A day after Joe Scarborough dialed up the phony outrage in a Politico opinion piece, claiming that Palin was insulting and tearing down “Republican giants” like Reagan and both Bushes to “build her weak résumé,” Morning Joe brought on Nicole Wallace for a similar discussion. The point of Scarborough’s Politico article and his MSNBC show over the last two days (arguably the last two years) was to call on Republican and conservative leaders to “man up,” as his title says, and criticize Palin, as if that hasn’t been going on since the 2008 election.
Joe Scarborough, like Peggy Noonan, needed to gin up such a ridiculous pretext like defending the honor of Ronald Reagan from the contempt of Sarah Palin – who idolizes Reagan – in order to attack her with language akin to Noonan’s “nincompoop.” Why can’t Scarborough just “man up” and let it fly without manufacturing an excuse if he’s calling on others to do so?
Nicole Wallace had some interesting things to say, notably blowing a hole through Scarborough’s claim from the day before that “all of your talk radio hosts that will defend Sarah Palin” on the air, “off-set quietly say” the same nasty things that Scarborough does about Palin. The next day Wallace explained why conservative leaders won’t take her on: because of…all the radio hosts who love her, “the likes of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.” That wasn’t the first time Scarborough was shot down after claiming everyone else secretly agrees with him.
Wallace continued to add a few of adjectives describing Palin’s character, such as “cynical” and “prickly” to go along with Palin’s “incredible cynicism, her bitterness, [and] her aggressive attempts to claw anyone who points out an area to work on.” Considering one of the main reasons Palin gets accused of being an airhead is that nobody has ever seen her not smiling, I’m not sure how many people Wallace is convincing of Palin’s incredible cynicism and bitterness. And if Wallace was describing a grizzly bear “claw,” Palin supporters might agree with her, but I’m pretty sure she was suggesting “cattiness.”
What interested me most were some of Wallace’s parting words:
I really believe that if looked like she were about to become the nominee, or heaven forbid the leader of the free world, a whole lot of people would stand up and say a whole lot of things.
Wallace didn’t have to specify that these “people” to whom she’s referring are conservative and Republican leaders because that’s what the entire conversation was about, but did Wallace really just say that even after winning the nomination, the Republican establishment would be speaking out to keep Palin from becoming “the leader of the free world” in favor of President Obama? I find that interesting because the willingness of Bush loyalists to split the baby has become increasingly suspicious.
I doubt that kind of an attitude will give Wallace much credibility with the conservative electorate.
Hat tip: Mark Finkelstein