The Cable Gamer missed it live this morning, but thanks to the always alert Real Clear Politics, TCG got a belated chance to see Joe Scarborough take a swipe at Keith Olbermann, albeit not by name.
The set-up here is a little complicated, so please bear with me. It seems that Cong. Robert Wexler (D-FL) attacked Pat Buchanan, the columnist-turned-MSNBC analyst, for being a "Nazi sympathizer." OK, that's kinda strange; there aren't too many Nazi sympathizers in the US, and certainly not Buchanan, who served in three different presidential administrations. But then the Obama campaign got in the middle of this spat, echoing Wechsler's charge.
That led Scarborough to go on "Morning Joe" this morning, to defend Buchanan. Scarborough sort of gave Wechsler a pass, dismissing him as a "hothead," who would apologize soon enough. (TCG isn't so sure about that.) But then Scarborough went on to really rip into the Obama campaign spokesman, one Mark Bubriski. And here's what Joe said, aiming his comments directly at Bubriski--and also, unmistakably, at Olby:
Get a life...Stop being a little kid. If you want to write for Daily Kos, go write for Daily Kos, if you wanna put America in the gutter, then keep it up.
OK, so Scarborough is sticking up for Buchanan. Fine. But when he suggests that writing for Daily Kos is like being "a little kid," that's sure a slam at Daily Kos, as well as Bubriski. And who do we know who writes for Daily Kos as well as does TV for MSNBC? Why, the same Keith Olbermann, that's who!
But wait, there's more! Much more!! Scarborough goes on to say, "If you want to write for Daily Kos, go write for Daily Kos, if you wanna put America in the gutter, then keep it up." Now doesn't that seem to imply that writing for Daily Kos is the same thing as "putting America in the gutter"? That sure is the way it looks to me.
So what gives? TCG sees two possibilities:
First, Scarborough got a pep talk from some higher-up, such as Phil Griffin, urging him to stand up for himself more forcefully on the air, as part of a general corporate pushback against Olbermann's excesses.
Second, Scarborough has lost the internal fight against Olbermann's excesses, and is now in his I-don't-give-a-shit phase, as he is being pushed out the door.
Only time will tell which is true.
And then check this out: When
