I'd likely be more sympathetic to this impassioned plea, were it not coming from Scarborough. I agree with him on the merits, sorta. It's a great day for America whenever a lot of people participate in the process, no matter who wins. I also think that are quite of few of us writers on the left, or wherever, who would benefit by living somewhere else besides New York or Washington, D.C. I don't think we always understand the diversity of the country. I'm talking beyond race, gender and sexual orientation. I think more of that understanding is better for us as writers, and is better for the debate in general. Furthermore, the idea that education makes you more enlightened is noxious.
That said, beware the man who castigates closed-minds, while taking time to celebrate the openness of his own. Seriously, I don't know how to take a plea for more intellectual subtlety and empathy across ideology, from a cat who routinely uses the Upper West Side and Georgetown as short-hand for liberal America.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
"That said, beware the man who castigates the closed-minds, while taking time to celebrate the openness of his own. "
Hit it dead on Ta-Nehisi. This clip and most of his broadcast since the election has been little more than a combination of sour grapes and personal ego stroking. Like someone gives a f**K. This is the type of guy that is only passionate when he isnt getting his way.
The poster child for me, me, enough about me, what do you think of me... :p I'm just saying....
On the flip side, I'm looking forward to the deep corners on the left who think it's gonna be XMAS every day getting their wake up call too.
You have to admit, if you were a conservative working at MSNBC, you'd blow a gasket every now and then.
I'm a big fan of the Morning Joe show, and I like Scarborough quite a bit. Yes, he can be a bit of an arrongant blowhard (who isn't on MSNBC?), but he's also a pretty fair-minded conservative who has no problem attacking his own party when they do something dumb (he's criticized the Iraq war and the Bush Administration's policies for a long time), and he also gives all of his guests -- on the right or on the left -- a chance to have their say.
Umm, isn't he missing a certain factual point in order to tilt at his windmill. Namely:
"'That would be the highest turnout rate that we've seen since 1908," which was 65.7 percent, McDonald said early Wednesday. It also would beat the old post World War II high of 63.8 percent in the famed 1960 John F. Kennedy-Richard Nixon squeaker. The 1908 race elected William Howard Taft over William Jennings Bryan.
The total voting in 2008 easily outdistanced 2004's 122.3 million, which had been the highest grand total of voters before."
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i34ao3tow5yhj2v7v24HM_wbT8JQD948LJRG0
Yes, the fundamentalist Christians of the nation found a door to inclusion via George W. Bush, but all one has to do is look at the numbers voting in this election to see what happened here was of a different scale all together--not only in the range of people who felt included for the first time in American polity, but for the multitudes who, like myself, have been voting for a lifetime--holding my nose out for the lesser of two evils, making small, impotent really, comments by voting for a 3rd party candidate, and who found for the first time a real political champion.
The fundamentalist Christians weren't dancing in the streets of every small town when George Bush was elected. Dancing in the streets! and the world wasn't dancing with them.
Finally, this nation has never excluded Christians, the way it has excluded blacks, latinos, first generation immigrants, the poor. In the recent past this nation has shoved Christianity down its collective throat. God forbid, eh, a candidate might be a Muslim. I haven't noticed a Buddhist having been elected to higher office. Jews are welcome everywhere but the very top. Women? give me a break. Gays, sure. And God forbid that a sworn atheist ever might run for the Presidency.
So Joe might look again at the demographics over the course of our history and find that white Christians from small town America have always been included in the electoral process in ways others have pointedly been excluded. Disingenuous conservatism, sour grapes. His side lost.
Very good point TNC, the fact that he rips people for their closed-mindedness 4 years ago while at the same time talking about his open-mindedness.
The other aspect to this point is that he should also be challenging the people who opposed Obama to open up their minds. This to me is more important since it speaks to the present day and the future and not 4 years ago.
While his overall point is valid i.e. we all need to remember that our view of the country and the world is not necessarily the "right" view, his equating the excitement of evangelical christians in the 2004 election to the HUGE turnout and excitement across the country is very skewed.
Even here in Oklahoma where Mccain won, many many people were excited to vote and I saw far more Obama-Biden t-shirts, bumper stickers and yard signs than I ever thought I would.
