Will Joe Scarborough be sent to NBC's environmentalist re-education camp and subjected to an endless loop of "An Inconvenient Truth"? The "Morning Joe" host gave a number of hints today that he is less-than-thrilled by the doctrinaire environmentalism the network is imposing on viewers and employees alike during its "Green Week."
Scarborough's show-opening line was a not-overly-subtle dig at the seemingly endless greenery.
View video here.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Welcome to "Morning Joe." I feel, I just feel better.
Panelist Mika Brzezinski was clearly sensing Joe's lack of total commitment to the cause.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: You do?
SCARBOROUGH: I feel better; yes I do.
BRZEZINSKI: Are you sure?
SCARBOROUGH: This is "Green Week." Is it green week, or month or year or what?
WILLIE GEIST: Green week: "Greeen is Universal", Joe.
SCARBOROUGH [with mock enthusiasm]: Green week. It is universal. I feel great! I'm waiting for the world to change. We've got [unintelligible] going. This is fan-tas-tic!
GEIST: Changing before our eyes, Joe.
At which point Joe dissolved into the laughter depicted in the screencap.
A bit later, Weather Wonder Woman Jackie Meretsky appeared. Among other "Green Week" duties yesterday, Jackie was at NBC's "Top of the Rock" overlooking Central Park, where she interviewed the newest NBC environmental reporter . . . who openly urged people to vote for environmentalist candidates.
Meretsky is gamely buying into the green theme, and went so far as to read Joe his "green" horoscope and pass along a green cleaning tip.
JACKIE MERETSKY: Joe, I went on the "Green is Universal" website this morning --
SCARBOROUGH: Of course you did.
MERETSKY: Of course I did. And there's a section called "Good Green Fun," and they have green horoscopes, and I read yours; you're an Aries.
SCARBOROUGH: I am an Aries: what did it say?
This seemed to pique Mika's interest, who chimed in with a protracted "o-o-o-o-h!"
MERETSKY: There's a tip for you to preserve your shiny wool sweaters, and what you're supposed to do is sponge the fabric with distilled white vinegar then brush with a lint roller. Something for you to do today.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, actually what I do? I have, and this is interesting Jackie, I've got actually dry-cleaning formula, and I just pour it down the sink when I'm done with it. I try to do all of these things at home.
MERETSKY: OK, that's not so green.
SCARBOROUGH: Is that green?
MERETSKY: Not so green.
Now if we tune in tomorrow, and without explanation "Morning Joe" has become "Morning Mika" and Joe's image has been airbrushed from the archive . . .
UPDATE | 11:30 AM: Scarborough continued to pepper the rest of "Morning Joe" with snarky comments about "Green Week." Let's hope he's still a free man by show time tomorrow.
BONUS COVERAGE: It was definitely a morning for Joe to be swimming against the PC-MSM tide. A bit later, Joe gave very respectful treatment to a book and its author defending that bogeyman of the left, the late Sen. Joe McCarthy. Here's how Scarborough introduced his interview of H. Stanton Evans, author of "Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy."
SCARBOROUGH: There has been cemented in public opinion over the past 50, 60 years that Joe McCarthy was this crazed villian who made things up and destroyed lives. Who was reckless and told lies about the Communist threat back in the '40s and '50s. But that's not the case, actually. But still, at the end of the century, when "Time" magazine was having its heroes and villians, I thought it interesting that one Joe made the list as the top villian, one of the top villians, Joe McCarthy, but another Joe didn't make the list, Joe Stalin, who killed 40, 50 million of his own people. And this was despite the fact that this was five years after secret cables came out, after the Cold War ended, which clearly showed that maybe McCarthy was crazy, maybe he was cruel, maybe he was a tyrant, but at the same time, he got it right. There were a lot of Communists working in Hollywood, a lot of Communists working in the State Department, a lot of Communists in the higher reaches of government.
