New York Magazine: Joe Scarborough Is The Darling Of The Left
By Logan Murphy Monday Jul 14, 2008 8:45am
Like most Republicans these days, MSNBC's Joe Scarborough doesn't mind taking pot shots at George Bush. Hell, it's easy to do with the worst president in modern history, but jumping into the anti-Bush column certainly isn't an act of bravery or a sign that he's moved to the left. It means he knows which way the political winds are blowing and he needs good ratings. I truly believe Joe is unhappy with the direction the GOP has gone in recent years and angry with W for leading his party to its demise, but at the end of the day, he is Republican to his marrow.
According to New York Magazine, Joe's brave leap onto the 75% bandwagon makes him the darling of the left:
Where else could a red-meat, right-wing congressman like Joe Scarborough reinvent himself as the liberal's favorite talk-show host?
Scarborough admits that he is courting a new constituency. “Once we started Morning Joe, Phil Griffin said to me, ‘You can cut out this regular-Joe crap. Our audience is from Boston to Washington, D.C.’” In fact, he seems to be right at home on the Upper West Side. “The thing I hear all the time,” he says, “when people come up to me on the street, is ‘I love your show,’ and then there’s a hesitancy, and I’ll finish their sentence: ‘And I’m a liberal?’” Scarborough beams, pleased with his own apostasy, before adding, “Republicans aren’t as gracious.”
Wait...wait, here's the money shot:
“I was totally skeptical, and now I’m totally won over,” says Time editor-at-large Mark Halperin, a political analyst at ABC News. “I was a huge fan of Imus, but Joe has taken that real estate and turned it into something—and I say this without hyperbole—revolutionary. There’s no other show that does what they do. They’ve really found a new form.” Read on...
Because we all know that Mark Halperin, who said John Edwards thought Barack Obama was a p**sy and recommended John McCain use racist attacks against Obama, represents the views of Democrats and liberals everywhere. Either this fluff piece was bought and paid for, or the people at NY Magazine have never heard of people like Keith Olbermann, Rachel Maddow or Amy Goodman. Ok, libs, let's give them suggestions. Which talk show hosts do you really like?
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Whiner!
Joe is a fool/tool/ol' skool...
I prefer CBC's The National, whomever is hosting.
Why wouldn't anyone with a working brain cell be against the bush administration and what they have done? Just take a look at the economy. During their watch they lifted all the cheques and balances from all the big corporations (banking, oil, etc.)
There are three broad aspects to the US debt crisis. First, in the current fiscal year (2008) we are spending insane amounts of money on “defence” projects that bear no relation to the national security of the US. We are also keeping the income tax burdens on the richest segment of the population at strikingly low levels.
Second, we continue to believe that we can compensate for the accelerating erosion of our base and our loss of jobs to foreign countries through massive military expenditures — “military Keynesianism” (which I discuss in detail in my book Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic). By that, I mean the mistaken belief that public policies focused on frequent wars, huge expenditures on weapons and munitions, and large standing armies can indefinitely sustain a wealthy capitalist economy. The opposite is actually true.
Third, in our devotion to militarism (despite our limited resources), we are failing to invest in our social infrastructure and other requirements for the long-term health of the US. These are what economists call opportunity costs, things not done because we spent our money on something else. Our public education system has deteriorated alarmingly. We have failed to provide health care to all our citizens and neglected our responsibilities as the world’s number one polluter. Most important, we have lost our competitiveness as a manufacturer for civilian needs, an infinitely more efficient use of scarce resources than arms manufacturing.
Joe Lieberman Scarborough, you are not the first to try to have it both ways. Sorry, you're a Republican. Take your tarnished brand and shove it.
Jon Stewart
Mourning Joe is a good show????
Wow. Which ever way the wind blows then BAMMM! a dagger thru the heart.
I guess he's not a "talk show host" per se, but Bill Moyers is one of my heroes.
And there's Stewart and Colbert, and of course Donahue. Ah yes, but the true darling of the left was FIRED, so I guess you have to choose from whoever is "left" over.
