The Daily Beast’s Wayne Barrett noticed an odd moment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” yesterday. Gabriel Sherman was on to talk about his latest article on Fox News, when the topic of the conversation turned to the Tucson shootings. Joe Scarborough was mostly silent on the matter, until he chimed in with an interesting and somewhat unexpected take.
Update: An MSNBC spokesperson clarifies Scarborough’s statement, saying:
In the clip below, the discussion of Tucson starts around 5:40, with Scarborough chiming in around 6:20:
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Or as Barrett describes:
Scarborough had sat out the Tucson discussion so far, but with Sherman in mid-sentence, he suddenly felt the urge to tease.
…
“By the way and this is all I will say,” he declared, as if he was about to reveal a state secret, or at least an MSNBC secret.
“Not just Fox News. Everywhere.”
Sherman and Brzezinski thought Scarborough was making a cultural comment and went on about how the murders of six at a shopping center meeting with a congresswoman “caused everyone to talk” and were a “moment of public discussion,” missing Scarborough’s very particular point.
So Morning Joe let his Starbucks do the talking and started spelling it out, in a loud, slow, and insistent voice. “NOT… JUST… AT… FOX NEWS.”
Barrett interpreted the comment as a statement on former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann, who departed the network a few weeks later.