Joe Scarborough just had Rep. Peter King (R-NY) and Katrina vanden Heuvel on for a spirited "debate" over the bank records/NYT scandal. Lacking a proper transcript, it can be summed up as Raving Lunatic vs. Intelligent Voice of Reason.
Surprisingly, though, Scarborough didn't parrot the Republican talking points. Continuing his sporadic string (Katrina, NSA phone records) of non-partisan, principled commentary, Scarborough absolutely blasted the Bush administration.
A rundown on the jump ... almost sounds like someone's been reading Kos :).
JS's main points (rough quotes):
1. Conservative limited government proponents should be apalled at this anti-Jeffersonian power grab by the president.
2. In the years between 1994-2000, Repubs would have been apalled by this (Scarborough: "would have raised bloody hell" -- and justifiably!
3. The administration has manipulated the 9/11 tragedy to achieve its goals for a long time. Eventually, that has to stop.
4. "When forced to choose between a newspaper's discretion when reporting something like this and that of an administration, I'll take the newspaper every time."
Well done! Unfortunately, he has Coulter up next ... odds are, that'll undermine all the show's good points up 'til now.
Oh! And a new phrase re: Rove, Cheney, etc. has been coined on the show -- "War Sissies." I'll be using that. This has been an amusing program.