I find I can watch the show for awhile, especially if Mika's point of view is being more fully represented, but the Scarborough can get into that downright sleazy, arrogant, condescending republican mode, and it is not pleasant to watch. That's when I get up from the tv and start checking my email.
♫..Bangkok Bob..♫ @ 3:
Sorry, forgot to give due credit to Charles Johnson of LeMonde for thos facts.
Yeah every night I hold my Joe Scarborough cuddles bear tightly to ease me into my librul slumber.
Beady eyed sell-out.
mudshark @ 6:
And Mika's just as bad. Ok off to work, have a
This is a crock! Joe and Matthews and the other right-wingers are toning down there rhetoric because the HAVE too! Their party destroyed this country! I know them for what they are, a bunch a right-wing shills who will jump back to their zealot ways when they see the opportunity!
nice day folks
It seems that the Neo-Conservative types assume that anyone who disagrees with them = liberal. These people have no fucking clue and should read a book or two about politics. Maybe American liberalism is a completetly different beast but just for the record OPPOSING THE GOVERNMENT DOESN'T EQUATE TO BEING A LIBERAL.
Joe is definitely GOP to the core.... he has the mail-in GOP haircut, the dark suit, that plasticine smile and he would kill his brother for ratings....
Morning Joe (D) from MSNBC! Damn librul media.
What does a person have to do to get the conservative view on things?
Joe is a twit right along with Mika. Don't watch them.
Wow, Dow down 133. How low will it go? Bernake is making an apperance today. How long can we stay afloat? GM is failing, record job loses. "It's the End of the World as we know it, and I Feel Fine!"
Oops, it is now down 179. Let the good times roll!
Here's my vote for the best talk show host - hands down - bar none. KEITH AND RACHEL. They make a good team. Keith is right on the money and Rachel is beautiful and smart.
Scarborough does not have the right to even be in the same building as Keith Olbermann.
Joe is not a politician who quit his job to spend more time with his family, he left because the young married staffer he was having an affair with turned up dead. Actually she was found dead in Scarborough's office. And it was covered up.
Maybe we should ask Lori Klausutis's family if Joe Scarborough is their "favorite talk show host".
P.D. @ 19:
You are looking at the cup through the 95% empty prism. For the 5% that see its full, they are still getting huge economic benefits from this great republican economy, and the taxpayers are on the hook (just for insurance sake!) Things are terrific, and taxes are low to non-existent for the uber-rich; full blown Bush/GOPonomics at work. Enjoy it while it lasts.
And quit whining!!!
AMY GOODMAN!!!
Speaks the Truth.
I like Morning Joe......without Joe.,,,but with Mika and Barnacle.
yes, this is a fluff piece... designed to bring in a bigger audience, that's all...
"it's ok, libs, other libs LOVE the morning joe"
he's a creep.
Good Grief, even the New Yorker has lost it's way. MSNBC didn't need Imus to prove their misogyny, Mika has been so marginalized that she sounds like an idiot. Whenever Jo-Blo is not there, they saddle her with Pat or Andrea, a right-wing maniac, and Andrea, one of the worst interviewers in the history of broadcasting (excluding Larry King). All day yesterday they ran a story of a woman falling down while wearing shoes that are dangerous and originally designed by men (no women would purposely want to start a style that would put herself in such discomfort). Not to mention the "pap" the other female anchors are given to report. Even Keith's show is not immune to the belittlement. Over the three weeks just about every show had some snarling reporting of a pregnant woman with quite possible a high risk pregnancy. Angelina Jolie, pregnant with twins checking into a hospital several weeks before her C-section is not funny. Maybe the staff should talk to Jane Pauley about high risk pregnancies. These networks are in competition for the tabloid news and unfortunately it is at the expense of women. I'm sorry, but I think the women of this network should step up to the line and insist on the respect they deserve and tell the bosses that if the network wants to report garbage, let the men do it.