We can't all have every American experience. TNC's experiences are definitely not the sterotyped latte-sipping liberal kind. Harlem is not the Upper West Side, if I recall correctly. Nor is Baltimore all that much like Georgetown.
That said, New Yorkers can be annoying. I had a classmate from New York in grad school who would complain incessantly that there was nothing to do at 3am. My view was that at 3am you should be sleeping.
I watched this live yesterday, and it was the only time in the entire day where I actually felt angry.
Scarborough has been difficult to watch this cycle; I've never been a fan, but I am a political junkie, so it was with a sort-of detached curiosity that I watched him explain his "inside-baseball" view of the presidential race... because he was wrong. Not just every now and again, but almost every single time he spoke. He no more understands "red state America, the little guy" than I understand wealth women with poodles in Manhattan.
So, after watching him eviscerate Dionne's piece and claim that somewhere in America, Bush's re-election in 2004 prompted the same kind of response we saw when Obama won the presidency, I had to just turn off the television. Scarborough was harshing my buzz... and, as per usual, he was wrong.
I agree with JenJen. I watched this yesterday and got very angry.
I wasn't sure how to interpret what he was saying. The reason people are so emotional and the reason that it's hard to be supportive of the other side is that, in this case, much of the positions of the evangelicals are not about economic or foreign policy but about social policy.
If someone is running on a platform of hate and exclusion socially, as Bush did in 2004, specifically in Ohio, than I can't be happy for the other side when they win.
And finally, I'm so sick of being lectured to by people like Scarborough about being "elite". It's a form of fascism to decry education and intellectual curiosity in the same vein as the fake/real American discussions.
And I don't think the media was in the tank for Obama and was willing to crush everything its path to get him elected. If anything it was the opposite. Schwartz and Rick Davis did a masterful job of creating space for McCain by loudly yelling about the media as a way to create deferential airspace for the campaign. Witness the scant coverage of the results of the Troopergate investigation when it came out. That was a big story that the MSM sat on.
Listen - Scarborough is a guy who said earlier this year he didn't understand what all the fuss was about race in this election: He attended an integrated first grade in Mississippi in 1969 and everything was cool - no racial tensions in America as far as he could see. If you were a white person in the South in the '60's and '70's, you sort of knew white people were obsessed with race - and many of them spoke in no uncertain terms or words about how they felt. Scarborough, in my opinion, is in some kind of white-bubble of denial about his roots.
JenJen,
I think you're being way too hard on Joe. He gave Obama a ton of praise throughout the election seasion, during the election night and the day after. He claimed to have cried or gotten teary-eyed over the outpouring of support from his supporters.
Also, his predictions were no more inaccurate than most pundits this season. He rightly noted that McCain was picking up major ground this summer in the polls when other pundits (notably Olbermann) refused to see it. Prior to the Palin nomination, he was laughing that it would be the dumbest pick possible, and would destroy McCain's chances (he also thought this meant that McCain wouldn't pick her, so he only got this one half-right). He all but immediately said after McCain claimed on 9/24 that the fundamentals of the economy were strong that McCain had just cost himself the election, and polls seem to bear him out.
And finally, if you don't think Bush's 2004 victory prompted a similar response by many as Obama's 2008 victory, it might be because the media really doesn't spend a lot of time covering election turnout in places like Kansas and Missouri, where people waited for hours in oftentimes terrible weather. But the voter turnout in 2004 was the biggest in 34 years, though it didn't get nearly the same positive coverage as this year's election once it became clear that Kerry lost.
And to add to our circle-jerk echo-chamber, I agree with Sam.
The "elite" thing was just over-the-top this year. I guess that tag has worked for Republicans starting with Nixon all the way to Bush in 2004, but it fell apart in 2006 and by 2008, nobody was buying this crap anymore. We finally got to the point as a nation where the majority just can't be scared or insulted into voting for a bad political ideology that does not work and frankly never did work.
I enjoy Republican pundits, but only the smart ones, not the kind that are just constantly wrong but still show up on my teevee every single day. I mean, give me Mike Murphy or George Will (because of baseball, mostly) and even the dreamy, flawed Peggy Noonan all day long, but does anyone remember these moments brought to us by Scarborough and his sidekick, Pat Buchanan?
