Law, Power, and Justice

TUESDAY 2 APRIL 2024

Well, I’m 73 now, and especially since I’m retired, I cannot stop watching the network, or cable news.  I wrote a book about media coverage of the invasion of Panama and the twists and turns of political coverage fascinate me even though I know it is not as important as it once was in shaping opinion.

This mea culpa is to ward off what I expect to be a deluge of criticism for even watching something as ridiculous as “Morning Joe” in the first place not to mention spending time writing about it.  But…

This morning, I saw Joe Scarborough once again, virtually stop a cable news program because one of the regulars, Jonathan Lemire, (who does Way Too Early) was a second late getting from the set of WTE over to the Morning Joe set.  That was rude enough to provoke comment,, but I have seen Scarborough do this to Lemire before. 

A  few months ago, Scarborough actually walked off the set and reentered, shaking hands with all the guests to make the point that he, too, could saunter onto the set late (lLemire did not “saunter.”). This display, designed to embarrass Lemire and imply that his late arrival had been selfish and self-indulgent (two things Joe Scarborough is notorious for being).  This display went on for roughly 10 minutes as Scarborough ambled around the Morning Joe set and even over to another set while advancing arguments for making the other set a sports set.  It was mean and it was unnecessary.  It reminded me of high school bullies, who ruthlessly ridicule other, always less powerful, boys.  These guys always punch down.

Joe Scarborough is just a grown up, more egoistical, and much more powerful version of the high school A-team bully.  And, MSNBC has now given him free run of FOUR HOURS of time to fully display in all its glory, his misogyny, his obsession with his brief time in Congress, and his gleeful long discussions of sports.  By the way, he thinks that talking over the dreadful Mika while she is trying to do the news, to converse with Willie Geist about sports is outrageously funny.  The more disconcerted the dreadful Mika beomes, the funnier he thinks his behavior is.  And, Willie Geist (like all hangers on) of course, plays along.  Geist, as every other guest on the show, knows that you play along or you get summarily ousted (Refer to Harold Ford, Jr., who has to his shame, descended  to Fox.  Does this sound like a grown man to you?

As a side note: The only person on cable television worse than Joe Scarborough is the dreadful Mika Brezenski.  I can never get over the fact that she has made a fortune hawking a “Know your Worth” self help, or self glorification package for women.  This is the woman who had a secret, adulterous affair now turned marriage with her boss which assured her a life-time job on Morning Joe.  That’s sure knowing your worth.  This is not to mention having participated with Scarborough in a slavering display of support of Trump for the entire first year of his campaign.  Unlike almost every other guest, they allowed Trump to call in his rants every morning during that year.  Then, there was the famous dreadful Mika off-mike incident beseeching Trump for permission to ask him a hard question.

But, back to bully-boy Scarborough.  The first time I saw him ridicule Lemire was before Joe took him on the show to provide daily sadistic pleasure.  Lemire was reporting from home and when he was on, there would be framed paper silhouettes on the wall behind him.  They looked like silhouettes of two children.  Scarborough ridiculed the silhouettes relentlessly until Lemire finally took them off the wall.  “What kind of old lady pussy are you?” was the general tenor of the ridicule. Again,  It was mean and it was unnecessary.

But, if you credit Keith Olbermann, who has a segment on his podcast I am unreasonably jealous of, called “Things I Promised Never to Talk About” Joe Scarborough is a viper and much more powerful at MSNBC than any of us sitting at home realize. 

While I am at this vicious little exercise, I will unnecessarily add my theories about this marriage made in hell.  I am guessing that, for Scarborough, this relationship was a temporary convenience.  What man doesn’t have an affair with any colleague or subordinate he spends a lot of time at work with?  (This was one of the reasons why I could not get hot and bothered about Fani Willis.  I am, as I said 73, and I can’t even remember how many of my male colleagues or professors were sleeping with secretaries, colleagues, students the janitor, basically anybody they could get their hands on.  But, let a woman do it?  In the case of Fani Willis, a single woman sleeps with a single man?  You would think the world’s coming to an end.  I can’t remember how many people, oh wait, my God I can remember: JOE SCARBOROUGH WHINGED ON AND ON ONE MORNING ABOUT FANI WILLIS’ “POOR JUDGEMENT.”)

This is the Joe Scarborough whose intern died in such strange circumstances people were publicly accusing him of murder years later.  This is the Joe Scarborough who supported Donald Trump until Donald Trump 1) did not make him chief of staff and 2) outed his adulterous affair with the dreadful Mika when it was a secret from her children.  This is the Joe Scarborough who had the affair and then wound up having to marry someone for whom he has little respect and is obviously now stuck with for both professional and personal reasons.  This is the Joe Scarborough who is on MSNBC lecturing Fani Willis about bad judgement? 

I know I should get back to something more intellectually challenging and interesting and significant.  My cats? 

Oh, yes.  There’s Israel, now blowing up a car full is aid workers and bombing the Iranian embassy in Syria?  Thousands of protesters out on the street in the middle of a war, demanding that Netanyahu stand down.  Then, there’s the fact that Netanyahu’s wife is setting up taxpayer funded hair salon visits because she is bothered by protesters.  (This is the woman who once said, we don’t care if you don’t reelect Bibi, we’ll just leave the country.)

O.K.  this is descending again. 

But, even all that is easier to deal with than the reprehensible betrayal of Ukraine.  The Republicans have blood on their hands over funding to Ukraine and the Democrats are hopeless because they have allowed it to happen. 

I always wondered what it must have been like for people in the 1930s, gathered together in front of their radios at night, listening to the news from Europe, scouring the newspapers for any tidbit about the creeping fascism talking over democratic countries.  What it must have been like to gather together to experience the ominous gathering storm building.  Now, I know. 

I just don’t have the comfort of gathering together with other people I love.  I’m stuck with Joe and the dreadful Mika.