I heard that Joe was going to stop listening to Ted Nugent and start listening to Radiohead. Wow, he's so cool.
I predicted that George Bush would take us into a World War and Depression in 1999. Too bad nobody would bet me.
Joe Scumbag is just like Alan Specter, a two-faced, dishonest,deceitful, & not to be
trusted individual...Only difference, Joe S. is a MSM pundit who will try and double
talk his listening audience whereas Specter is just a U.S. Senator with absolutely
no credibility.
Never heard of him.
from hugh hewitt's reichwing show, oct 30, 2006:
ladies and germs, i give you the "liberal" (see, rightwing stooge, and upper class leach) mark halperin"
"you keep saying how much nice stuff there is in the book about Bill Clinton. The book writes at length, in fact, half the book is about Karl Rove and George W. Bush, and I would believe is one of the most favorable, in terms of judging them, and not treating them as evil, things that have been written about Karl Rove since he came to Washington."
"The founders saw the importance of a free press. What this country has now is a press that no one likes, and which is weak. And the reason George Bush and Karl Rove found the way to win in dealing with the old media, which Richard Nixon dreamed of doing, but couldn’t do, is because they recognized that we were seen as a spoiled, corrupt, biased, special interest that wasn’t interested in the public interest, and they’ve taken advantage of that."
"I deplore it, or I decry it in the sense that I wish everybody was helping build up the media, but I don’t blame them from a tactical point of view, because their supporters do not trust the old media, and do not like the way we behave in the briefing room, the output that we produce, and conservatives are trying to deal with an America more on their terms. And I understand why they’re doing that, and like I said, we are responsible for that, not George Bush and Karl Rove, not Richard Nixon."
"But the ability of this president, and certainly this first lady, as we write in the book, to restore some of the dignity, personal dignity to the office, has been quite an achievement in the wake of what Bill Clinton did, given the freak show environment in which we live."
oh yeah, joe scarborough is NOT the darling of the left. duh, only a moron or someone with something to sell would make such a friggin' dumb statement.
joe's reinvention of himself is about as believable as Vanilla Ice reinventing himself as a heavy metallurgist.
P.D. @ 18:
'Inflation highest in 27 years' ... that wacky MBA president ....
11 mudshark Says: mudshark @ 6:
Mourning Joe is a good show????
Wow. Which ever way the wind blows then BAMMM! a dagger thru the heart.
And Mika’s just as bad. Ok off to work, have a wanker in the widget.
(Completed your thought for you.)
After this mornings show, I'm not sure the Joe team is quite as popular. They managed to insult all Obama supporters, all bloggers, and all people that live in Alabama. Mika has gotten almost as bad as Joe. Joe is the most sarcastic and obnoxious person on television. MSNBC needs to take note that if he continues with this show, they will have very few viewers left.
Sorry, I watch MSNBC every morning and the show is still a right-wing farce. They spend much more time talking about perceived left missteps that right wing hypocrisy, Obama's decision to opt out of the public financing than McLame's constant flipflops.
They have the President of NBC/Universal on and the ex-Pres of GE to talk politics?! What do these people know about anything but gaming the system and exploiting the public for their own enrichment? They also love to pass off Harold Ford as some find of liberal, when he's not.
The show is a complete circus and while Mika and John Ridley seemed to be the stabilizing factor: Mika has become a Joenabler and Ridley is not as often as he used to be. However, I still watch it because it is much better than CNN without Miles and Soledad and Fox News is for non-thinking idiots. "Terrorist fist bump" indeed.
Moon @ 26:
PsstIt's "New York" Magazine ... "The New Yorker" is a different publication, it has those hilariously ironic covers that Middle NASCARia totally understands ...
Check out Norman Goldman (or Nor-MAN Gold-MAN, as he refers to himself). He subs for Ed Shultz and he kicks butt. Smart as a whip.
Puff-eyed dumbass.
They did re-invent the Imus show quite well. But, that does not mean I care about the Scarminator's opinions, he is an idiot.
