Considering how much Lawrence O’Donnell loved Joe Biden’s inaugural address, praising it as “astonishing” and “poetic, we thought it might be a good time to remember who the MSNBC host is and what praise from him might mean. On the November 5, 2010 Morning Joe, O’Donnell lashed out at Glenn Greenwald, dismissing him for being insignificantly liberal.
The Last Word host openly admitted, “Glenn, unlike you, I am not a progressive. I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive. Liberals amuse me. I am a socialist. I live to the extreme left, the extreme left of you mere liberals, okay?”
He at least had the self awareness to know this didn’t reflect the country:
However, I know this about my country. Liberals are 20 percent of the electorate. Conservatives are 41 percent of the electorate, okay? So I don't pretend that my views, which would ban all guns in America, make Medicare available to all in America, have any chance of happening in the federal government, okay?
But here’s O’Donnell on January 20, 2021, gushing over new Democratic president:
Joe Biden had to deliver the speech of his life, and he did. In my lifetime, I have never seen a more challenging inaugural address. Joe Biden’s message had to be about unity, and it had to be delivered at a time when unity was — it seemed impossible in this country….The unity Joe Biden was talking about was both poetic and realistic at the same time. What he did in about 21 minutes was absolutely astonishing under these incredibly challenging circumstance.
For more examples from our FLASHBACK series, which we call the NewsBusters Time Machine, go here.
