Howard Kurtz seems like a fair-minded fellow, as evidenced by his columns in The Washington Post and his show on CNN, but like most reporters, he is a slave to his sources. That is, if the source gives the reporter good access, then the source gets good coverage from the reporter.
A case in point is Kurt'z profile of MSNBC's new morning host, Joe Scarborough, the former Republican Congressman from Floridwho will be replacing Don Imus. Kurtz goes through the usual rigamarole of profiling Scarborough, and it's mostly friendly stuff, of course. But happily, Kurtz is a good enough reporter that he includes a few facts that Scarborough won't like, such as the blunt reality that Joltin' Joe's ratings are down 42 percent from Imus's. That's a pretty big tumble, even by MSNBC's cellar-dwelling standards.
So how did Scarborough get the gig? For Cable Gamers, it's possible to read between the lines and see just how Scarborough got his job: So let's do it! Kurtz details that "caught [MSNBC exec Phil]Griffin's eye after a series of appearances on 'Hardball,' including one in which he predicted that Trent Lott was toast as Senate Republican leader after having praised Strom Thurmond's segregationist 1948 candidacy for president." In other words, a Republican goes on TV and predicts the doom of another Republican, thereby making such doom all the more likely to happen. Of course the MSM will love that! Such backstabbling might not be rewarded by high ratings from viewers, but it sure will be rewarded by MSMers, who are always eager to see Republicans carving each other up, for the ideological and political benefit of liberal Democrats--like most MSMers.
In other words, Scarborough was content to be a "useful idiot" for the MSM. And that's what he's doing now, as Kurtz further details, Scarborough's "growth," now that he is free of the Republican Party. Specfically, Scarborough now blasts George W. Bush and the Iraq war:
He has turned against both, and MSNBC now runs commercials touting him as an independent voice.
"The Republican Party has been corrupted by power," Scarborough says. "George Bush and the Republican Party have done more to hurt the conservative cause in the last seven years than Ted Kennedy ever could."
OK, Kurt always gives Cable Gamers plenty to chew on. But maybe the Postie doesn't give us all the meat that he could. Let's next consider this passage from Kurtz's piece:
In spring 2001, Scarborough faced a personal crisis. He had gotten divorced two years earlier, and the older of his two teenage sons was having problems. Scarborough says a counselor told him that "Joey needs you in his life as much as possible." The congressman resigned, moved back to Pensacola and had Joey move in with him.
OK, we should, of course, praise anyone who makes a career sacrifice for the sake of family--although, of course, it wasn't long before Scarborough moved north again, this time to New York. Let's hope that son Joey got his life straightened out during the relatively brief period that Scarborough was practicing family values.
But there're other factors, too, that might have weighed Scarborough down--and that Kurtz might've mentioned. Why is it, for example, that the less-chummy-with-sources Radar magazine gets the good stuff on Scarborough's misogynistic and inapproprate comments on the air, all of which seems to have eluded the chummy-minded Kurtz?
And speaking of misogynistic, is there anything worse that can be do a woman than killing her? Ever since I first read about the death of Lori Klausutis in Vanity Fair years ago, I have wondered about that case. Here's a good online summary of what happened, and the state of the investigation. Maybe the authorities' curiosity about the death of this poor woman will be piqued if they see Scarborough on TV every morning.
Oops, I almost forgot: Scaraborough is on MSNBC, so he's probably safe from being observed on the air. But still I wonder: When the Mysterious Death of Lori Klausutis be seriously investigated, let alone solved?
