Joe Scarborough

I just heard Joe Scarborough saying on MSNBC that a VP pick "isn't that important". That may be news to all of us after we just endured days on end of non-stop media coverage of who the VP pick might be. The media parked outside of Biden's (and others) house like a flock of paparazzi waiting for Brittney to do it again.

Yes the VP pick is important. I would say more so now than ever before with the rise of power the VP's office has had under Bush.

Scarborough continued his attack on bloggers this morning, saying we are a bunch of Cheetos eating, Harry Potter watching basement dwellers. Ignore the fact that I don't even like Harry Potter, let's look at something more interesting - the ratings. Here's the breakdown of morning shows courtesy of TVNewser:

Old Morning Joe is getting really close to the bottom there. I happen to know a lot of bloggers do tune into Morning Joe, as it's the only morning show with actual politics. But what would happen if all the bloggers turned off Morning Joe? My guess is his numbers would possibly fall below Squawk Box. Wouldn't that really piss off Joe, and possibly open the eyes of some execs at MSNBC?

And just to add insult to injury, let's compare Scarborough's numbers to that of Daily Kos:

Average Per Day 892,723

Wow - Kos has more than double the viewership of Morning Joe. Perhaps this is why Joe is going against the bloggers so much? I really think we have the power to drop his ratings even lower and show him just who the bloggers are - his viewers.

This morning while talking with Harold Ford about Obama's trip, Scarborough tried to frame it as McCain would appeal to middle America by being in a restaurant in Ohio, while Obama was in Germany.

Catch that? Now when McCain is overseas, Scarborough and the rest of the right talk about it being some big resume builder for McCain's foreign policy experience, but when Obama is overseas he is snubbing middle America. Amazing.

st night on Race to the White House, Scarborough got a smackdown from Rachael Maddow as he tried to spin McCain's positions:

Scarborough tries to say McCain isn't for tax cuts. Let's see what this source says:

* Keep Tax Rates Low: Entrepreneurs are at the heart of American innovation, growth and prosperity. Entrepreneurs create the ultimate job security -- a new, better opportunity if your current job goes away. Entrepreneurs should not be taxed into submission. John McCain will fight the Democrats' crippling plans for a tax increase in 2011. Left to their devices, Democrats will impose a massive $100 billion tax hike, almost $700 per taxpayer every year.

* Make It Harder To Raise Taxes: John McCain believes it should require a 3/5 majority vote in Congress to raise taxes.

* Cut The Corporate Tax Rate From 35 To 25 Percent. A lower corporate tax rate is essential to U.S. competitiveness. America was once a low-tax business environment, but as our trade partners lowered their rates, America failed to keep pace, leaving us with the second-highest rate among the world's advanced economies.

* Reward Saving, Investment and Risk-Taking: Low taxes on dividends and capital gains promote saving, channel investment dollars to innovative, high-value uses and not wasteful financial planning. John McCain will keep the current rates on dividends and capital gains and fight anti-growth efforts by Democrats.

* Allow First-Year Deduction, Or "Expensing", Of Equipment And Technology Investments. Expensing of equipment and technology will provide an immediate boost to capital expenditures and reward investments in cutting-edge technologies.

Hmm that sure sounds like tax cuts to me. But perhaps Scarborough has a better source than I do. My source is only John McCain's campaign site.

Joe Scarborough and Katrina vanden Heuvel were talking about the Eliot Spitzer mess this morning. Katrina asked why our government, which is struggling to even fund "fighting terrorism", has the money and resources to prostitutes. Scarborough actually agreed with her on that, and they both feel that perhaps there was more to this than people are letting on to. Was Spitzer actually targeted because of some of the high profile names he has brought down in the past?

Something else that has been making me scratch my head. We hear some other right wing tools, like Tucker Carlson, going on about how much they hate Spitzer because of his going after corruption. These are the same tools that shoot a load every time they see Rudy Giuliani, who did the same thing. As matter of fact, Rudy and Eliot are more alike than one might think. They both have been high profile prosecutors, turned political executives. The only difference is Spitzer got caught. Rudy has been able to slip through every crack known to man. I wonder if Rudy was indicted for some of his questionable past, if he would end up getting the same scrutiny? I doubt it.

But who really cares? What I find the most interesting of the entire segment is how they keep saying Media Matters is now a front for the Clinton campaign.

Looks like people from the right side of the aisle are upset with Bush trying to lie this country into another war and want Joe Biden to start holding hearings over it. My suggestion is that Joe Biden drop out from the Presidential race (let's face facts - I like Joe but he doesn't have a prayer) and during that announcement tell the people he is doing so to focus his energies into getting to the bottom of this scandal.

This was classic. Scarborough thinks that Tucker got the best in this argument. Check it out and see what you think. I believe Scarborough is flat wrong.

It is funny to hear these right wingers get mad when the personal lives of politicians is brought into the public debate. It was just 10 years ago that it was perfectly legitimate to do so. As matter of fact, Joe was on the very Congress that voted to impeach Bill Clinton.

This is getting old. Ann Coulter is out on our public airwaves using a defense any 5 year old would use (and she is suppose to be a lawyer?). That defense is simple - "Well Bill Maher did it". Wow Ann - if Bill Maher jumped off a bridge, would you?

So let's look at Anne's defense. What she is under fire for is the following statement:

"I've learned my lesson. If I'm gonna say anything about John Edwards in the future, I'll just wish he had been killed in a terrorist assassination plot." (emphasis added)

Now she is saying that Bill Maher said the same thing about Dick Cheney. During episode 503 of Real Time with Bill Maher, the round table turned to the hot topic of the week of a suicide bombing in Afghanistan, in which Dick Cheney was the target. Bill was discussing with his panel the decision of the Huffington Post to close the comments on the news thread about the attempt, because people were commenting that they were upset Cheney survived. I dug through my archives and here is the video of the segment:

Check out this clip from Scarborough filling in the time slot left vacant by Don Imus.

In reference to Fred Thompson's wife, Joe says, '"Do you think she works the pole?" So Joe - does that mean any attractive woman is a stripper?

I like Joe Scarborough, but it looks like he just did an Imus. I wonder if he will be out of a job now.

Sometimes you hear praise from the most unlikely of places. Today it comes from Joe Scarborough:

I spent Saturday with Sheryl Crow and Laurie David. No fist fights. No verbal insults. Just a couple of Hollywood heavyweights and a red state guy talking about saving the planet.

Whether you agree or disagree with their environmental message, I suspect you would be impressed with these women's dedication if you got the chance to spend the day with them.

On the tour bus after Crow and David's University of Maryland concert, I told Laurie she had the passion of a Southern Baptist preacher.

This is a woman on a mission from God.

Read on

Their has been a lot of buzz the last few days over Ann Coulter calling John Edwards a "faggot". I chose not to cover it because I feel that the more publicity Coulter gets, the more fuel she has for her outlandish comments. Today I had to cave because of Keith Olbermann, who took time from his vacation last night to call in the World's Worst on Countdown.

We got Limbaugh saying that Obama owns Al Sharpton because Obama has a history of slave owners in his family and Sharpton's family was once owned by Strom. Coulter and her "faggot" comment earns her the top honor, while Gingrich showed his true hatred with this comment:

How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane.