Why Did Joe Scarborough Ignore the Libyan Scandal Today?

I’m confused.

Am I missing something?

Joe Scarborough is not only a Republican, he’s a Republican with an entire cable news morning show named after him; a show I’m repeatedly told influences the mainstream media.

And yet, even as the Libya scandal breaks wide open across New Media, even as we discover more and more incontrovertible evidence proving the Obama Administration engaged in an unconscionable cover up that included trotting a UN Ambassador out on all the Sunday shows to tell a fairy tale our government knew wasn’t true — on Scarborough’s own show Friday morning, you would never know this happened. You would never know that the President, the Secretary of State, and the White House Spokesman spent day after day after day lying to the American people.  

Politics aside, why would Scarborough not use his own show to highlight a legitimate scandal? (On Twitter Scarborough is defending himself by calling this Libya coverage — yeah, that’s all he’s got.) But as a Republican who says he wants Romney to win, why wouldn’t Scarborough use his own show to highlight a legitimate scandal surrounding Obama that the media’s covering up?

Let me assure you, it has nothing to do with time constraints. Over the past weeks, “Morning Joe” has become painfully repetitive in its relentless attacks against Mitt Romney and his campaign. Libya aside, any change of subject would be welcome from that unceasing drumbeat of superior, cheap-seat elitism that just happens to perfectly comport with the media’s anti-Romney narrative. 

Here’s what I wrote Friday morning after “Morning Joe” closed out another week of going above and beyond to damage the Romney campaign:

There’s absolutely no excuse for a so-called Republican who has his own news show to completely ignore the unfurling scandal surrounding the lies told by the White House about the attack on our Libyan consulate. Yesterday, top Senate Democrats demanded answers from the Obama Administration and it’s now been confirmed that days before sending UN Ambassador Susan Rice out to tell a completely different story, our government knew Libya was the work of terrorists.

And yet, all Scarborough has talked about this morning is what an incompetent campaign Romney is running — which, of course, feeds the overall media narrative that Romney is too incompetent to be president.

Simply as someone with a news show, how is the Libya scandal not news?

For weeks now, all Scarborough has done with his own show is beat Romney senseless and feed the media’s anti-Romney narrative. He’s embraced every opportunity to do that while ignoring things like Libya.

The only mentions of Libya on Scarborough’s Friday show were more of Scarborough’s unceasing, not-constructive, and mostly undermining complaints that Romney wasn’t making Libya a front page story. No one’s arguing that the Romney campaign has been perfect. But Scarborough’s being wholly disingenuous with this complaint. It’s just a fact that Romney and his surrogates have been hitting Obama on his Administration’s dishonesty and did so all week.

But knowing that fact, I still have to listen to a Republican with his own news show complain about how someone else is not making this a front page story?

Here’s the rest of what I wrote that morning:

Seems pretty clear now that Scarborough wants Romney to lose or that he’s the laziest sell-out in the history of the Republican party; completely unwilling to do anything that might help his nominee.

Tell me I’m wrong.

When faced with this kind of criticism, Scarborough inevitably whines about how all us “Romney sycophants” are being mean to him when all he’s guilty of is “bravely telling the truth.” In fact, every time Scarborough’s criticized for attacking his own (which he does regularly with a noxious mix of arrogance and glee), he scurries to hide behind the excuse that he’s just being honest.

But where’s Scarborough’s bold courage when Romney’s pushing a legitimate issue? Where’s all that bravery and respect for the truth when it’s a truth the media doesn’t want told?

I’ll tell you where Scarborough is: he’s cowering and selling out his party and country for “Vanity Fair” covers, millions of dollars, and the warm approval of Mark Halperin’s “Gang of 500.” 

Again, explain to me how I’m wrong. Give me a legitimate reason for Scarborough to join the rest of the media in covering up a legitimate scandal.

I’m sorry, but there is no legitimate reason, because there simply is no lower form of “Republican” than those who allow themselves to be used by the media for their own personal enrichment.

 

 

Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC