MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough goes through stages of being hated by those on the left and those on the right. Today it’ll be those on the right. The reason: he has (correctly) lambasted Arizona Sen. John McCain and the Republican Party for basically indulging in a grudge match against Barack Obama’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, former Republican Senator Chuck Hagel. Hagel’s nomination was blocked this week by Republicans insisting their filibuster was really not a filibuster — sort of like used cars are really pre-owned and not used cars.
The reason for the major Republican effort to stop Hagel, even if it mean illustrating (again) that the party intends to use the filibuster as an ordinary tool to thwart whatever Obama wants?
McCain, who veers between being a right winger trying to please his party’s Tea Party branch and the old (largely gone) maverick McCain who could not be counted on by either side, let the elephant out of the cage when he basically admitted that the REAL reason why Republicans are out to get Hagel is because Hagle said mean things about President George W. Bush. Scarborough seems genuinely amazed at this situation since barring some new explosive information it’s widely expected that Hagel will be confirmed. Watch:
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.