Joe Scarborough Takes On Newt Gingrich Mosque Comments: 'It's Deplorable, It Is Sick Politics' (VIDEO)

"Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough has devoted much of his program's airtime so far this week to criticizing Newt Gingrich over the former House Speaker's recent comments regarding the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero.

On Saturday Gingrich called the proposed center a symbol of Muslim "triumphalism" and compared the construction of such a building to "putting a Nazi sign next to the Holocaust Museum." He repeated the Nazi analogy in an interview Monday morning on Fox News and referred to the project's organizers as "radical Islamists," a characterization that is demonstrably false.

The "Morning Joe" crew didn't take too kindly to Gingrich's words, and let him know in no uncertain terms. "This is madness," remarked Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida. "There are elements of our party that are marching through the fevered swamps of ideology."

We've put together a highlight reel of Scarborough, along with frequent "Morning Joe" guests Mike Barnicle, Richard Haass, and Pat Buchanan (yes, even Pat Buchanan), sounding off against Gingrich over the course of the past three mornings.

WATCH:

Video produced by Ben Craw

Comments

[PinkFloydsDr]

09:21 PM on 09/10/2010

The radical right wants a holocaust reference? I got one......
First they came for the Communists,
and i didnt speak up because i wasnt a Communist

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and i didnt speak because i wasnt a trade unionist

Then they came for the Jews,
and i didnt speak because i wasnt a Jew

Then they came for me,
and by that time no one was left to speak up.


Well im gonna speak up for the Muslim Americans and their rights to lawfully buy property and worship freely. And i am not a muslim

[pkpoudyal]

05:45 AM on 08/28/2010

a) United State President address on behalf Islam religion when it was raised issue to build masque near land mark ground zero saying “Religion should not be tolerate in America, everyone has right to practice their religion what they belief and where they believe and Muslim also has right to build their masque on their private property like anyone else. It’s their constitutional right of freedom of religion” but majority of American people opposed for the cause of future safety on that place because it was historical and it our responsibility to prevent. However U.S. Government not supposes to give them positive aspect to build masque on around that area when it was national issue. I believe their prospective was to cover their dark side presenting from the religious superiority building masque. If we analyze deeply who they promoting and funding it seems most likely they may also associates with twin tower attackers we ever know.

[Manwhatthe]

08:08 PM on 08/24/2010

Joe Scarborough is coming around. He's an alright guy.

[pkpoudyal]

11:11 AM on 08/24/2010

a) Religion should not be tolerate in America, everyone has right to practice their religion what they belief and where they believe. It also allow them to build their masque or temple on their private property, it’s a constitutional right of everyone else but Land mark ground Zero is the place attacked by ever forgotten Muslim terrorist since then that place became a subject of issue where many people still have bad impression on Islam religion but Government not suppose to show them positive prospective to build masque on around that area in the matter of future safety. I believe they trying to cover their dark side performing their superiority on that area but who they funding and promoting them to build this masque it may possible they also be associates with the twin tower attackers we ever know.

[Olderandwiser55]

01:46 PM on 08/23/2010

Joe is in good company-Ron Paul (no, not his crazy son rand) has some good commentary
too.

“The debate should have provided the conservative defenders of property rights with a perfect example of how the right to own property also protects the 1st Amendment rights of assembly and religion by supporting the building of the mosque.

“Instead, we hear lip service given to the property rights position while demanding that the need to be “sensitive” requires an all-out assault on the building of a mosque, several blocks from “ground zero.”

http://www.dailypaul.com/node/142804

Simple stuff-the Constitution, private property rights..... and don't they always accuse Dems of making decisions based solely on emotion? yet, here they are.

Often don't agree with either but at least they have real conservative positions. So there is
some agreement.

[OldKnute]

12:51 PM on 08/23/2010

I think Joe is right…. THIS TIME.

When the Republican wake up and see what the Tea-baggers have done to the GOP brand, they are going to regret ever hearing the name,,,, Fox News.

Link!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDA9NbPAK8o

All the best
Knute
TR Knudtson

[lindy49]

11:13 AM on 08/23/2010

One of these days the good (and sane) folks on the right will stand up a bit more often to the stupidity and hatred like Joe or Frank Rich in his article this weekend.
As an independent I don't agree with everything that Scarborough OR Rich stand for, but I will applaud them for being one of the few to stand up and call the fear and hatred it for what it is.
Everyone else is too worried about what poor Limbaugh or Hannity will say. Most of the Republican leaders can use and take some integrity lessons from these two fellows on the right.

