Wow. There is so much hackery in this short clip that it’s hard to know where to begin. While reporting on McCain’s Anbar gaffe, the “Morning Joe” squad not only fails to acknowledge how serious and unprofessional it was for CBS to selectively edit the gaffe out of the interview, they completely buy into the McCain campaign’s damage control spin. And as if it that weren’t bad enough, Joe Scarborough makes it a point to go out of his way and call the arm-waving host that ran with the story (an obvious allusion to his colleague Keith Olbermann) “ignorant” and “too stupid to be on TV.”
Download | Play 
Download | Play (h/t Heather for vids and transcript)
“Look let me tell you….and I know a couple of hosts ran this last night and made a huge deal because some liberal blogger picked it up. I will guarantee you the host that ran it, were waving their arms, had no idea whether the Sunni Awakening, or, or or, the surge began at the same time. They also, anybody that would argue that the Sunni Awakening would have survived in Al Anbar Province, without the surge, anybody that would make that argument is so ignorant of the facts on the ground in Western Iraq, in Al Anbar Province, and what the Sunni sheiks were doing throughout 2007, that they are too stupid to be on TV. And I hope they don’t carry that argument much longer because it is laughable.”
Let me try and break this down for the slow among us. This is what McCain said:
“Colonel MacFarland was contacted by one of the major Sunni sheiks. Because of the surge we were able to go out and protect that sheik and others. And it began the Anbar awakening. I mean, that’s just a matter of history.”
Actually, no, it’s not a “matter of history.” Whether or not the surge helped strengthen the al-qaeda-routing awakening is not the issue; the issue is McCain crediting the surge with creating the awakening in the first place. That is, as a matter of fact, UNTRUE. Now, if McCain had said the surge “strengthened the awakening,” it would be different. But by saying it “began the awakening,” he is deliberately distorting the time line in order to give the surge more credit than it’s due, and thus give himself more credit than he’s due. It’s that simple.
When confronted by Senator Obama with the prospect that the surge isn’t entirely responsible for the security improvements, McCain is forced to play the only card he has left in his deck and attribute everything to the surge, even though the greatest gains began before it. It’s not hard to understand.
I wonder if the McCain campaign realizes how foolish they look right now. While Barack Obama is overseas looking presidential and having his foreign policy ratified by the Iraqi government, John McCain is home undermining his own foreign policy “expertise,” undercutting his main argument for the surge, and looking childish as he stomps his feet and blames the press. All I can say is…keep it up!
Filed Under: Iraq, McCain’s Media, Morning Joe/Joe Scarborough
Tags: Keith Olbermann
No Trackbacks To “Joe Scarborough: Olbermann “too stupid to be on TV” for running McCain’s Anbar gaffe“
And all about an illegal war undertaken with false pretext.
Olbermann’s last shit still has more on the ball than Joe “Help!-there’s-a-dead-intern-on-my-floor” Scarborough!
What an asshole!
Will KO make Joe the worse person in the world? I think it’s likely because KO is NEVER on morning Joe when everyone else on NBC is on there daily including those from the network news shows. I wouldn’t mind watching KO attacking Joe.
How’s Joe going to explain about how that Sheik McCain mentioned was assassinated last year?
The major Sunni sheik who John McCain said was protected by the surge and subsequently helped lead the Anbar Awakening, was actually assassinated by an al-Qaeda led group in midst of the surge.
Mister Anderson @ 3:
It would never happen, but yeah, that’d be great.
Replace Joe with Rachel Maddow!
Republicans lie, their surrogates lie, their talking head apologists lie. It is what they do. Oh and they are stupid too.
This is what I really don’t get about Republicans these days. They could actually debate things for real, and argue that the “awakening” would never have been successful if the surge (and probably much more importantly, the money) hadn’t been there to support it. And in at least some cases (a few? one or two maybe?) they might even be right. But instead they just make up nonsense and then lie about it. Is it just that this has been going on forever and we’re only noticing the extent of it now because the Internet lets everyone look things up and communicate around what really happened?
I don’t know how you respond to something that is such a false depiction of what actually happened
foolme1ns @ 7:
Yeah, what he said.