Obama can never win the Jewish vote!
Wrong.
Hispanics will never vote for Obama!
Wrong.
I was in Congress!
OK, got that right. And yes, we know.
White voters in western Pennsylvania will never vote for Obama!
Wrong.
Florida voters in the I-4 corridor will reject Obama!
Wrong.
Hillary voters will flock to Sarah! Sarah! Sarah!
Wrong.
Working-class voters in Ohio - specifically Youngstown, Cincinnati, Sandusky - will never vote for Obama!
Wrong.
In defense of Scarborough, he lives on the Upper West Side when he is in NYC and he is someone who not only interacts with people who don't think like himself, he likes people who don't think like himself. So at least he knows the terrain and the people when he references the area. He isn't thinking through small town stereotypes of NYC that see it as one big Studio 54 of the late 70's with people coked out having sex on the dance floor.
Scarborough is a blowhard and a loudmouth! I watch his show here in Canada almost everyday. He should return inRed/Real American where they burn library and build churches. As a white man, he never encounter discrimination or insults, yet he called Obama an Elitist for the longest time! Everyone that came to his show use the adjective "Elitist" even the black journalists from the Washington Post! Incroyable!! That guy is a joke, with no knowledge of the real world outside America.
The problem with Scarborough is that 2004 was not the first time a white, religious Christian was elected president. Hell, Jimmy Carter was a born again president. Plus the fact that Bush's basic platform was "Kerry is bad" and "Kerry = terrorists." That is just not the same as the first ever black (or multiracial or what ever) president who ran (really) as not saying that 1/2+ of the country was un-American. That is why it is exciting. I guess you could make a case that Bush in 2000 ran as a "uniter" and not as a divisive candidate, but Scarborough is not talking about that.
It is true that just because lots of people were excited does not mean that much, but what is exciting here is both the fact that Obama represents a real change in American race relations, and that he ran a relatively "nice" campaign.
Oh, and Scarborough is bit of a dick.
Joe starts the converstation off talking about his disgust over EJ Dionne's article, which chastised the way the conservative movement divided our electorate along moral lines, and the Rovian style politics that framed America as Red vs. Blue.
If only EJ could have been as gracious today as Joe was last night when he cheered our side on. If only Marueen Dowd could have been open enough to embrace the evangelicals in their 2004 victory. If only "we" would all realize that "our" side doesn't have all the answers. I wish "we" could all be as open-minded as Joe, who was big enough to take the time---two days after Obama called on our nation to put partisanship aside---to discuss his opinion of opinion journalists.
While I would love to rehash our ruiness affair with the evangelicals, I don't have the time. I am too busy trying to answer Obama's call to put the past aside---to be the bigger person---and focus my energy on solving today's problems, so future generations can enjoy the same opportunities we have been blessed with...
JeffD - I would only add that I happen to live in Cincinnati, Ohio. This part of the state was Bush Country Central in 2004, and I remember it very well. My county (Hamilton) went strongly for Bush then. My region is exactly the "red state America" Scarborough described on a daily basis. For four years, I've watched cars with "W'04" stickers zip by me on the highway. After Katrina, that sight really had me scratching my head.
Now, I just don't remember anyone pouring out into the streets that night, or whoops-and-hollers at the local bar I was working at. It was a kind of somber night. Bush won big indeed, right here in the heartland, and while there was some gloating that would continue for four more years, there weren't exactly spontaneous street parties or outpourings of emotion in 2004 that I witnessed.
But something happened between then and Tuesday night, and my county flipped big; in fact I think I read somewhere that Hamilton County was the biggest (population-wise) red-to-blue flip in the nation. The Bush Economy killed Ohio, and people here didn't fall into the culture-war or tax-and-spend stuff this time. Scarborough kept insisting that kind of politics would work in my part of the country, as it had time and again, but it just didn't. He was wrong. His pundit antennae failed him.
To me the most interesting part of the election here in Ohio was the depressed turnout. It was actually less than 2004. The GOP didn't show up to vote... and I think there's a real story there somewhere that I hope someone far better than I will research and report it soon.
