Poker Face Mr. Scarborough, For They Refer To You By Proxy

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for November 24th, 2009


Observations:


1) With all the talk of Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity, there was that familiar discomfort evident on the set today with the unknown political aspirations of Joe Scarborough looming sidestage like a two-ton Frappacino-sucking wildebeest.


Sure a couple of nervous jokes and insinuations place JS in the heap of “talk show host turned candidate”, but none would ask for clarity, as if it was in the pre-show stipulations to leave him out of it.


You don’t owe anyone anything, until you consider that any opinion you render must walk a line between non-hypocritical journalistic endeavors and service to an increasingly intolerant platform of the only party out there waiting for you with open arms. Tough spot, chin up.


2) Mark Halperin has gotten pesky, and that’s a good thing. Halperin as Lawrence O’Donnell did yesterday, is really starting to reinforce the recent platform updates on deficit vs. jobs and Afghanistan vs. deficit vs. jobs. There had in the past on this show been a tendency towards recidivism where a debunked theory like jobs without deficit spending had come back to the fore as a recognized strategic option.


John Halperin, joined by Andrew Ross Sorkin, seemed to be aligned to prevent the reduction of an important advance in the shows recognition that the show can’t complain about jobs without finding an acceptable deficit expanding stimulus program to effect necessary change. Just in the past couple of weeks has this new version of checks and balances seemed to feel to the average subscriber like, well, evolution.


3) It felt like another missed opportunity when The Nations Jeremy Scahill came on to talk about Blackhawk, but the subscriber was reminded that that MJ never got around to covering the DOD direct payments to the Taliban.


That hasn’t stopped Joe Scarborough from defining his Afghanistan position of no matter what the other complexities on the ground, the decision is 2-3 years to clean up and that’s it. I love this position, but I find it easy to predict the Dick Cheney avalanche of criticism that will ensue as a result, and I wonder if JS will ever challenge the Cheney clan on a point-counterpoint basis, leaving President Obama out of the discussion. That would be good television, but Liz Cheney is the second scariest female in Joe Scarborough’s life next to Hillary Clinton, so a fair amount of skepticism must be present at all times that JS would avoid confrontation with a party elder or his proxy.


That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.