Olberman has ten times the smarts that redneck Scarborough could ever think of mustering. The guy is as dumb as they come.
harold really really doesnt want to run as a dem ever again
Statements like this are why Scarborough is the liberal’s favorite talk show host! (snark)
http://nymag.com/news/media/48518/
A reich-winger defending a reich-winger and calling anyone stupid for exposing yet another of 100s of gaffes by McGrampa. Brilliant. I love the librul media.
You should get the clip from the joe show this morning where Gen. Wes Clark was trying to explain to Joe the sequence of events before and after the surge. This was General Wesley Clark and Joe the shmoe was arguing with the freaking General. Joe is a total ass when it comes to things like this. He takes a fu*king superior attitude and gets all smug as if he knows jack shit about anything.
what is this, ithappenedonmsnbc.com?
Classic projection, Scarboro is too stupid to be on television so he attacks KO.
Typical. But the real reason for the misplaced outrage is fear. Joe is thinking, that stupid CBS bimbo just exposed us all.
And, if Katie is forced out, like her predecessor, Joe is near the top of the list to follow.
Midnight Rambler @ 8:
I think you are close. I think that the republics[sic] have become so accustomed to simply shaping reality to their opinions and motivations that lying has become second nature. But like most bad habits, even if the liar starts lying in private or even simply on the sly, eventually he can become sloppy, careless and overconfident (which they have). At some point or another, EVERYbody sees him doing it even and because he is so deeply into the habit, he may not even know that he doesn’t bothered to hide it anymore. Take habitual nose-pickers, for instance…
Bonkers @ 19:
(woo! sorry for all the typos, but I think you get my drift)
Keith Olbermann is a lot of things….but stupid he is not.
McC*unt truly needs all the help he can get at this point. He is being viewed—quite accurately—as a senile, mean-spirited, slow-thinking relic of the past.
This is a guy who is still learning to log on to the Internet…but has all the answers to fix the US economy. Yeah, right.
McC*unt is quickly being pushed away and ignored by the American and global public. Nobody is buying his tired bullshit. We’ve heard it all before…yadda, yadda, yadda, Obama doesn’t support the troops…Obama is weak on defense…Obama can’t protect you.
Whatever.
McC*unt is pissed that no one is paying attention to him. That’s a good thing because he can’t seem to utter a sentence without getting his facts wrong.
Wait a minute!!!
Don’t you know that John McCain INVENTED the surge one afternoon when he took his Viagra way too early and felt a “surge” in his pants.
Its all well documented history!!
Olbermann’s with the 3% who are still in denial about the surge. Throw BarryHO, Mika “The World’s Biggest Dingbat” Brzezinski (and perfect liberal icon) and Harry Reid into that pitiful pile of partisans, along with BathtubBoy Olberdope.
This all reeks of Republican panic and desparation. To find it so early in the campaign I suppose is comforting.
Joe gets moved to the a.m. with NO known competition, then can’t get ratings. Joe is on his way out, its house-cleaning time! Say bye-bye to all of the right wing hacks who do not have the skills to mount a real argument.
Joe spun it and Harold helped.
CNN got the story right like this post.
I’m less concerned about whether McCain is right or wrong about Anbar (he’s not going to be president anyway) and more alarmed that CBS would ask and interviewee a question on camera and splice in a completely different answer that he gave. Let’s consider the content irrelevant for a moment. One of the most watched news programs in America lied to it audience by editing the interview in the way they did — that’s unfair to McCain (unless his people requested the edit) and it’s a hoax on its millions of viewers. This is just something that isn’t done in journalism. This incident should be exposed and talked about on a massive scale to educate viewers on how the media can manipulate true events and how everything ought to be watched with skepticism. Oh, and in regards to Joe Scarborough, I have two words — dead intern!
ek in mpls @ 6:
I’d love it!
pissed off patricia @ 15:
I don’t get that. They all tout McCain’s military experience, such as it is, as the reason for him being the best candidate and yet they disparage Wesley Clark who is a General. General Clark has 99.9% more experience than McCain. Why can’t they ever see the contradiction? Drives me nuts. Does Joedeadintern think he knows more than Clark? Isn’t he disparaging Clarks service? I thought you couldn’t do that or is that only for McCain?