There is a glaring problem in Scarborough's argument. He is basically saying "Hey look how great I am that I am celebrating the fact that someone else is getting excited because of an election result, but how come you don't get excited when people who think differently than you get excited".
Should we have been happy for Islamic extremists the day after 9/11? They had a result that they were excited about.
He is arguing for an equivalency of value for other people's ideas/beliefs which is just absurd. Valuing other people's beliefs/values as much as your own is a logical impossibility. Instead, we tolerate other people's views because we think that produces a better system because we know that we can't get evryone to agree with out position and there may be some error in our own beliefs.
Perhaps most importantly is the fact that being 'open-minded' is something which is not consistent across different ideologies. If you are a die-hard christian who believes in the flying spaghetti monster and you use things that were written down by primitive people 5000 years ago to justify discrimination against gays, then your mind has not been open to absurdity of your position. If a different thing had been written down 5000 years ago, then you might not be homophobic.
This pervasive myth that is often encouraged by the media that all opinions/beliefs have equal value is a truly destructive force. Some beliefs/values are simply worse than others for the society as a whole -- we recognize that easily when it comes to islamic extremists that call for our destruction, but we ignore it when it comes from our own people that advocate ridiculous things like discrimination, unfettered access to any kind of gun, or the right to force a victim of rape to bear a child.
The history of America is a competition of ideas, with the good ones mostly winning. In this struggle, many bad ideas (slavery, discrimination, unfettered capitalism) lose because they aren't good for the whole society. If we praise the celebration of all ideas equally, we are supporting a notion that will not advance the greatness of this country even though so many people like to believe in this nonsense.
JenJen -- You're right, I don't think there was dancing in the streets or huge block parties among evangelicals when Bush won in 2004. But I think that's more a matter of location (and perhaps culture) than passion. When the local sports team wins the World Series or Superbowl, you'll see huge celebrations throughout the city, but I'd bet that many of the people living in nearby suburbs or rural areas are just as happy.
I don't want to undercut what happened in 2008, because it was a great moment (and the guy I voted for won). But given weather patterns in 2004, and the fact that the high turnout wasn't expected, it was arguably more difficult for people to vote four years ago than it was today. It takes a high level of commitment to wait in the rain for four hours to cast a ballot. While the turnout for 2008 was the most impressive in a very long time and should be applauded, I think Scarborough's correct that there's been a double-standard displayed in media coverage given the negative depiction of or indifference to the enormous 2004 turnout.
I get his point on open-mindedness, but this is still a little hard to swallow. You're dead on in suggesting he hasn't earned the cred to be making this argument.
There's something else that sticks in my craw. I hate this need to constantly draw an equivalency between left and right, because it allows people like Scarborough to gloss over the real differences, which often are just as illuminating as the similarities. I have no doubt that there were Evangelical Christians in Pensacola who were just as excited about George Bush as many East Coast liberals were about Obama. But to make the leap that election night 2004 is the same, or even similar, to what happened on Tuesday night, just for a different set of America ... that is head-in-the-sand type stuff.
For example, listening to Scarborough, you would think that all of the right is being gracious and happy for their liberal foes this week, recognizing that something great and historic happened even if their guy didn't win. Please. Many conservative pundits have displayed atypical grace in the immediate wake of Obama's victory, but does anyone expect that goodwill to last? More importantly, what about all those red state Palin rally-goers? Aren't they the true diametric counterpoint to Scarborough's "liberal elites"? Does anyone believe they were sitting at home watching the returns come in and thinking, "Well, I didn't vote him, but wow, what a great day for democracy"?
And to go back to Scarborough's own anecdote, it illustrates another problematic side effect of his argument. He mentions the George Bush Evangelicals "singing hymns" in line to vote. Compare and contrast that with the stories from cities and neighborhoods all over the country where at 11 pm, crowds broke out in spontaneous celebration and patriotic song. The same? In Scarborough's mind, apparently, yes. And, judging from his outrage over the 2004 reactions of the likes of Dowd and Wills, it sounds like if you were to point out that there might be a downside to Americans singing religious songs at their polling places or voting based on their Biblical beliefs, that is offensive and there's no place for it in a dialog where we respect the other side.
