In the space of about 18 hours, Jonathan Chait has twice mauled (here and here) Joe Scarborough into a whimpering, defensive mass of protest. Nothing eats at Morning Joe like irrefutable facts posed in opposition to the host's infinite wisdom, but I imagine that in this particular feud what really bugs the hell out of Scarborough is that he can't bully Chait with his usual tactic: a fusillade of on-air interruptions.
Scarborough is an interesting clinical case of megalomania as political argument. When he was a mere GOP congressman he devoted his considerable glibness to the intensely partisan cause of unseating a duly elected president because ... well, just because; and once he became a media man he discovered that even greater notoriety was possible by way of partisan transcendence--which in general is about as genuine as was his original cause of partisan impeachment.
Thus Scarborough can almost daily reproach his fellow Republicans for their crimes of extreme partisanship while espousing virtually their same policies. His self-promotional trick is simply to spew them as "a real conservative." And by God it works. Viewers think they're seeing someone differentiated from the pseudoconservative pack; but of course it's just the same old GOP congressman up to his old self-promotional, partisan tricks.
And if someone--cue Chait--makes a note of it, but cannot be stifled, well it just drives Joe absolutely nuts.
Oh please. Real viewers of Joe Scarborough do no such thing. I am one. I need my morning laugh and Jerry Springer is nowhere to be found. Sometimes Joe's unintentional jokes are hard to catch. Like when he chastises the Obama administration for questioning whether or not Egypt is an American ally and 14.5 seconds later (he didn't make it to 15), chastises them for even speaking to a Muslim Brotherhood country like Egypt. To be honest he seems to be working on an old operating system, the TPMspewmatic
generator. It has glitches but they are fun to watch.
Posted by: Peter G | February 12, 2013 at 02:59 PM
Not slight to you, PM, but Jonathan Chait has been on an incredible roll lately by going after guys like David Brooks, Gerson, Krauthammer, Scarborough, Douthat ("the most tragic case"), et all.
Not only that, he's been incredibly hilarious about it.
Posted by: MinneapolisPipe | February 12, 2013 at 05:01 PM
Channeling your inner driftglass again, I see. Good deal.
Sullivan does the exact same thing, he's just less of a transparently-idiotic bully about it. And more thoughtful in his reasoning than "well my well-connected high-rolling buddies told me, so I can't possibly be wrong! Shut up liberals!"
Posted by: Turgidson | February 12, 2013 at 05:57 PM
Like button.
Posted by: Jaylemeux | February 16, 2013 at 07:45 AM