Uncle Joe Mccarthy @ 12:
Does Harold Ford hold some position in DLC currently?
They ought to dump him in a heartbeat, not that the rest of DLC is any great shakes either.
Why are you picking on John McCain and Joe Scarborough? As far as I can tell, neither of them has a sufficiently high IQ to be considered responsible for their own actions. In the old days, unscrupulous promoters roped mentally challenged people into being sideshow geeks and biting the heads off chickens. These days, the same mentally challenged people are put on tv, or perhaps in the Senate. At least it’s better than that whole chicken thing.
Funny to see how freaked out unapologetic Obama surrogates like Olbermann and Matthews get whenever someone DARES to speak the truth about the surge’s undeniable success. Matthews head just about exploded last week over the issue.
They know this is a gigantic BOO-BOO for Obama, and Obama just makes matters worse with his idiotic, rambling, incoherent answers when somebody asks him a direct question about it.
Yeah, B. You got a problem on that one.
FinalSay @ 23:
So you think the 1,000+ dead Americans and $200 Billion was the best possible use of US soldiers and $$. I guess John “I’m gonna call my wife a c*nt” McCain doesn’t care about the cash that the Iraq war has cost this country, the old boner will be dead by the time the mortgage payments for it come due.
So, if McCain’s answer was so cogent and reality-oriented…why not show it?
Isn’t Joe running a risk by pissing on his fellow MSNBC hosts? This should get his ass fired. And if he goes, he must take Mika (”teeheeheehee, That’s just mean”) with him. She has become every bit as annoying as Joe and Pat Buchanan (sp?)
Joe Scar:
“Anybody that would argue that the Awakening would have survived…without the Surge…is so ignorant of the facts on the ground…etc etc”
Hi, Scar, you feebiac? STRAW MAN.
Hey, Harold:
Way to pick up The Scar’s straw man and move it forward another 5 yds. Nice work.
[rolls eyes]
Mika B. and Olbermann - The libtard brain trust. God help them if the teleprompter ever breaks.
ek in mpls @ 6:
An excellent idea! it’s got my vote… Joe is a total fucktard!
RickyK @ 37:
Eff off asshat… you’re on the wrong blog.
WTF?
Isn’t there a rule about not attacking people that work for your network?
Looks like there’s a new troll in town…
RickyK, do they pay you to troll or is a volunteer job?
Wake up! Whether the surge works or not, or if it started before something else, or whatever talking head or politician think about the events doesn’t matter!
The ONLY thing that matters is that the IRAQ WAR is a WAR CRIME. Everyone involved in making it happen and continuing it is a criminal that must be held accountable. ANYONE who talks about anything (except ending the war and getting out) is a criminal after the fact and ANYONE who even thinks about voting for someone like that is insane.
Kucinich and Ron Paul are the only ones who spoke any truth on this subject, everyone else is a big government puppet. Vote for McCain OR Obama and this country is DOOMED.
Janet @ 29:
Wes Clark is a fu*king Rhodes Scholar and a big time General, yet Joe has the gall to think that he knows more about this war than a Ret. General does? But if we are talking about a Vietnam POW, well you can’t argue with a thing he says because he has battle “experience”.
It’s insane!
just more flak to confuse the masses.
joe’s another head that desparately needs his ass kicked. and i mean that in a good way.
a good ass kicking is just what you need sometimes.
yellowdogD @ 30:
He is the head of the DLC…
The DLCers should change their party affiliation and cut the middle man: they walk like repugs, they talk like repugs, and hard as they try to squeak like a dem… they still sound like a repug.
Fuck’em…
FinalSay @ 23:
Yes the surge worked, much like the elephant repellant I have been spreading on my lawn
sounds like joe wants off the ship. he’s setting up a him or me throw down, and those things never work out well.
Biggus Diggus @ 42:
Sorry. Didn’t realize this was a closed Cir