This is the real reason why I hate arguments like the one Scarborough's making here. Intended or not, it has the effect of shutting down meaningful and intelligent debate. It's impossible to debate someone who thinks his mind is open but yours is closed. And it's also impossible to debate someone who is demanding you to concede equivalency in the name of open-mindedness. To fight the good fight, you do need to understand the other side and practice a little empathy, but you also need a healthy amount of belief in the strength of your own side.
This pervasive myth that is often encouraged by the media that all opinions/beliefs have equal value is a truly destructive force. Some beliefs/values are simply worse than others for the society as a whole -- we recognize that easily when it comes to islamic extremists that call for our destruction,
What becomes problematic is when one side or the other is so full of its own righteousness, that any idea or belief by the other side is seen as vile and unworthy of discussion. Someone on the left (or right) can state "I am openminded to all sane ideas" but will automatically classify any idea of the right as insane.
Some on the right flat out see homosexuality as immoral and against nature, so they won't entertain the idea that two people can fall in love and deserve to make a marriage committment. This type of person would agree with you, there are values that are worse for society as a whole, but think of it in an opposite way than you do (assuming you are for gay marriage).They think gay marriage is going to cause the ruination of society, so there is no need to be openminded about it.
On the left, I have heard Gloria Steinem state that there aren't any real differences in the brains of children across gender, so it shouldn't even be researched. Is she being close minded, or is she simply on the right side of history and science?
By being openminded, I am not talking about accepting the ideas of another side, but rather looking at them in good faith and by trying to take a deep look at why someone thinks that way. Simply dismissing those who oppose gay marriage as stupid ass rednecks might make some feel superior, but it is lazy and self serving. It is also much harder to convince someone of something when they can see you hold them in contempt.
I remember Scarborough arguing that Talladega Nights was racist against white people. He is not to be taken seriously. Though I do appreciate his standing up for a people that has never been discriminated against in American history, ever. That takes balls.
Absolutely everything that Nina said. Thank you, thank you, thank you!
Oh, and whoever posted at 12:05 pm as "JenJen" is not, actually, me. Weird... I'm not that into arguing with myself, trust me.
Some on the right flat out see homosexuality as immoral and against nature, so they won't entertain the idea that two people can fall in love and deserve to make a marriage committment. This type of person would agree with you, there are values that are worse for society as a whole, but think of it in an opposite way than you do (assuming you are for gay marriage).They think gay marriage is going to cause the ruination of society, so there is no need to be openminded about it
Yes -- they do think that, just as I think that religion may be a cause for the ruination of society because it is inherently divisive (which is hard to dispute given it's history).
Luckily, there is an objective truth out there and our job is to figure out which view is closer to the truth. The difference between me and the religious person is that I am much better at the process of determining which view is better because I like to actually think about things, and that makes me much better at weighing arguments and making judgments about what things will work and what things won't. I'm not perfect at it, but I'm much better than someone who doesn't. In fact, I can use myself as a comparison because when I was 17, I was pretty involved in my catholic church. I was capable of realizing at that point the contradictions of a belief in God, but I had never been exposed to such reasoned arguments so I "believed".
Which view will serve the whole society better -- my view that science, reason and analysis are a necessary tool to better our nation, or their view that using your brain too much may be a bad thing because it might distance you from a god delusion.
This propensity to NOT challenge ideas is much more prevalent in religious minds, it produces the kind of sheep foolishness that allowed Bush and his cronies to severely damage the US as well as the conservative movement. And this very concerning , because foolishness and ignorance can't win in a world where other nations are not so filled with people with a world view of a child (e.g., We-good, they-bad) that our major religions promote.
This willingness to follow the leaders of the religion even goes as far to ignore the religious texts that are purported to come directly from god-- Jesus never said anything bad about gays and yet the majority of Christians believe that as Christians they need to hate homosexuals because their leaders have told them so -- they never even bother to look it up. That is very scary.
Simply dismissing those who oppose gay marriage as stupid ass rednecks might make some feel superior, but it is lazy and self serving..
