supposedly conservative host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday continued his months-long attack on the Republican presidential candidates.

After telling his Morning Joe viewers that he would consider voting for potential third party candidate Ron Paul if Newt Gingrich won the nomination, Scarborough said he could "in five minutes write a list of 200 Republican members of the House of Representatives" more qualified than "the presidential candidates that are running right now" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

JOE SCARBOROUGH: I could in five minutes write a list of 200 Republican members of the House of Representatives who would present themselves better, be more articulate, understand policy more in depth, and provide a more nuanced argument against this administration than the presidential candidates that are running right now. And again, I could do it without breaking a sweat.

Readers are advised there are currently 242 Republican members of the House with 84 serving their first term. This means that Scarborough thinks that 42 freshmen Reps are more qualified to be president than:

  • Michele Bachmann, a Congresswoman serving since January 2007
  • Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House
  • Jon Huntsman, the former governor of Utah and ambassador to China
  • Ron Paul, a Congressman that has served on and off since 1976
  • Rick Perry, the current governor of Texas
  • Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts
  • Rick Santorum, a former two-term Congressman and two-term Senator

Yet in Scarborough's view, there are currently 200 House Republicans - including 42 freshmen - more qualified to be president than any of these seven.

Given that this is basically the same kind of nonsense being spewed by the obviously liberal hosts on MSNBC such as Chris Matthews, Rachel Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell, Ed Schultz, and Al Sharpton, it's really tough to take seriously Scarborough's claim that he's a conservative commentator.

Sure, he may have had a 95 percent rating from the American Conservative Union when he was a member of the House, but his behavior on MSNBC during this campaign season is far from conservative.

It's not even close.