Joe Scarborough

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The last time professional chucklehead Joe Scarborough used his flat-earth theory–if many people believe the round earth is flat, then the person who believes that the round Earth is round is a fool–he ended up being embarrassed by his scurrilous criticism of pollster Nate Silver. But some people never learn. He’s now lambasting New York Times economist Paul Krugman about deficit spending not because the MSNBC pundit has some sort knowledge or proof, but because, in Scarborough’s mind, Krugman’s reasoning “runs counter to conventional wisdom across the Western world.” Sooner or later, the “other people disagree with this guy” theory will work the way some shit eventually sticks to a wall. The opening of Scarborough’s new Politico column “Paul Krugman vs. the World“:

“Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman came on Morning Joe Monday to discuss his latest book and the state of affairs in Washington. Mr. Krugman’s view is that Americans would be better off if its government ran deeper deficits and ignored its longterm debt. That, of course, runs counter to conventional wisdom across the Western world, which is exactly why the New York Times columnist believes Spain and Great Britain are suffering through endless recessions.

His argument also runs counter to what I have been saying in Congress and in the media since 1994. So it would be no surprise that the guy who wrote this, and this, and this and this over the past week would take exception to Mr. Krugman’s words. But most of our viewers did not tune in to hear me talk over the Nobel Prize winner. They tuned in to hear Paul Krugman. So I did my best to give him space.”

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“Obama invoked average Americans living out this ethos of mutual responsibility.” (Image by David Shankbone.)

Where are the “job creators” right now? Probably eating freedom fries. As the language of manipulation has been drowned out by machines crunching raw data, it’s good to remember that some people in addition to Nate Silver were calling bullshit on the GOP narratives leading up to Election Day. One was New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait, who called out the wishful thinking being sold in earnest daily by Joe Scarborough and others. (It’s very amusing that Scarborough is now angrily calling out the lies of the conservative media, considering he was a big part of the problem.) Chait’s well-tuned ears also caught the gist of Obama’s victory speech which  might have been lost in the wee hours of the morning. From his new article, “We Just Had a Class War: And One Side Won“:

“Obama then proceeded to define the American idea in a way that excludes the makers-versus-takers conception of individual responsibility propounded by Paul Ryan and the tea party. Since Obama took office, angry men in Colonial garb or on Fox News have harped on ‘American exceptionalism,’ which boils our national virtue down to the freedom from having to subsidize some other sap’s health insurance. Obama turned this on its head. ‘What makes America exceptional,’ he announced, ‘are the bonds that hold together the most diverse nation on Earth. The belief that our destiny is shared; that this country only works when we accept certain obligations to one another and to future generations.’ Obama invoked average Americans living out this ethos of mutual responsibility (such as a ‘family business whose owners would rather cut their own pay than lay off their neighbors,’ the example of which stands at odds with the corporate ethos of a certain ­Boston-based private-equity executive). And even the line about red states and blue states began with the following statement: ‘We are greater than the sum of our individual ambitions.’

Presumably more was at work here than mere uplift. The president was establishing the meaning of his victory.”

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Joe Scarborough: Glasses aren’t only for smart people anymore.

Joe Scarborough is almost always wrong, but that doesn’t prevent him from being smug and loud. The MSNBC puddinghead (and, oh christ, former congressperson!) likes to cherry pick political polls, especially the less helpful national ones, and sell lazy narratives based on one or two surveys. Lately he’s been peddling the idea that the Presidential election will either be a razor-thin victory for Obama or a rout for Romney, though the statistical evidence doesn’t suggest there’s any reason for the latter position. 

Scarborough has lately taken aim at Five Thirty-Eight pollster Nate Silver whose numbers disagree with his dubious plotline. Because Silver is smart and perceived as liberal, he’s attacked by the right as underhanded in some way. A recent Politico article by Dylan Byers had numerous media figures figures assailing Silver as some sort of hack. He’s not. He’s a bright guy working off an objective model, and he was more accurate during the 2008 election than anyone. It doesn’t mean that he will be correct this time–he has Obama as a heavy favorite–but at least his views are based on hard evidence.

In the Politico article, Scarborough, a human whoopee cushion, labeled Silver as a “joke.” He attacked the analyst’s  methodology without offering a better system because he doesn’t have one–he just makes shit up.  But the cable babbler went further, suggesting that Silver was an “ideologue,” a partisan in the tank for Obama, trying to nudge the election in the direction of his candidate. Without having any proof of such behavior, it was a pretty scurrilous attack. 

When Scarborough endlessly derided Team Obama’s Bain ads in the early summer as being tone-deaf and ineffectual, he was wrong. The commercials had the intended impact. But I don’t recall Silver (or anyone, really) accusing the Republican host of being an ideologue for his opinion. Anything could happen in this election, sure, but if Scarborough is right it would have to be by accident. And even then the way he portrayed Silver will never be right.•

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