[GeoNorth]

04:52 PM on 08/22/2010

I find it hard to believe that anyone, including Scarborough, could consider Joe a Rep He doesn't walk in goose step with the rest of the party.

[Slash14]

01:40 AM on 08/23/2010

He just plays a Repub on TV. He is a big liberal. As long as the paycheck keeps coming in.

[Slash14]

03:34 AM on 08/23/2010

Like Olby, Maddow and Special Ed do with the Dems

[Annintexas]

08:01 AM on 08/22/2010

The show was funny, actually. While blasting Gingrich for comparing the building of the Muslim center near Ground Zero to a monument to Japan at Pearl Harbor or any positive notice of Nazism, Joe then turned around and completely exaggerated Gingrich's remarks. By the end of the week, he was repeatedly saying that Gingrich was calling all Muslims Nazis.

It was a true lesson that beating the proverbial horse can backfire on TV.

[GeoNorth]

04:50 PM on 08/22/2010

He was calling all Muslims Nazis? Didn't you listen to inferences?

[Slash14]

01:42 AM on 08/23/2010

No he did not. It is just a liberal exageration.

[BocaMom]

08:51 AM on 08/21/2010

Thank goodness that Joe has finally become a Blue Dog Democrat! Joe for Democratic Senator of Florida!

[middleoftheroad]

05:36 PM on 08/21/2010

he is a blue dog. he also has gotten totally into the upper west side and MSNBC...as has Michael Smerconish...they know where their bread is buttered.

[JaCar]

09:31 PM on 08/22/2010

When will the "right" wake up and realize they're being manipulated by communist China's greatest propaganda tool, Fox? The GOP through Fox is bent on destroying America and moving all jobs to China.

Let me connect the dots for you: Rupert Murdoch owns News Corp and Fox News. His young wife is from communist China. Rupert is a doddering old man of weakened intellect, who has allowed his wife, ingrained and trained by China's communist government, to dictate the direction of Fox. Why else would Fox be such fans of big business' continued push to relocate jobs to China? Why else would Fox promote the start of a war based on a lie, which the Chinese government has lent the U.S. billions of dollars to fund? Why else would Fox promote the Bush tax cuts during war time, if not to insure our continued reliance on loans from communist China? Why did Fox dedicate only 10 minutes of News Coverage to the end of major combat operations in Iraq and the return of our troops? Because this is not what Fox and Beijing want to happen! They want to keep us at war and poor! The right and Fox insist on weakening our federal government and infrastructure, making OUR government the enemy?! A weak federal government is EXACTLY what Beijing wants for the U.S. in order to dominate the 21st century.

Beck, Ducey, Hannity and the rest of the shills on Fox are communist China's tools for America's ruination!”

[SayNOtoGOP]

10:39 AM on 08/22/2010

Yukkk!!!

[newhouse1]

12:52 AM on 08/21/2010

When Scarborough, Pat Buchannan and Ann Coulter are being given the proverbial social finger for their tepid, and I do mean tepid, steps in the direction of moderation, it's time to turn out the lights on the Republican Party. It was bad enough when his holiness Ronald Reagan was afflicted with Alzheimer's and his wife and widow urged at least giving stem cell research the benefit of a cursory scientific analysis, only to be marginalized by Republican opportunist. They were having none of that. Of course, the same science mindset is what allows for anesthesia, and I would bet the souls of my children that none of them would submit to surgery with olny a shot of whiskey and biting down on a towel.

The banal hypocrisy of the pay-to-pray crowd is at once breathtaking and stupifying. And what of the character of our nation, despite the freedoms we enjoy, that there are so many who join the Fray of the Sanity Challenged Crowd in such numbers, and with such robotic obedience.

Newt did not embark down a new path to electoral success. Moreover, the road he's on is indeed well worn and littered, its images on display in black-and-white footage of Selma in 1961, and Japanese internment camps in 1943, and invasions and waterboarding in 2003. Some of "us" have lost our way. And the rest of us are either too busy downloading emails and text to notice. We really can't go on like this.

[GeoNorth]

04:54 PM on 08/22/2010

Funny you should mention Ronnie the Great. While the GOBP points to Reagan as their standard, a quick look show that the defict tripled under RR and taxes were raised twice.

