Joe Scarborough might want to reflect on people in glass houses, casting the first stone, beam in your eye—all the adages counseling against hypocrisy, against condemning others for sins without considering one's own wrongs.
In a Politico piece brimming with self-righteousness, Scarborough bemoans the "vulgar state" of American politics and condemns "hyperbolic political pronouncements" about the case. Hyperbolic? We got your hyperbole right here. Does Joe not remember that in 2012, long before all the facts of the case were available, he eagerly condemned George Zimmerman as a "murderer"? More after the jump.
Here was Scarborough on March 21, 2012:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Here, though, a guy gets killed, a young man gets killed and the police don't arrest this, this murderer, for anything. For a weapons charge, anything! . . . It's not enough just to arrest the man who murdered Trayvon Martin. Something bigger has to happen. Whoever is running the police force down there, whoever is the state attorney down there, they are not worthy of the public trust.
As noted at the time, Scarborough was much more hyperbolic than even Al Sharpton, who simply referred to Zimmerman as the "shooter."
If Scarborough wants to condemn over-reaction to the verdict, fine. But doesn't he owe his readers and viewers the honesty of admitting to his own over-reaction? Should he not consider offering Zimmerman an apology for having so cavalierly branded him a "murderer"?
And while Scarborough feigns to criticize both sides in their reactions, he predictably comes down harder on conservatives, condemning them for "refusing to give the benefit of the doubt" to Trayvon Martin. Just what does that mean? Should they have clamored for a conviction, even though there was reasonable doubt aplenty? Should they have ignored the evidence, much of which didn't make it into the trial, of Trayvon's troubled history?
Scarborough even manages to work a pitch for citizenship for millions of illegals into the mix, and somehow predicts that the aftermath of the Zimmerman case will make winning back the White House "a longer, harder slog" for Republicans.
Scarborough insists on calling himself a conservative, and he does remain one when it comes to fiscal issues. But years of exposure to the liberal MSNBC culture and those who surround it seem to have altered Scarborough's cultural DNA. He seems more interested in winning the favor of his liberal bosses and of the elite milieu in which he operates than in remaining true to his roots.
But back to the beginning: is it too much to ask Scarborough to have the honesty and decency to admit to his own over-reaction before so self-righteously pointing the finger at others for their hyperbole?