I bet Halperin just likes Mika in sweaters, and thinks Willie is a super cool dude. Bunch of herbs all of them.
Didn't Joey once literally run away from Rachel Maddow after losing an arguement with her? I guess that there were too many witnesses for him to kill her...
Watching Bush right now talking about off-shore drilling. I can't believe people honsetly believe that drilling will solve our problems. Christ! It will take years for us to see any benefit if we drill. What about wind and solar! I'm tired of be talked down too. The problem is, many Americans don't give a shit!
The epitaph of the late great USA, brought to you by boosh and all the self serving who whored it all away, will be It was the economy, stupid.
Unbelievable, unrealistic, partisan, bigoted, snide and rude. Not my favorite. Mika how in heavens name do you allow him to speak to you that way? You are so better than he is. Keith and Rachel #1.
thank you for pointing out the idiocy of this article. i was unable to post directly on that site.
my main point being, "what fucking planet do you people live on?"
P.D. @ 42:
BigOilCo already HAS the drilling rights to 64million acres!!! WTF?!?!?
THEY WANT IT ALL.
I tried watching "Morning Joe" (my tv is usually on MSNBC in the AM since I turn it off after "Countdown"), it sucks! as do most of the other pundit shows. Rachel, Keith, and John are the only interviewers it seems I can count on to provide any kind of window on what's really going on out there.
Seems like a play to conflate Joe's popularity (IMO his morning show is terrible...the banter and chit chat annoy me) now that Russert is dead. A play to get Joe in a more influencial role on NBC. It's, pf course, bullshit. Anyway IMO Rachal Maddow is the best. She's smart and she is good at cutting right through the spin.
Joe Scar hates Rachel Maddow's point of view. What more needs to be said?
Mika has not had an original thought ever. All she does is repeat what Joe says which is the Republican talking points.
i admit, it's not hard to stand out when you're up against fox and friends and robin meade in the morning, but i actually like morning joe. it's a refreshing piece of balance, humor, and insight. they almost always have a high-up from one of the campaigns on to answer questions, the cnbc is usually right on (plus erin burnett is kinda hot), and otherwise, i'd have to listen to alex bennett on sirius in the morning and i can't stomach that. i agree that they can get annoying at times, but that's the nature of morning talk shows. i guess that's why i'm independent, because i can't stand punditry that's too liberal or too conservative. both extremes are equally nuts!
Yes, Bill Moyers (although not technically a talk show host) and Amy Goodman...we so enjoyed Al Franken when he was on AAR (even Rachel back in the beginning days) because he was intelligent, had interesting guests AND could talk with them, and was truly funny...a great mix...there are moments with Bill Press, Stephanie Miller can be hilarious, and we miss Sam Seder on AAR (which has gone right down the tubes)...Ed Schultz is just another fat man with a voice like Rush who is busy self-promoting constantly. It seems like most go the way of LOOK AT ME and what do I need to keep saying/doing to keep my show and improve the ratings? Witness KO...
Bad mouth Bush? That's going out on a limb?
P.D. @ 42:
it depends on what one thinks "the problem" is. mccain, as we heard from his econ adviser dr. phil, thinks that all of our woes are "psychological". and, again from mcHorse's mouth, off shore drilling would only serve as a psychological fix--not a real fix. so, using that (il)logic, this makes perfect sense.
i would disagree slightly though. i think most american's do care, they just have been hornswaggled into believing the lies of oilmen, market fundies, and earth-scorchers.
P.D. @ 42:
Liar is yelling about how he has been pushing oil conservation for 7 years ....
7 years ago he was telling people to go out on vacation and drive more...
oh puleeze @ 45:
Planet Bitter in the Whiner-X constellation.
"Our audience is from Boston to Washington, D.C.
That, my friends, is the from-the-mouth-of-babes, just-what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-this-country, quote-of-the-year.
The punditocracy is so incestuous, coming from and talking only to, the beltway bunch that they honestly don't have a clue just what is happening in the rest of the country. They're doing fine, what the heck is everybody else whining about?
