I do not watch TV. I listen to audio podcasts of TV. TV, it turns out makes passable radio. Add to that my lack of people skills and your understand my confusion.
Yesterday on Morning Joe, Scarborough went on a long rant about how some Conservative young people are so harassed by teachers and peers in school that at least some become complete Steve Bannon.
I can dig it. Joe meant it. He was emotional.
One of the regulars, I don’t know which one, interrupted his rant. This led to something like a shouting match and a demand for an apology.
Now I am listening to Friday’s podcast. Mika and the guy Joe was fighting with are both off. Joe made some sort of strange joke about the missing guy.
There is nothing easy to find about this, you would have thought there would be a Morning Joe blog. Did anyone else see this? What happened?
I was hoping for some opinions if this would break up the panel, if anyone might run off over it. I was hoping that someone with more social skills might opine if Joe was being out of line.
Thank you for the link. I may have mentioned I do not watch TV.
Joe was absolutely being a dick. It was funny to see him start on a low simmer and then build to a full boil. Donny, whose opinion is always less than insightful or interesting, wasn’t wrong or objectionable - simply not welcomed by Joe with a full head of steam. I get the feeling Joe doesn’t much care for Donny as a political contributor. I can only speculate that now that Joe is sleeping with Mika, he resents Donny for constantly flirting with Mika and sucking up to her (Donny once bought Mika a pair of Louboutin heels and gave them to her on the show - a memorably uncomfortable moment of TV).
But I don’t think anyone is leaving the show. Donny might not be eager to return as a guest very soon but it’ll all blow over.
Joe is a child. He’ll be back on set when he’s done pitching his hissy fit.
ETA: While I like and respect the regular panel of pundits on this show, I’m quite tired of him and Mika’s pointless rambling. CNN in the same time slot has been much better lately.
I thought the tantrum was, frankly, mysterious - no one was disputing what he was saying. At best, the differing opinion was, “Yes, that happened, but he (Stephen Miller) is also an incompetent jerk.”
It may come as no surprise that I agree that a predictable result of incessant pressure from the intolerant elements of the left to toe the ideological line is a decision from the pressured centrist or conservative that one may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.
To Bricker’s point, Joe did mention in his rant that he is often excluded from speaking (for a fee) from some of the more liberal colleges. I think that’s something that sticks in his craw and what lead to his rant. To the extent that’s true, I can understand why he’d be upset and would agree that it’s stupid to prevent someone so relatively moderately conservative to be prevented from speaking at a liberal venue.
Oh, I agree, he shouldn’t be prevented from speaking at a liberal venue.
But there’s a difference between (a) a college saying, “sure, if you want to speak here, it’ll cost you $150 plus cleanup costs for you to rent the auditorium for the evening, or you can set up a soapbox on the quad for free,” which they ought to do for pretty much anyone, versus (b) the college paying someone to speak, or giving them a privileged speaking slot that’s generally considered an honor, such as being asked to speak at commencement.
Option (a) is the college’s recognition of the importance of free speech, and ensuring that all comers can exercise that right at their institution. Option (b) is the college’s exercise of free speech by indicating via money or honor that the college regards certain speakers as more worthy than others.
And if certain colleges don’t exercise their free speech right in a way that benefits Joe Scarborough, well, tough shit for him.
ETA: IIRC, there’s nothing in the First Amendment that guarantees that one will get *paid *for exercising one’s First Amendment rights.
FWIW, I have no idea what Bricker meant by “incessant pressure from the intolerant elements of the left to toe the ideological line,” but certainly students and faculty at a college have every right as members of the college community to use their speech rights to influence the college’s speech in terms of who it chooses to pay or give honors to, as that speech represents them to some extent. They absolutely should be doing that, when it matters to them.
Now if they begrudge a speaker the right to rent the auditorium on their own dime, or set up a soapbox on the quad, and interfere with a speaker under those conditions, that would be intolerant.