I don't dismiss them as stupid in general, I see them as people who have simply been fooled. I've had many discussion with people in my family who are not stupid people yet still think that allowing gay marriage somehow infringes upon the religious beliefs of others. With a lot of discussion and patience, it is possible to get them to see a little bit how illogical their position is. What worries me is how much effort it takes to get them to move a little bit.
Furthermore, the idea that education makes you more enlightened is noxious.
While an education certainly doesn't make one enlightened, an education does directly offer experiences and tools necessary to strive for enlightenment, and often the motivation to do so.
Maybe I'm not understanding TC's point, but it's hard for me to see how, in an information age, educated people are not, on average, more enlightened than the non-educated.
(This comment assumes that that definition of enlightened is close to Webster's: "freed from ignorance and misinformation; based on full comprehension of the problems involved")
Scarborough is a blow hard but I think I get where he's coming from. Maybe it sounds better coming from someone more worthy of respect: Bruce Lee.
Bruce Lee took on a new student who had studied a few other martial arts. The student spent the first class trying hard to impress Bruce with his skills and knowledge. Bruce just watched, and didn't instruct him.
Afterwards, they sat down for tea. Bruce began to fill the student's cup, and didn't stop. The tea overflowed onto the desk, and still Bruce kept pouring. The student asked Bruce what he was doing.
Bruce said, "if your cup is already full, I cannot fill it. If you want to learn from me, you must first empty your cup."
That seems to be what Joe the Pundit is going for here. If Americans want to learn from this experience, we have to empty our cups of our preconceptions.
"It is also much harder to convince someone of something when they can see you hold them in contempt."
Doug, my husband said this to me last night. He was somewhat (but not really...really) tempted to vote Yes on 8 after he saw the commercial with Gavin Newsome. Who by the way, I haven't read a comment about in quite awhile.
While the gay community was making some strides in the legislator, and a court case was inevitable down that path, Newsom decided to take matters into his own hands. I know many in the gay community who were furious with Newsome over this. His behavior demonstrates your point well.
While there were activists and congressional representatives working to peel the band-aid off slowly from both ends, Newsom jumps in and rips it out from in between. Ouch. Then he laughed about it. What a prick.
Nevermind that he single handidly ruined the hard work of many activists in the Bay Area. Nevermind that he ensured Prop 8 would make it to the ballot (yeah, I said it!). Newsom is the person a lot of us out here blame. We wrestled with the "Oh but he was trying to be the progressive mayor San Francisco was longing for" but that turns out not to be true; that just wasn't Newsom's main motivation, and the facts bear that out.
So I'd like to use this occasion to say, "Fuck you too Newsom."
P.S. I hope my closing doesn't get me deleted.
Yes -- they do think that, just as I think that religion may be a cause for the ruination of society because it is inherently divisive (which is hard to dispute given it's history).
Many things are divisive, having two high schools in one town, erecting a border at the 48th Parallel or forming a political party are inherently divisive, but don't cause the ruination of society. The answer the religious right has to what it thinks is ruinous is to ban gay marriage. If you view religion as that way (or if others do) then it might be logical to call for a ban on religion.
Something I find even more dangerous than those who have a ton of faith in God are those who have full faith that science and reason are the answer and that they possess a better understanding of science and reason than the rest of society, so society shall defer to their brilliance. I am not saying that this is what you are, but others in history have banned religion and used the science and philosophy of the era to inflict horrors upon their people.
You state you are better than a religious person about these ideas. Since Obama is a devout Christian, would you think his judgement is severely clouded because he is filled with God delusions about things like feeding the poor and helping those in need?
I didn't mean to infer that you were calling people dumbass hillbillies, I strongly agree with your approach. Patience and discussion are far more valuable than smugness and bile.
I can't even believe I'm seeing people here defend that scum of the earth, Scarborough.
He's no better and possibly much worse than all the other misogynists in the GOP. I can't even begin to go into his bigotry and self-reverence.
And any guy whose behavior is as suspicious as this isn't worth defending:
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20010808Klausutis.html
Tessa, I read something today that echoed your thoughts on the course of events and how the legislative process was making gains. I don't know much about Newsom, what are his motivations, did he think this would be a springboard to the Senate?
