Joe Scarborough attacks Paul Krugman for his op-ed The Big Hate:
Scarborough: I’m just gonna say it. As somebody that has to sort through a lot of hate mail, a lot of hate email, a lot of viciousness. Paul Krugman’s name is attached to a lot of those emails. They use Paul Krugman as their shield for their left-wing hate. This is because Paul Krugman, like a lot of extremists on the right, they only see their side. They have a closed-minded world view. Paul Krugman uses this tragedy, uses this death to try to knock down his opponents on the right.
Unbelievable. Project much Joe?
Scarborough was attacking Paul Krugman by using the DHS report with the phony conservative line that the report was targeting our veterans. Not true. Do these conservative hacks want America to be safe? The report wasn't a partisan witch hunt, but conservatives are trying to find anything to jump on and make an issue out of. Then he goes of into la-la land when he brings Bush and Cheney into it. And by the way, there are no left wing radicals threatening to kill you, Scarborough, so your argument makes no sense.
On a separate but related matter ... I wonder why Joe didn't talk much about Dr. Tiller, either? Oh, wait. Seems Scarborough first got famous down in Florida defending an abortion-doctor killer named Michael Griffin, and it appears Joe didn't want that info dredged up. In fact, it appears that Scarborough used the murderer to get himself elected to Congress. Who knew?
Wayne Barrett of the Village Voice writes: Why Don't MSNBCers Question "Morning Joe" About Abortion Doc Killings?
Scarborough's hometown of Pensacola -- where his show once frequently originated -- was the site of the first two abortion murders, the second also occurring during his first run for Congress in 1994. A raw 30-year-old, Scarborough's surprising Republican win was principally funded by anti-abortion groups and he immediately went to Washington and voted against bills to protect abortion clinics, including one version sponsored by a Republican congressmen.
Here's more of Wayne Barrett's article from the Village Voice:
Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow devoted much of their MSNBC shows last night to the assassination of George Tiller. Maddow actually led with a headshot of Michael Griffin, the first abortion-doctor murderer, who killed Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola, Florida in 1993. She then moved on to copycat Shelley Shannon, who wrote letters of support for Griffin shortly before she shot George Tiller in both arms, an ominous foreboding of his murder 16 years later.
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A Voice cover story in 2008 examined in great detail Scarborough's role in the case, as well as the singular impact his exploitation of the abortion issue had in Scarborough's 1994 initial election to Congress.
So what might his colleagues have learned about defending abortion-doc killers from Morning Joe? Well....
Scarborough's hometown of Pensacola -- where his show once frequently originated -- was the site of the first two abortion murders, the second also occurring during his first run for Congress in 1994. A raw 30-year-old, Scarborough's surprising Republican win was principally funded by anti-abortion groups and he immediately went to Washington and voted against bills to protect abortion clinics, including one version sponsored by a Republican congressmen.
Griffin handwrote the Voice two long letters last year after we contacted him in prison, describing in depth his relationship with Scarborough. While Scarborough tried to minimize his ties in an interview, claiming he was merely doing "a favor for a friend" and briefly searching for a lawyer who'd take the case to trial, Griffin detailed Scarborough's efforts to stay on the case and work with the trail attorney. The court record itself shows that Scarborough told the judge he was prepared to try the case, and that he represented Griffin for nearly three months. Scarborough claimed that his then father-in-law was a friend of Griffin's father and that's why he did it, but neither would get on the phone and confirm that (not that it's much of an explanation.) Griffin's father contributed twice to Scarborough's campaign -- $200 apiece.
Oddly, though Olbermann, Maddow, and Chris Matthews all did major segments on the killing of Tiller, Morning Joe hasn't. Scarborough hasn't been called to account for it by anyone else on his network, and has never told his audience why he did it and how he feels about it now.
Gawker found out some interesting stuff about Joe and Newswell in this post.
Newsweek interviewed MSNBC morning host Joe Scarborough last week, and prominently mentioned when Scarborough defended the murderer of an abortion doctor. That didn't go over well in Scarborough country, so Newsweek editor— and frequent Scarborough guest—Jon Meacham changed it.
The Scarborough interview, by Johnnie L. Roberts was a "web exclusive." It was posted to Newsweek's web site on Friday afternoon with Roberts' introduction leading with the newsiest bit of the interview: Scarborough's first comments about serving as the defense attorney for Michael Griffin, the anti-abortion zealot who murdered Dr. David Gunn in 1993, and whether that had affected his coverage of the death of Dr. George Tiller. Here's the original introduction:...read on
Lawyers can defend whoever they want to for sure, but if they become talking heads then they need to be honest about their relationships. Especially when it's relative to a breaking News story and to their own history, don't you think?
MMFA has much more on the Scar:
Responding to Paul Krugman's June 12 New York Times column, in which Krugman wrote that "[c]onservatives were outraged" over "an internal report by the Department of Homeland Security warning that current conditions resemble those in the early 1990s -- a time marked by an upsurge of right-wing extremism that culminated in the Oklahoma City bombing," Scarborough claimed that "Krugman misses ... the fact that what upset most of us -- that we're talking about that report around this table -- was the fact not that they were targeting right-wingers, it's that they were targeting veterans."
