How Joe Scarborough Went From Conservative Congressman To Liberal Favorite Talk Show Host

New York Magazine:

The prenoon Scarborough bears little resemblance to his prime-time self: the blustery former congressman from Florida's "Redneck Riviera" who seemed a likely inspiration, along with O'Reilly, for Stephen Colbert's conservative-blowhard character. On Morning Joe, shouting is discouraged, the teleprompter has been largely banished, and the overarching mood, despite an almost exclusive focus on the day's political fisticuffs, is a chatty bonhomie. Scarborough has turned out to be more Katie Couric than Sean Hannity.

He seems to delight in confounding expectations. One of this morning's guests, by remote, is McCain campaign manager Rick Davis, who receives a cheerful if critical welcome, with Scarborough noting that the latest polling numbers "don't look good for your guy." When Davis attempts a rebuttal, bringing up McCain's proposed gas-tax holiday, Scarborough placidly notes that "almost every economist disagrees with that." In the same show, Scarborough--who formerly campaigned for Bush, even serving as a point man in Florida during the 2000 recount--says the McCain campaign's problem is "they're strapped to the Bush administration."

In fact, the only time Scarborough musters a defense of the current Republican nominee comes when another guest mocks McCain's alleged love of Abba.

"'Waterloo,'" he says. "Great song."

Scarborough admits that he is courting a new constituency. "Once we started Morning Joe, Phil Griffin said to me, 'You can cut out this regular-Joe crap. Our audience is from Boston to Washington, D.C.'" In fact, he seems to be right at home on the Upper West Side. "The thing I hear all the time," he says, "when people come up to me on the street, is 'I love your show,' and then there's a hesitancy, and I'll finish their sentence: 'And I'm a liberal?'" Scarborough beams, pleased with his own apostasy, before adding, "Republicans aren't as gracious."

Read the whole story: New York Magazine

Comments

[JTyroler]

08:21 AM on 07/21/2008

Uh, to me it often seems like Scarborough is an unabashed Republican cheerleader - many times there is no one providing a counter view to what Scarborough is saying. There are times when Scarborough veers from the Republican orthodoxy, but those times are few and far between - and those moments seem to be less frequent of late.

The Louisiana governor was just on for several minutes of either stating that he was going to be the Republican VP candidate or the governor parroting the McCain talking points.

[JerryTheAngel]

07:47 PM on 07/16/2008

I watched Morning Joe every morning for a couple of weeks with Mika, Buchannan, Barnacle, Ford, and others and then Joe came back from whatever family emergency he had to attend to and then I stopped watching.

[Zentomato]

07:02 PM on 07/16/2008

Ms. Rachel Maddow would be an excellent replacement for Mr Scarborough. Rachel is a Rhodes Scholar with a PhD from Oxford and is as personable as one could be and a great communicator to boot. She can hold her own with the best of any of em. Whenever Joe and Rachel debate it is always funny to see Joe get frustrated, not admit his defeat and walk off the set as he did on David Gregory's show Race to the White House, apparently this is Joe's way of debating someone who is heads and shoulders intellectually above him. Throw a hissy fit, throw down the mic and stomp offstage, that's Joe's way of dealing with intellectual superiors. You go Rachel! Wake up MSNBC.

[Zentomato]

04:57 PM on 07/16/2008

Ms. Rachel Maddow would be an excellent replacement for Mr Scarborough. Rachel is a Rhoades Scholar with a PhD from Oxford and is as personable as one could be and a great communicator to boot. She can hold her own with the best of any of em. Whenever Joe and Rachel debate it is always funny to see Joe stamp his feet, not admit his defeat and walk off the set as he did on David Gregory's Race to the White House, apparently his way of debating someone who is heads and shoulders intellectually above him. Throw a hissy fit, throw down the mic and stomp offstage, that's Joe's way of dealing with intellectual superiors. You go Rachel! Wake up MSNBC.

[apoyo]

03:57 PM on 07/16/2008

Not!

[Nonamnesiac]

11:45 AM on 07/16/2008

Today Scarborough attacked Daily Show comics for failing to develop a racist or near racist line of humor to direct at Obama. After screaming down the always compliant "l'il sister" Mika regarding the New Yorker cover -- a cover that demonstrated how badly the media has been handling Obama in that it satirically portrayed the nature of the attacks on the Obamas -- all of which have been in the media -- Dixiecrat Scarborough ranted on and on that no one wants to use comedy on Obama, ignoring the SNL skits and Daily Show skits that already have poked satire at Obama.

Dixiecrat Scarborough wants the envelope to be pushed as far as possible in a racist direction so that he can say racist things but be well within the racist coverage of the MSM. He's a Dixiecrat pure and simple who simply doesn't use racist epithets. He walks in the footsteps of vermin like Nathan Bedford Forrest, Strom Thurmond, Trent Lott, John Stennis and Jesse Helms just to name a few.

[Zentomato]

10:47 AM on 07/16/2008

Scarborough is not a liberal favorite. The author of this article has it wrong. Perchance, I was flipping through the cable news channels this morning and there was Joe interrupting and talking over Mika, not allowing her to make her point in the discussion. It was disappointing to see him bully his fellow host like this. MSNBC would do better without him.

[marymansour]

09:31 AM on 07/16/2008

Joe Scarorough and Mika (can't spell that name and don't even want to) ruin the premise of what could be a very good show. Morning Joe would fare better with Willie Geist and Mike Barnacle and regular guest hosts assisting. Mika and Joe ruin the thing with their silly twittering.

[Exit]

01:01 AM on 07/16/2008

I guess you could say he is better than those clowns on FOX News but that is about it.

[Probus]

12:44 AM on 07/16/2008

Scarborough is a republican and always will be one. Any effort to portray him as a liberal is both inaccurate and ridiculous. He's a McCain guy. Right now everyone is criticizing this president including Joe, that doesn't necessarily make Scarborough either a democrat or a liberal.

[Lemeritus]

07:25 PM on 07/15/2008

Joe Scarborough, Scarborough Country, 5-12-06:

"....whatever you consider yourself, friends, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. With over 200 million Americans targeted, this domestic spying program is so widespread, it is so random, it is so far removed from focusing on al Qaeda suspects that the president was talking about today, that it‘s hard to imagine any intelligence program in U.S. history being so susceptible to abuse.

"Hey, memo to the president and congressional leaders who signed up on this lousy program; We don‘t trust you anymore. We don‘t trust you with our phone bills. We don‘t trust you with our bank records. We don‘t trust you with our medical histories. From now on, if you want to look at Americans‘ private records, get a damn search warrant!"

'Nuff said.

[CindyM2008]

10:56 AM on 07/15/2008

Seriously, I'm trying to find the satire here. JOE is a liberal favorite??? No way.

[Kim445588]

06:57 PM on 07/15/2008

I think they just wanted us to click on this article.

[fignozzle]

10:10 AM on 07/15/2008

he is not MY favorite!

[Simone]

07:59 AM on 07/15/2008

Liberal favorite? Only in the mind of New York Magazine.

[PackyJ]

01:28 AM on 07/15/2008

Who in God's name has decided Joe Scarborough is a "Liberal Favorite?"
I'm a liberal, and cannot stand him, nor his show.
My doctor has assured me that if I watch it, my head will explode.