Scarborough is right.
I don't care if he's being pompous and opening himself up for hypocrisy, ALL THE BETTER. But he's made an important point. And MoDo sucks much more now than Scarborough ever will.
"...what are his motivations, did he think this would be a springboard to the Senate?"
No, it wasn't that egregious. He was simply (stupidly?) trying to gain favor with his constituency. He thought it would make him a great mayor; it would be historic; *he* would be changing history. So in the end, I guess it boils down to ego.
Sorry, insufficient answer (that makes it sound like he wasn't doing anything wrong). No. He was trying to buy up votes; he was pandering. He didn't educate himself on the issues of the gay community, or reach out to the activists, he just got in there are started stirring the shit without educating himself. That's why its ego (and wrong).
You state you are better than a religious person about these ideas. Since Obama is a devout Christian, would you think his judgement is severely clouded because he is filled with God delusions about things like feeding the poor and helping those in need?
You don't need a god delusion to believe in feeding the poor and helping those in need -- that's the myth put forth by so many religious people that equate atheism with amorality -- it's truly absurd. Morality doesn't have to come from a spaghetti monster, it can come from a natural empathy that humans have built into them.
Back to Obama's religion -- I do question it as I do so many politicians. I wonder if it reflects a true belief or a necessary evil in his mind. Everyone over the age of 3 knows you will never get very far in American politics as an atheist, so it is very hard to tell if this belief is real.
Something I find even more dangerous than those who have a ton of faith in God are those who have full faith that science and reason are the answer and that they possess a better understanding of science and reason than the rest of society, so society shall defer to their brilliance.
It depends on what you mean by 'full faith' in the limits of science and reason. The scientific method is a way of analyzing the world so as to understand it. How's it performed? It's produced almost all of the advancements that allow us to live. Without it, we are running around in the jungle with no idea why things happen.
Science and reason will never be the 'answer', but they will give us some of the answers and they strive to give better and better answers.
Religion definitely gives people an 'answer' to problems, there is no doubt of that,and that's why it has done so well. But the solutions are almost always sub-optimal and they rarely evolve. Sometimes they represent a step backwards instead of a step forward.
Religion often does great things, but there's so often an ugly attached string. Can't we get the good deeds without the attached divisive and silly dogma? Apparently the answer is no.
The ironic thing is that science can be used to study religion, but not the reverse. People believe in God for very good reasons that have to do with the architecture of the human mind, and scientists can explain many (not all) of the reasons why people believe in the spaghetti monsters. Religion, by it's very nature, is a giant well of intellectual laziness. It promotes metal sloth as a way to keep it's followers. Some religious people do try and reason about god, and they should be applauded, but they are a total minority in that group. More often than not, a religious person who reasons about it will become non-religious (e.g. me at age 17). I am not unique in this experience -- religion seems to be a perfectly good thing for the mind of a child. I could even advocate religion in that realm -- I'm happy to tell my 5 year old the lie about going to heaven when she dies, but I see the problems when a full grown person believes in that and ultimately uses that view to prevent the advance of a just and civilized world.
I am not of the belief that morality can only come from religion or the religious nor do I believe that atheism will spawn an evil world. But I have heard many on the religious left say that they are inspired by their faith to do things like feed the hungry, house the homeless. Kerry said it in one of his debates in 04, and Gore made similare references in 2000.
I too have wondered about Obama's faith yet I don't really know enough about it to come to any conclusions, so I take him at his word. Likewise, I have doubted McCain's as well. He has usually been fairly quiet about it, unlike other guys he was running against earlier like Huckster and Romney.
Scarborough is NOT open-minded. He is a pompous, self-serving right-wing demagogue. Whenever he engages in discourse with those guests whose ideologies are contrary to his, he gets flustered, angry and combative. An open-minded person does not shut down discussion just because someone disagrees with a stated opinion, or because it happens to be his show which empowers him to do so.
His co-host, Mika, used to have an opinion of her own, until Scarborugh openly berated and denigrated her for expressing opposing views. She now Amens just about everything he says. I believe that is a career decision she has made; but the point is that Scarborough is not open to opinions that differ from his political philosophies.
