There was something very important that I did not see on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” this morning.
The very first bump-in on the show was a montage of Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.):
COBURN: What the American people ought to pray, is that somebody can’t make the vote tonight. That’s what they ought to pray.
[...]
DURBIN: I don’t think it’s appropriate to be invoking prayer to wish misfortune on a colleague. And I want him to clarify that. I’ve invited him, I’ve tried to reach out to him. He is my friend, and I have worked with him, but this statement goes too far. The simple reality is this: We are becoming more coarse and more divided here [...].
This, of course, is political gamesmanship. But it goes further than that. In the entirety of Morning Joe, I did not note a single mention of the following statement from Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) -- hat tip to Kerry Picket for catching this:
They [the GOP] are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militia and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one."
So in the middle of an epic snowstorm in Washington D.C., it is inappropriate for the American people to hope that a single senator is unable to back his car out of the driveway? It is inappropriate to hope that a senator is physically hindered from casting the decisive vote on a bill that the American people, by each and every measure, are vehemently against passing. Oh, and if you’ve been reading the Daily Kos or RedState.com, the conservative grassroots have recently made allies with Sen. Whitehouse’s most ardent of progressive supporters.
One wonders when Markos Moulitsas will announce his membership in an Aryan support group or right-wing militia.
And yet, we find that the “Morning Joe” production team thinks that is more worthy of air time than a United States Senator saying that roughly 40 percent of the population of the United States belongs to “Aryan support groups.”
So here’s a note to Morning Joe: If you’re going to play along with the political gamesmanship of one side, at least point out the rank hypocrisy of the statement.