P.D. @ 42:
Why don't these so called reporters when questioning Bush just call him out?
He's full of shit and it's no secret.
Why would anybody minus a severe mental disability believe anything
that Bush spews out of his lying mouth?
He should not be relative!
IMPEACH!!!
Bill Moyers' show from last week was one of the best ever. Do check it out.
Captain Bitter Whiner Husein Kangaroo @ 52:
But Mark Twain gave some salient advise; saying:
"Why not go out on the limb? That's where the fruit is."
Pat Buchanan is their main guest day in and day out.
katy @ 25:
More like this is a "good news story" like the ones from Iraq. What's it called? Oh yeah, propaganda! Since the country is going to go liberal in the presidential election, and Joe has been a good little trooper for the right's spin machine they want to keep him. Sell him as liberal early so that when he claims to be a liberal we will already have heard he was a liberal.
Captain Bitter Whiner Husein Kangaroo @ 60:
do forget the closet right winger michelle bernard!
Captain Bitter Whiner Husein Kangaroo @ 49:
thank you captain. Yep, Scar can't win against Rachel. He's reduced to petty insults. As for Mika....she's a cute giggler? that's about it.
Democracy Now, Stewart and Colbert, Keith/Rachel. I don't waste my time with MSM anymore.
Rachael Maddow, Amy Goodman, Laura Flanders, Bill Moyers, David Brancaccio (NOW), Thom Hartmann, Robert Kennedy, Jr., Sam Sedar, John Stewart, Steven Colbert, Stephanie Miller, and of course, Keith Olbermann, are my liberal media heros.
Joe Scrarborough and Chris Matthews are punks.
This article is such a smoke screen - the MSM is starting to get it, we the people have other outlets for our information. Their collusion with 'conservatives' due to 'market forces' over the past decade has positioned themselves out of a market, and now they want back in. So I must be in the market that's still be too far left... he's not my darling. And the left's "favorite"??? Hardly. You are now experiencing what happens when the propagandists use propaganda on themselves.
I do watch him in the morning occasionally, which is more than I can say of other "right" commentators... but it only confirms to me that he's a narrow-minded mouthpiece 'taking pot-shots at Bush' for easy points and nothing else.
Don't believe anything you read - do your research: Scarborough is a tool.
Bush is talking. He's coked up. Sick bastard.
Joe Scarborough Is The Darling Of The Left
when i first read that headline i thought there was some sort of typo, like the word(s) after 'left' somehow dropped of.
like, "Joe Scarborough Is The Darling Of The Left wing of the country club"
or "Joe Scarborough Is The Darling Of The Left-handed blowhards"
or even ""Joe Scarborough Is The Darling Of The Left behind religious nuts"...
but the left? liberals? progressives? like joe scarborough? *whistles*
people actually get paid to come up with this bullshit? well, can i get in on that?
money please *grabby hand*
This country has become so phony, I can hardly stand to watch or read anything any more. Every one is owned by someone else or is so greedy and looking only to line their own pockets, that they'll say anything or be anyone the highest bidder wants them to be. Scarborough a liberal...who are we kidding?
Can any one just tell the truth? Be honest? Seven and half years of everyone "pretending" that George Bush has a clue about anything has just about done me in. "President Bush said today...", "President Bush thinks...". To even pretend for one moment, that by himself, this man gets up in the morning and has an original, thoughtful, creative idea about anything is just preposterous.
And now, if McCain doesn't have the "other" Joe standing beside him to clue him in, or his wife, for god's sake, to correct him, he doesn't know what he thinks, either. Or what he said about something last week! Please, God, if your out there, save us from four, or eight, more years of pretending and lunacy!
dropped "OFF", not "of"....
oy, no wonder i don't get paid for this....
I thought the New Yorker was the one that did satire... Everyone wants to be a comedian.
Next they'll be telling us Dennis Miller is a lefty
And that ann colter burned her bra
Not that anyone would notice.
