Tuesday, November 27, 2012

THIS IS THE STUFF THEY THINK ISN'T EXTREME

During the 2012 campaign, Joe Scarborough tried to play the role of the Last Reasonable Republican. He denounced Rush Limbaugh and other Republicans who set out to wage a culture war over contraception. He chided Todd Akin for his remarks about rape. He distanced himself from the things Mitt Romney said about the "47%." He tut-tutted after the election, when Romney said that the voters who chose Barack Obama did so because they liked "gifts."

So now that Grover Norquist's anti-tax pledge is coming under fire, where does Reasonable Joe Scarborough stand?

He stands with Norquist:
... Scarborough said, "Grover's power doesn't come from Grover." He's selling an idea that people have already bought into, he argued....

"The only reason why Grover has any power is because he chose an issue that guys like me believe in anyway," Scarborough said....

At the end of the segment, he answered the question that led the discussion: Is Grover over?

"Grover is over when Americans think they aren't taxed enough," Scarborough said. “That's when Grover's over."
There you have it: According to Joe Scarborough, Grover Norquist's insistence that it would be unconscionable to raise the tax rate of hedge-fund billionaires, the Walmart heirs, Paris Hilton, and Mitt Romney is popular, mainstream, and centrist. Who cares that the polls say Americans don't agree? Joe Scarborough, the Last Reasonable Man, the man who's the self-appointed arbiter of when his fellow Republicans have crossed the line, says that this plutocrat/scion protection plan doesn't cross the line. It's moderate! It's centrist!

This is why Republicans won't back away from the pledge. Some of them know that the culture-war stuff and the birtherism and the creationism are a bit too much. But they think this isn't too much. They think this is where they need to retreat to, not from, if they want to win back the public. They still don't get it.


(Scarborough on Norquist via Memeorandum.)

3 comments:

Victor said...

FSM, I'd love to see an "MSNBC And Friends" on that channel in the morning.

He un-does whatever good the hours from 6-10 pm do.

And, apparently, THIS POS is the most-watched show by the DC Whoreporatists AND PUNDITOCRACY!

Philo Vaihinger said...

Refusal of taxation on behalf of the rich (the poor, as these guys never tire of telling us, need to have "some skin in the game") is a defining trait of contemporary conservatism.

It is the essence of their stoogehood on behalf of the plutes.

They can't back away from that.

They will back away from democracy long before they do that.

Heck, they have done it!

What with their whining about the 17th A and open declarations that democracy gets to be "too much" democracy right when the people use their political clout to obstruct the free market in their own defense and redistribute income and wealth from top to bottom.

Kathy said...

Yeah, he was going on about it this morning too. He was telling the GOP to shut up about Susan Rice and Benghazi, not (or not only, anyway) because they're full of shit, but because they're taking attention away from the really important thing, which is he might have to pay 4.6% more on his income above $250,000. Cry me a river, Joe.