Because — and this is a direct quote — “the optics of it are terrible; old white guys taking on a young African-American woman,” every single panelist on “Morning Joe” — Joe, Mika, Heilemann, Geist, Halperin, and some insufferable woman from the BBC — are all in agreement that Republicans opposing Susan Rice for Secretary of State plays, as Scarborough put it, “right into David Axelrod and David Plouffe’s hands.”
Scarborough doesn’t believe that Rice did anything in any way disqualifying after she appeared on all five Sunday talk shows a full five days after the September 11 anniversary attacks to spread what the whole world knew was blatant misinformation. “She was just doing her job,” is apparently the defense du jour.
This is important because “Morning Joe” is a good indicator of what the media as a whole is thinking; and what they’re thinking with respect to any kind of filibuster against Susan Rice’s conformation as Secretary of State is a resurrection of the 2012 campaign: Republicans are going to be destroyed as racist, sexist, sore losers.
Democrats defending Susan Rice makes sense, but we’re talking about the media here and a guy who claims to be a Republican. And the overall message is that they don’t care about the cover up. And they really don’t care that Rice was the tip of the spear of the cover up — the voice of the Administration that said in no uncertain terms that until the election’s over, we’re not going to have a discussion about a successful terror attack on Obama’s watch.
We knew then we were being lied to at the time, but after the testimony of David Petraeus last week, it’s not even arguable anymore. But the media has obviously decided that’s okay.
One of Scarborough’s defenses was, “This is what White House’s do.” He also said that no one called for Colin Powell to step down as Secretary of State after he gave incorrect testimony about WMDs during his tenure — which is a false equivalence.
Our intelligence community and their counterparts throughout the world believed Iraq had WMDs.
When Susan Rice did her talk show round robin with altered talking points, our intelligence infrastructure already known for three entire days that Libya had been a terror attack. For the sake of national security, Powell said what he and everyone else believed to be true. Rice said what she and everyone knew to be a lie, for the sake of Obama’s reelection.
But it’s over. I’m telling you right now that any hope we had that this White House would pay in any way for a two week cover up is over.
The media is not only sending a signal that they will not litigate the issue, they are also sending a signal that they will punish any Republican who does.
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