While rehashing Bill O'Reilly's Super Bowl interview with President Obama, Joe Scarborough and his buddy Mark Halperin decided go into full-blown PUMA mode with the "Obama was never vetted during the primaries and everyone was picking on poor Hillary" game on Morning Joe this Monday.
Scarborough seems to have forgotten about those twenty some debates that they had during the Democratic primary race. They also both apparently forgot that the interview with O'Reilly before the Super Bowl this weekend was not the first one Obama had given him. He previously sat down for an even more hostile interview with Bill-O in September of 2008 when he was candidate Obama.
HALPERIN: One of the things the president said in that interview was by the time you get to be president you’ve had tough coverage and he’s used to it. Well the fact is unlike most people who get elected president, he didn’t have tough coverage and so this is on the job training for him and he’s handling it pretty well.
SCARCBOROUGH: Are you saying Obama didn’t get tough coverage?
HALPERIN: Not as a Senator or a presidential candidate.
SCARCBOROUGH: Oh, well, I mean you, if you call, I mean reporters coming up to him and feeding him grapes before asking him some questions, like A-Rod…
BREZEZINSKI: You know that is revisionist thinking.
SCARBOROUGH: That's not revisionist thinking! He was given a free pass!
BREZEZINSKI: There was a lot of really great coverage.
SCARBOROUGH: Ah, come on.
BREZEZINSKI: There were all sorts of really tough moments where he had to actually do a speech on his race.
SCARBOROUGH: Mika there were no tough moments for him.
BREZEZINSKI: Okay?
SCARBOROUGH: So?
BREZEZINSKI: And there were people who laughed at the concept of him being president, like pfft, what a joke.
SCARBOROUGH: Mika, he was given biggest free ride in the history of American politics. He was. Hillary Clinton was savaged. She was treated so unfairly by almost all quarters and Obama could do no wrong.
BREZEZINSKI: Right.
SCARBOROUGH: That is just reality. They walked into that White House thinking that they were going to be treated like the savior, like the second coming, had to happen. And that's why it's taken them two years to realize what actually we've been saying all along, they're human and they're going to have to play by the rules of Washington. And if they don't, they're going to lose. And they finally figured that out two years later. Come on.
Scarborough goes on to cite articles about Cindy McCain's drug addiction or McCain's rumored affair with a lobbyist as examples of how John McCain supposedly received unfair treatment during the presidential race as well. Conveniently Scarborough forgot to mention the ridiculous stories like this one about Obama that had absolutely no basis in fact that were out there during the campaign -- Ex-Con Who Claimed He "Took Drugs And Had Homo Sex With Obama" Running For Office.
Former Gov. Ed Rendell then mentions the big elephant in the room in regard to Obama -- the media's coverage of Rev. Wright. Scarborough pretends that Obama never addressed that either and Brezezinski reminds him that he did address it when he gave his speech on race back in March of 2008.
As Brezezinski alluded to, we all know Hannity went after Obama with night after night for his ties to Rev. Wright as our friends at Media Matters have documented. No negative coverage huh Joe? Feeding him grapes... spare me your hyperbole. I thought this game already died a slow death in the media when the primaries ended and they finally quit repeating John McCain and Sarah Palin's talking points for them, but apparently not. Scarborough and Halperin just can't seem to quit repeating them.
