Mika, sitting next to Scarborough every morning gives you an advantage of favorable comparison. You criticized DailyKos this morning, Sept. 3, about 8:10 a.m. EDT - but do you come here yourself, or do you just read off a script Joe writes for you? When you play Colmes to his Hannity, it really does not look good.
You said, and I paraphrase: that the scales have fallen from your eyes; that you see that Joe Scarborough is right, that the media are "left wing" and they "swallow whole" the talking points of the liberal blogosphere, and you name DailyKos. You accepted his assessment of DailyKos as extremist. Your proof of it was an alleged creation and endorsement of the rumor that Sarah Palin's last child was not really hers, but her teenaged daughter's. You asserted that the "left wing" major media "swallowed whole" this wild rumormongering, supposedly the fault of the DailyKos. By your standard, all the lies of the Bush administration should be laid at the door of your employer, because its spokesmen repeated them daily on MSNBC.
Your comments, Mika, which you seemed dedicated to getting in, were following the Republican talking point of the minute as slavishly as FOX ever does. In this case, it was the absurd description of the major media as "left wing," and the absurd claim that the media - whom McCain says are his 'base' - were being mean to McCain about Palin (exciting pick!). Here are some things wrong with what you said, that made you seem more like an appartchik than a journalist this morning:
- The insinuation or claim that the DailyKos is an extremist medium with a shared extremist agenda makes it seem that you do not even understand what it is. DailyKos is a diverse collection of generally liberal people, with greatly diverging views. The general trend of this blog is far from extremist. It is actually near the real center, not the center as described by General Electric, perhaps - but the opinions supported by those who write on DailyKos resemble the majority opinions on most issues. That these opinions are not reflected in our public policy has to do with our country's failure to achieve genuince democracy to date. Extremist? A couple of years ago, kos, our Great Leader, was tending to support Mark Warner for gosh sakes. He would get some criticism for that (from me, for example), but that is what public discourse is like. You get criticized sometimes.
- DailyKos was not pushing the story that Palin was not really her last child's mother. Some individuals were. There were also plenty of people on the site saying, stop posting about that story. They all had the right to post, as long as they were not lying. People may speculate, even foolishly, but that is not the main thing happening on DailyKos. It appears that a lot of the stories about Palin are coming from her Republican enemies in Alaska. The stories most interesting to the heart of DailyKos are the ones that show that Palin's claim to be a reformer is bogus. And that is where we come to swallowing whole.
- You, Mika, said that the mainstream media swallowed whole false rumors generated by the DailyKos. No such thing has ever happened and it is highly unlikely ever to happen. Mika Brzezinski, I challenge you to support your false claim. That these rumors were repeated here is for sure. The diversity of commentors here assures that many things will be said here, a lot of chaff with the wheat. We who spend a lot of time on DailyKos expect to have to do some winnowing - a task that the mainstream media failed to do for years when SWALLOWING WHOLE the lies of the Bush administration, lies that have enabled the killings of hundreds of thousands of people and the raiding of the public wealth by contractors with an in. You are doing it again when you SWALLOW WHOLE the claim that Sarah Palin is a reformer -- whereas a google search could prove otherwise, and did to real citizens, who made the search, and real journalists, who are a minority among those given face time on the TV channels. You swallowed the lie whole, at first, and so did most of your colleagues. There has been a little backtracking on that, but not much -- not near enough, when this is the central claim for her officeworthiness, and it is absurdly, patently false.
Of course, it is not only your Morning Joe program that swallows dubious material whole. In your network family of programs, on Meet the Press just Sunday in discussing Palin Tom Brokaw looked to Maria Bartiromo as an Expert on Energy Issues. And she in turn verified that Palin is also an Expert on Energy Issues. The basis for Palin's credentials? Even less than Bartiromo's, who at least minored in economics. Bartiromo says Palin is an Expert because Palin says that drilling in ANWAR will have only minor environmental impact. There are so many things wrong with this position this is not a place to get into that. But it is a controversial statement, and disinterested scientific opinion is heavily weighted on the other side. All you could see on the illustrious MTP panel is nodding heads. That is the real swallowing whole.
Mika, you swallow camels though you strain at gnats.
Am I wrong?