On this weekend's Fox News Watch, panelist Jim Pinkerton cited this NewsBusters item in which Joe Scarborough passed along the comment from an unnamed conservative insider questioning "what the hell was [Rand Paul] doing on MSNBC?", a reference to Paul's appearance on the Rachel Maddow show in which he made comments on the 1964 Civil Rights Act that have caused controversy. The irony of course is that Scarborough is himself an MSNBC host. H/t NB reader Gat New York.
Pinkerton and his fellow News Watch panelists got a chuckle out of this NewsBuster's fond wish which concluded the item: "Oh to be an olive when Joe and Rachel sip martinis together at the MSNBC TGIF."
JIM PINKERTON: Back to Rand Paul. I think the most astute thing that anybody said about the whole flap about the Civil Rights Act was Joe Scarborough on MSNBC who said, what was Rand Paul thinking going on Rachel Maddow's show? It was Mark Finkelstein of NewsBusters who first pointed that out. As he said, it would be fun to be an olive in the martinis when Maddow and Scarborough get together at the MSNBC happy hour.
Joe Says It Ain't So
As Raw Story reports, in an exchange of tweets with a Think Progress blogger, Scarborough said that he was merely passing along the "what the hell was he doing on MSNBC?" comment from the unnamed conservative biggie, not expressing his own opinion. To the contrary, quoth Joe, "I liked seeing him on Maddow." Raw Story took a mild shot at me, writing that I was "unaware that Scarborough was never criticizing Maddow or his network in the first place."
I'd encourage readers to have a look at the video clip I posted at my original item, displayed here. As I reported, it's true that Joe was passing along the comment of an unnamed conservative source. But I'd say he clearly seemed to be adopting the sentiment as his own. Only Joe knows what's in his heart, but I sense some internal MSNBC fence-mending as being behind his subsequent tweeting.