It is interesting to note the number of times he has confronted his "liberal" guests in an almost dismissive fashion, and cut them off in mid-sentence, for voicing their honest opinions. He has on numerous shows, created a highly-charged tense atmosphere for guests and other journalists that has on a number of occasions resulted in these individuals (i.e. David Shuster)refusing to re-join Scarborough on the broadcast after a commercial break. Scarborough has himself thrown his microphone off, and walked off the David Gregory show when he did not agree with an opinion expressed by Rachel Maddow.
This is not a man with an open mind.
The woman, is it Mika?, with Joe is a lapdog. I know he likes it that way, because his long winded monologue was all about him. He wasn't interested in even having a conversation with her or the others about anything. It was all loudmouthed self-serving whining.
The people MSNBC must be afraid of this guy. I'd love someone (me!) to pull the plug on his mike and tell him, "STFU already!"
These political pundits, or prostitutes, aren't offering any information, they just work at nicely padded jobs offered by their friends or political connections. Nothing he, or the others, say is of any value.
There too many pundits out there. Where are the real reporters?
I expect we'll get another frustrated outburst from Joe in the near future regarding even-handed reporting. This morning on Morning Joe he had the following exchange with Chris Matthews in reference to Obama's transition team:
MATTHEWS: Yeah, well, you know what? I want to do everything I can to make this thing work, this new presidency work, and I think that --
SCARBOROUGH: Is that your job? You just talked about being a journalist!
MATTHEWS: Yeah, it is my job. My job is to help this country.
If I was a conservative working at MSNBC, I'd be going insane right now.
Matthews was reacting to Scarborough's attempt at advancing the proposition that there was already the beginnings of disorganization in Obama's transition because Emanual was delaying his acceptance of the COS position. Joe was clearly trying to undermine the President-Elect (I love saying this) in this regard.
Chris should probably have articulated this a little better, as it was clear what Chris was trying to do was to counter Joe's preposterous partisan questioning of President Obama's leadership skills, when his entire campaign demonstrated nothing but excellence in this regard.
Scarborough, like many on the right, is trying to work through his disappointment. It is part of the greiving process. So sad, though that he lets his emotions overtake his professional responsibilities, and then assaults Matthews for ostensibly doing the same thing.
We're probably giving Joe and the Trust Fund Babies Show way more thought than they deserve.
The Liberal Elite is his favorite straw-man. If it makes him feel better, he can argue with me: a liberal in deep-red Texas who makes less than $50K. I could out-debate this dude with one brain tied behind my back.
As TNC would say, total weak-sauce. When he gets all pink in the face with frustration that the Media that gave Bush a free ride for years is supposedly doing the same for Barack, I immediately think of Will Perdue for some reason.
Also: note that his criticisms of the Republican Party have zero to do with the good of the country - "Country First" - but with the good of his party. And it helps him stay on TV. If he were a ranting Hannity type, he wouldn't have that "fair conservative" niche. What a load.
Scarborough, like Kristol at the NYT, is the impish pet of his employers, who see him as a way to boost their conservative fred and siphon viewers (readers) from the Murdoch Empire.
Joe Scarborough is a smarmy, sleazy, knuckle dragging neanderthal and Morning Joe is a super sized, putrid, steaming pile of extrement.
I have to reject Scarborough's equivalence entirely. Evangelicals came together in 2004 in the spirit of preventing gay people from getting married. You don't celebrate that kind of participation. In 100 years Americans will still be proud of the day they first elected a black man President. They won't be proud of when they wrote discrimination into their state constitutions.
Mike... poignantly put. I would also agree with BillB at 7:22 that I, also, am a liberal who makes under $50K. Who lives in a now-blue county (!!). And I could easily crush Scarborough in a debate with one brain tied behind my back... that is, if he'd let me get a word in edgewise. That's his whole schtick, yapping endlessly and attempted intimidation. It was fun to watch for a few months, just for pure, laugh-out-loud asshattery, but I'm good and well over it.
And I couldn't agree more with the poster above who wrote "President-Elect Obama. I love saying that."
So do I, my friend. So do I. :-)