All that was missing was Joe Scarborough looking into the camera and saying—à la his recent claim that the current Biden was the best Biden ever and f-you if you didn't believe it—that Jimmy Carter was the greatest president since Abraham Lincoln.
Today's episode Morning Joe engaged in some world-class revisionism in praise of Carter. Incredibly, citing supposed Soviet views at the time, Scarborough credited Carter [and Mika's dad Zbigniew Brzezinski] more than Reagan, for the fall of the Soviet Union.
MIKA: This is the kind of thing where history, it takes time to really look back on what, a certain amount of time, what a presidency meant to the world. And in this case, wow!, did the narrative turn. When you look back on this presidency, and really pore through the details of it.
SCARBOROUGH: When the Soviet Union fell, the Russians, they did not go, Reagan brought down the wall. They blamed two people: Jimmy Carter and, and, and the guy who was her [points at Mika] dad. But they knew it was Carter, and it was human rights.
And yes, the show also shamelessly analogized Carter to Lincoln. Scarborough claimed that, like Lincoln, Carter evolved in his views on racial matters. Scarborough continued, saying people on the right thought Carter was too liberal, and that people in the "civil rights community" thought he was too conservative and a "sellout." Noted Scarborough: "that's what people were saying about Lincoln."
Here's a thought, Joe: the Lincoln Memorial has been around for over 100 years. Enough already! Let Lincoln be moved to storage somewhere in the Smithsonian, and have Carter installed on the big chair!
And while Morning Joe's on its revisionist roll, give the show a few months and they'll be boosting "Best Ever" Biden for a spot on Mt. Rushmore.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
1/10/25
6:29 am ETJOE SCARBOROUGH: Mika, very, very moving service yesterday.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It was incredible.
SCARBOROUGH: And I must say, what an extraordinary --
MIKA: -- Eulogy.
SCARBOROUGH: What an extraordinary life. What an extraordinary faith. And what an extraordinary man.
. . .
ELISABETH BUMILLER, New York Times: When you think of how Carter left Washington..
MIKA: I know.
BUMILLER: The way he left, he sort of skulked out of town. Reagan was supreme. He was, you know, a failed president. They had waited to release the hostages until after Reagan took the office.
MIKA: Right. Of course.
And for years, for decades, you know, he was seen as this failed president. And it's completely, it's been a total reassessment.
. . .
MIKA: This is the kind of thing where history, it takes time to really look back on what, a certain amount of time, what a presidency meant to the world. And in this case, wow!, did the narrative turn. When you look back on this presidency, and really pore through the details of it.
SCARBOROUGH: When the Soviet Union fell, the Russians, they did not go, Reagan brought down the wall. They blamed two people: Jimmy Carter and, and, and the guy who was her [points at Mika] dad.
But they knew it was Carter and it was human rights.
. . .
It's interesting. We talk about the morality of Jimmy Carter, just like people talk about the morality of Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln is a god. Lincoln, you know, Jesus touched Lincoln to be this saint among men, and women.
And yet you read what Abraham Lincoln said from the first day he got in the Illinois legislature in 1834 to, I mean, even right before emancipation. There's some shocking things that Lincoln said. But it was part of a process that he knew he had to get through to ride the wave.
And the thing I loved about what Andrew Young said yesterday. and what I've also heard about Jimmy Carter is, you know, Curtis Wilkie, long ago, after Carter won the Iowa primary, Curtis wrote an article saying basically nobody in Georgia likes this new guy, Jimmy Carter.
People on the right think he's too liberal. People in the civil rights community thinks he's too conservative and a sellout. And you read that and you go, okay, that's what people were saying about Lincoln.
