Silence spoke powerfully today on Morning Joe. After a clip rolled of a listless President Obama speaking about the Paris attacks, Joe Scarborough asked Mika Brzezinski what amounted to a rhetorical question: "does he look like he is engaged and understands the level of threat?"
When after a few seconds Mika failed to reply, Scarborough tried rephrasing the question, but still elicited no response. Her silence was so telling, so excruciating, that Mike Barnicle--ever the good sycophant--piped up to slavishly assert "I think he looks fully engaged."
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Right now President Obama is in Turkey for the G-20 summit and in the wake of the Paris attacks he and other world leaders are vowing to increase the pressure on ISIS.
BARACK OBAMA: The skies have been darkened by the horrific attacks that took place in Paris. As was true with the terrible attacks that took place in Ankara -- the killing of innocent people based on a twisted ideology is an attack not just on France, not just on Turkey, but it's an attack on the civilized world.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I want to ask you, come on, our show is still our show. We just have to, let's be honest about it. Did that Commander-in-Chief, sitting in a G-20 summit while Western civilization is coming to terms with what their new reality looks like, does he look like he is engaged and understands the level of threat?
MIKA: [silence]
JOE SCARBOROUGH: If you were a Frenchman or a French woman would you be reassured by what you've been hearing from this president today and over the weekend?
MIKA: [More silence.]
MIKE BARNICLE: I think he looks fully engaged.
JOE: Mika?
MIKA: Umm, I think at some point the optics of it need to match the magnitude of what has happened.
JOE: What's that mean?
MIKA: Meaning, this is as bad as it gets since 9/11 and there's going to need to be a multi-pronged fight against ISIS and also we're going to have to talk about the migrant crisis at some point because that's going to raise a whole bunch of issues.
