Java Joe Rejects Republicans

Pensacola's own Joe Scarborough, host of the new NBC show "Morning Joe," quoted by Jacques Steinberg in today's NYT:

“I’m just as conservative as I was in 1994, when everyone was calling me a right-wing nut,” he said. “I think the difference is the Republican Party leaders, a lot of them, have run a bloated government, have been corrupt, and have gone a very, very long way from what we were trying to do in 1994. Also, the Republican Party has just been incompetent.”

Is Scarborough still a right-wing nut? Probably. But he's not so stupid as to overlook rank incompetence or the path to higher ratings, or both.

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Scarborough Out of the Closet: 'Vote Democratic'

Is Joe Scarborough finally coming out of the closet? Or, is he just a good weatherman who knows which way the political wind is blowing?

We ask because the former Pensacola congressman this week came awfully close to urging his followers to vote for Democrats this November. From his current essay at MSNBC:

"[T]he 2006 election is not shaping up to be about ideology. Instead, it seems destined to become a referendum on the Republican scandals.

"Jack Abramoff, Bob Ney, Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham and Mark Foley have all been driven from power over the past year because of ethical and legal challenges. Only DeLay's arose from political battles. The others were busted in various sexual, financial and ethical scandals that will haunt all Republicans this fall.
* * *
"... the quagmire in Iraq. * * * Shiite death squads killing Sunni... Sunni insurgents blowing up Shiite children... it is hard to find good guys in that war. It is also difficult to get a read on America's economic outlook. Gas prices are down, interest rates are steady but the deficit and debt are at all time highs.
* * *
"A Republican congressman preyed on young boys. His leaders knew about inappropriate emails. They did next to nothing. And when it hit the fan a month before the election, Republican leaders spent the first days of the scandal pointing fingers at each other. One more scandal.

"One more indictment. One more reason to vote Democratic."

Say what? Joe Scarborough says vote Democratic?

We asked around. Some local folk claim that Joe's always had something of a populist streak buried deep beneath that crusty conservative exterior. They say personal ambition made him keep it out of public sight because of Northwest Florida's notoriously right-wing electoral climate.

Others remain dubious. They think that with Joe Scarborough, ambition always trumps intellectual honesty, even if he does now have a national audience. The only reason he might 'out' himself, they say, is if there's something in it for him; something like more votes or higher TV ratings.

Either way, it's more fun -- and a lot more decorous -- to speculate about what Joe Scarborough's been doing in the closet than what his former congressional colleagues are doing behind their closed doors.

Scarborough: 'Be Very Afraid'

Pensacola's own conservative commentator and former congressman Joe Scarborough has weighed in on the latest NSA phone/internet dragnet tapping of tens of millions of American phone lines:

"Now, for liberals who‘ve long been going against almost all of these issues to defend privacy, the news has to be disturbing. But no less so the conservatives who have fought national ID cards and gun registration for years out of fear of big government.

"Now, whatever you consider yourself, friends, you should be afraid. You should be very afraid. With over 200 million Americans targeted, this domestic spying program is so widespread, it is so random, it is so far removed from focusing on al Qaeda suspects that the president was talking about today, that it‘s hard to imagine any intelligence program in U.S. history being so susceptible to abuse."

On this subject, Scarborough knows what he's talking about, as the full MSNBC transcript reveals:

"I served on the Judiciary Committee and the Armed Service Committee in Congress for four years, and no program I studied while using security clearances ever came close to the scope of this massive spy program. It is dangerous, it breaks FCC laws, and it endangers all Americans‘ right to privacy.

"But you know what? The villains in this spy program are pretty easy to target, almost as easy as your phone records. First you have the president, who‘s shown that he will break laws if they get in his way of spying. Second, Democratic leaders—they complain now, but where were they? They reviewed the program. Why no protest? Don‘t hold your press conferences now, Nancy Pelosi. Tell us about it when you learn about it!

"And finally, the phone companies, who actually profited from the government reading all of your phone bills. They should be sued and their CEOs fired.

"Hey, memo to the president and congressional leaders who signed up on this lousy program: We don‘t trust you anymore. We don‘t trust you with our phone bills. We don‘t trust you with our bank records. We don‘t trust you with our medical histories. From now on, if you want to look at Americans‘ private records, get a damn search warrant!"

Somehow, Joe seems to have overlooked the Republican congressional majority. No matter. There's plenty of blame to go around.

Rather than looking for someone to blame, the pressing question ought to be, "Who will put a stop to this administration's drift away from constitutional democracy?"