Leaving aside The Orange Devil Incarnate, the Republican the liberal media has most loved to hate during this election cycle is Kari Lake.
And so, it was stunning to hear on today's Morning Joe what could be described as muted praise for the GOP nominee for the Arizona governorship.
Granted, the praise didn't emanate from a wellspring of bonhomie by the panel. Rather, it was in reaction to Lake herself softening her tone regarding allegations of corruption in vote counting. Even so, this remained noteworthy, given that the Morning Joe folks have been known to twist against Republicans even their most benign statements.
It began with Jennifer Palmieri, who served as Obama's White House director of communications, and later as comms director for Hillary's 2016 campaign (when she was revealed by Wikileaks as the dinner-party toast of Chuck Todd's Democrat family).
Mentioning that she spent the weekend in Arizona, Palmieri said:
Maricopa County, that board of supervisors there is doing heroic work every day with their press conferences, beating back the conspiracy theories, taking them on directly, saying why they’re not true. You know, just been really transparent all along the way. Even Kari Lake, who stands out there as the most ostentatious, sort of effective in terms of communication skills at communicating around election denying, even she, like, we’ll see what happens if she does indeed lose. But even she is starting to back up a little bit on her rhetoric."
One can question how "heroic" it was for the Maricopa election crew having a ballot-counting snafu on the morning of Election Day.
But then it was Joe Scarborough's turn. As Scarborough likes to do when it suits his purposes, he drew on his Baptist background:
[Lake] also put out a message yesterday telling her followers to be patient, and to let the professionals that are doing their job finish doing their job in safety and security. I also take that as a good sign.
I will say it too, as a Baptist, we will take -- we love conversions. We love conversions, and if you’re telling your followers to be respectful to election officials—I have a lot of friends who are election officials across America, you know what? Take it. You take it.
Joe, you've been condemning the Dobbs decision ever since it came down five months ago. Since you're such an astute student of Baptist theology, remind us: what do Baptists say about abortion?
On Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough and Jennifer Palmieri offering muted praise for Kari Lake for her having recently backed off some of her allegations of vote-counting fraud was sponsored in part by Roman and Etsy,
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
11/14/22
6:15 am ETJOE SCARBOROUGH: People voted against Dobbs. They voted against Donald. They voted for democracy.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Against deniers.
SCARBOROUGH: It comes back to that. For democracy, against deniers.
JENNIFER PALMIERI: It is. You know, I was in Maricopa County over the weekend. And it is one of the -- if there’s anything, I mean, if there's any stat that tells you that the Republicans have got to change their tune, and why you see Republican candidates conceding, is the stuff you just said. 80% of the people, even with two years of Trump and all of these Republicans saying that the election was stolen and people, you know, a majority of Republicans in the Congress voting to overturn the presidential election, leaders in the party making this one of their core issues, people still had faith in elections.
And, you know, Maricopa County, that board of supervisors there is doing heroic work every day with their press conferences, beating back the conspiracy theories, taking them on directly, saying why they’re not true. You know, just been really transparent all along the way.
And, you know, even Kari Lake, who stands out there as the most ostentatious, sort of effective in terms of communication skills at communicating around election denying, even she, like, we’ll see what happens if she does indeed lose. But even she is starting to back up a little bit on her rhetoric.
Even she is saying, like, well there’s incompetence, I hope it's not malice. She was more aggressive on Thursday and Friday talking about how Trump Republican candidates aren't doing well when the vote is being counted. Maybe it’s unfair because they prefer DeSantis Republicans. Things like that.
You know what, like, it’s not working. This is the message. It is not working.
SCARBOROUGH: Not only is it not working, it’s a toxic message. She had an opportunity to follow a conspiracy theory on another network, and she just refused it take it.
She also put out a message yesterday telling her followers to be patient, and to let the professionals that are doing their job finish doing their job in safety and security. I also take that as a good sign.
I will say it too, as a Baptist, we will take -- we love conversions. We love conversions, and if you’re telling your followers to be respectful to election officials—I have a lot of friends who are election officials across America, you know what?
MIKA: Take it.
SCARBOROUGH: Take it. You take it.
