Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. That’s a truism. But it’s also true that desperation corrupts.
Let’s consider three cases in point: Nancy Grace of CNN Headline News, Tucker Carlson of MSNBC, and Joe Scarborough, also of MSNBC.
First, on Fox “News Watch” last night, Neal Gabler—a self-declared liberal who routinely savages on-air cable news personalities, including FNC’s Bill O’Reilly
and Sean Hannity, found occasion to take note that the “bottomest bottom feeder” of them all was Nancy Grace. Neal was referring, of course, to the case of Melinda Duckett who was hounded into her premature grave by Ms. Grace, all for the sake of sensationalism and ratings. OK, maybe that’s an overstatement: maybe “hounded” is too strong. Maybe I should simply say “pushed.” As Jim Pinkerton said on the same show, “As they said when were kids, ‘It’s all fun and games—until somebody gets hurt.” Well, somebody got hurt; Melinda Duckett is dead. And yet as Neal said on the show, it says everything about CNN Headline News, as well as Grace, that the Duckett segment ran anyway, even after the distraught young woman had taken her own life.
Second, as for Tucker Carlson, he made a fool of himself on “Dancing With the Stars.” Of course he made a fool of himself. He is a fool. His entire career is a tribute to the naïvite of liberals—at CNN, PBS, and now MSNBC—who think that Carlson represents conservatism. In fact, he represents smugness and opportunism, and nothing more. Eventually his liberal bosses will figure that out, and then Carlson will have to go back to living on his trust fund income.
Third, Joe Scarborough proved that he, too, is an opportunist and a phony. Blogger Howard Mortman caught this item
in which Scarborough attempted to turn the 1986 terror bombing of a Berlin discotheque into a joke at George W. Bush’s expense. Yeah, it’s a strange joke to make: a 20-year-old tragedy, into contemporary political humor. As noted, desperation makes people do desperate—and pathetic—things.