I have always wondered how someone who sits before a monitor to read a teleprompter can be considered a highly-respected "news" source. These are cheerleaders, and they have an effect only on the lower end of the thought train. While rightwing bloviaters (term possibly created by the first sitting Senator to become President, Warren Gamaliel Harding) may give the cretins some encouragement, even such stellar performers as Rachel and Keith do not actually convert anyone, no more than the cheerleaders of the Dallas Cowboys do. Rather, they attract a choir. Good for them.
Many rats leaving the sinking ship. This Scar is only another.
Did you know it was rumored that Jefferson Davis in 1865, to avoid capture, dressed as a woman to escape Richmond? Them rightwing nuts will do anything to pass.
Joe's show is by far the worst show on TV.
ThunderMonkey @ 71:
I don't.
ysbaddaden @ 75:
You make me laugh.
Sam Seder and Randi Rhodes could run circles around Scarborough. Rachel Maddow is a goddess, we should be so lucky that she's on our (Liberals, Progressives, Americans, Humanity) side.
I don't watch TV at all.
I haven't watched TV in almost 20 years.
Better things to do with my time.
Every appearance by Scarborough, even every utterance, should be preceded by the question: What happened to Lori Klautsutis?
I get all the Joey S. I need from clips on youtube. Who has time to wad through all that horseshit to find the real craptastic goodies? The only way to get me to tune to MSNBC would be for "Morning Joe" to run a twelve part series entitled, "The Death of an Intern" hosted by Rachel Maddow. Apparently at least the 99% of the U.S. population that does not watch agrees.
Scarborough is not know in Britain (except as a folk song and a coastal resort famed for its faded elegance) but I wonder is something similar happening as happened here in the mid 1990s. When Tony Blair took over the Labour party he moved so far to the right chasing dissatisfied Conservative voters, pundits who had been centre-right suddenly found themselves centre-left. Now Obama seems to be following the same course could it be traditional Republicans are starting to look like moderates?
Its just a thought...
No, we just think that JackaSs is a bit less psychotic than the rest is all. It's called damning by faint praise . . . a concept that is beyond knuckle dragging "intellect".
This is just more of that famous republican "Alice through the looking glass" up is down stuff.....Joe is a condescending, arrogant neocon to the core.
Ian Thorpe @ 80:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XEhAXQ5QQzs&feature=related
Jackass joe is just trying to reinvent himself to try to keep a cushy job.
I watched, as Hush limbaugh rolled out his schtick, other hosts around the country run to imitate him.
Now that mostly everybody has awakened from the drug induced haze they have been under, watch these asswipes do their own flip flop.
I like those that remained true to themselves and didn't mad a mad dash for cash.
Randi, Lionel,and a few other locals all the rest can kiss the brown wrinkly part of my arse!
Right, and Greg Palast is the darling of the right.
woody, tokin librul @ 78:
Mourning Joe?
Dead intern!
Billy Bob @ 74:
Worse than America's Top Model?
Don't count me in as one of those liberals who think Joe is a darling. He is an a_ _ and says the most ridiculous stuff. He cannot be trusted and is just a big wind bag. I don't watch Morning Joe but my daughter does and she says the best shows are when he is not on there.
id like to know who these "liberals" are that joe is supposed to be the darling of...i'm a liberal and i can't stand that arrogant, condescending, patronizing, smug, piece of crap.
Don't let that bum fool you. He will on occasion criticize Bush, but then turn right around and defend him on just about anything.
In addition he was on the way of perverting Harold Ford Jr. who escaped just in time. He is now perverting Mika Brzezinzki. She started there with her head on straight, but little by little she is sliding off into the dark side.
Sorry MSNBC, even if you put gold plating on a turd, it's just a shiny turd. Scarborough a darling of the liberals? Thanks for a good laugh. Why don't you get real and replace this phony jackass with Rachel Maddow? Then we'll know you are serious.
Oh, Joe, yea he's kind of cute and all, but he can NEVER replace that dreamy Pat Buchanan in my book!