"Crystal Meth From A Housewife In The Midwest"

The Morning Joe Rebuttal for July 14th, 2010


Observations:


1) I am unsure how I feel about the crew making a joke based on ‘crystal meth use by Midwestern housewives’. I mean, what do you think? On one hand, if it’s there to be a sobering challenge based on some known problem maybe there's merit. But if it’s a blind grenade toss by Mika, then isn’t it a ‘cling to your guns and religion’ type cast off?


Mika is known for sobering challenges on things like obesity and meaningless pop culture. It sort've fits, but I am just more convinced it was a blind toss, and that seems reckless.


Crystal Meth is an awful thing. People don’t understand that while Cocaine and Marijuana are significant components of the Mexican Drug war, Crystal Meth is the catalyst, and there likely would not have been a drug war if this particular drug had not been a destabilizing factor in the Mexican importer hierarchy. It’s as if we gave the drug lords something new that they could sell us, that they could make themselves.


If you want to make jokes about it, be sure you add it to your positive effect agenda and help fix the problems it’s causing us.


2) Am I the only person who thinks that Israel gets too much influence on the United States? I just can’t understand why the US falls into immediate groupthink whenever the subject comes up. Is it fear of seeming anti-semitic? There has to be a positive relationship with that country, but there does not have to be a normative relationship.


Israel is doing some awful stuff to people and running with the general expectation that they can partially hide behind their relationship with us when they need to get away with it. When we hold them accountable, suddenly it’s a game changer in elections. This concept that the Pennsylvania Senate race is affected is really troubling.


I would think that pro Israel voters in the US would want to see that country eventually stabilize in an equity based and sustainability based way, so they could visit more often. But if the agenda has to be a constant outward push and reconnaissance by fire, we have to have the ability to dissuade them from it.


3) It was a little embarrassing to watch every guest today remind the cast that the BP – Libya story was not some great expose', but something that was common knowledge when it happened 10 months ago.


The troubling thing about it is that it shows that the Morning Joe cast is seeking out things that they can influence. They had this bent to the pursuit of this story today that made the subscriber see they actually thought it was news they should be amplifying to see if they could elicit an effect.


I think Schumer was readdressing this because when he tried 10 months ago, no one listened, but now that BP owes us everything, he thought it a second opportunity to trot this request for remedy out again.


I agree with all the takes today that said this Libyan guy should be subject to rendition. But that Richard Haas is pretty sobering in his 'get over it, this too will pass' assessment, and that is the likely outcome.


4) Who still thinks Scarborough and Ratigan compliment each other? Doing the math, Ed Schulze, Chris Matthews, Dylan, and anyone else that has their own thing that didn’t come from Morning Joe (that excludes Lawrence and Chuck Todd), none of them can come on the show and not be mocked. Maybe we should add Mark Haines to that list.


It’s a problem. It was crazy watching the forced marriage of Joe and Chris on the election preview series last week. Matthews has something to prove whenever he get in a room with Scarborough. Scarborough doesn’t try very hard. Maybe he already knows the outcome and just plays under and checks his watch. He doesn’t need to interact with anyone if it’s not interesting to him.


He did that today with Dylan. Dylan does himself zero favors, it’s hard to listen to that guy. Don’t get me wrong, I would wear a “Ratigan” t-shirt if I could get away with it. I am completely in league with that guy’s sentiment. But his inability to get from point a to point b in the guest setting makes him an easy target. You know that guy is frustrated.


His detractors are thanking their lucky stars that he has yet to click in, because they know, one day Dylan will put it all together and be all those guys I mentioned yesterday, Warren, Taibbi, Taleb and all equipped with a Scarborough howitzer, making crooks duck everywhere.


I asked Scarborough politely 6 months ago to try and nurture that end result out of Dylan, he seems more pressed to keep him down, I wonder why that is?


That’s all for today, see you tomorrow.