Do as I say, not as I do.

[pkpoudyal]

11:27 PM on 08/20/2010

Religion should not tolerate in America, everyone has right to practice their religion what they belief and where they believe but Land mark ground Zero is attacked by ever forgotten Islamic terrorists even many terrorist activities only happening from Islamic people that was the main cause people still have negative impression on Muslim religion that does not mean Islam religion is the religion of terror but government shouldn’t take future risk allowing them to build masque on around that area. I believe they are trying to cover their superiority but if we analyze politically and psychologically who they showing this interest with funding build masque that nation should involved in twin tower attacked.

[SayNOtoGOP]

10:49 AM on 08/22/2010

Your view conflicts with the US Constitution with respect to First Amendment Rights. The President is swore to uphold the Constitution. This whole issue should already have concluded. The so-called Ground Zero Mosque must be allowed under US Law.

Investifations about the funding of the "mosque", which is really a 13-story community center, will undoubtedly be investigated thoroughly by the Department of Homeland Security. That is also lawful.

We have to follow the law and not ban the plan because of some presumed notion about the planners.

[lindy49]

11:23 AM on 08/23/2010

I fanned you
I hate seeing people on here posting defense of the constitution yet themselves referring over and over again to it as the mosque. There are some very, very thick heads out there so that point should be made every time if even as a preface, before any further arguments are made. Perhaps something like:
"It's not a mosque, but if it were...."
Read Frank Rich's article from this weekend. Finally another staunch conservative writer who had the courage to speak out against his bigoted party.

[Factonfact]

06:58 PM on 08/20/2010

So why every day does the Republican Party seem to be shooting itself in the foot?

Well, because they are not shooting themselves in the foot at all.

Sure, they're making some folks angry.

But the GOP is not aiming at just "some folks" in the midterms.

They're playing now to their big, venomous racist white base.

It's the GOP's grand strategy to get out ALL their racist Southern Strategy core that voted throughout the country against Barack Obama in 2008.

And believe it, these folks WILL turn out again.

And, by the same token, the GOP is banking on Democrats NOT being able to get out a significant part of their Obama voters in the midterms.

And that means Republicans win -- not all the seats up for grabs by any means, but enough to move the count in the House and to further solidify their 60-vote filibuster ace in the hole in the Senate.

And, as I see it, while the GOP is NOT shooting itself in the foot, Democrats surely are especially with the constant haranging of the President by, sorry to say, progressive "friends" in the media and on the Net.

(The "progressive" lineup on MSNBC, for example, seems unaware that there is a crucial election coming up).

President Obama has accomplished more in the first 18 months of his first term than most Presidents accomplished in their full first full term but do we lay it out? No: instead we trample upon our own flag.

[SayNOtoGOP]

11:02 AM on 08/22/2010

Work for progress. Get involved right now. You can make a difference right now. You will meet nice people and have a positve effect on the body politic at a Orgainizng For America event.

http://www.barackobama.com/

[GeoNorth]

04:55 PM on 08/22/2010

The GOBP likes to "shoot from the hip". Unfortunately, it usually comes out their butts.

[MarsAmbassador]

06:51 PM on 08/20/2010

Way to speak up, Joe! NO other Republicans are speaking out against the hate and intolerance in the party that has sparked up the past 2-3 years. Mitt Romney and the so-called political moderates need to speak up and voice their opposition to the far right mongering that is taking place right under their noses.

[Factonfact]

07:03 PM on 08/20/2010

So what?

A crucial part of the Republican Party base are hateful and intolerant.

If it were not for the Republican Party Southern Strategy hateful and intolerant racist white base, it would be a permanent MINORITY Party.

Think about it.

[GeoNorth]

04:57 PM on 08/22/2010

I did. And it is truly sad.

[GWash2010]

05:58 PM on 08/20/2010

Indisputable fact - The radical extreme Muslims are a minority but nevertheless they would treat this mosque as Muslim "triumphalism" on 9-11 over the "evil infidel" West and revel in it.

Newt is right on!

[Scribe57]

08:16 PM on 08/20/2010

So we should let radical muslims dictate our actions based on their reactions?

[newhouse1]

12:59 AM on 08/21/2010

No, actually Newt is not right on. He's not in the same area code as right on.