Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday whined about conservatives calling out the media’s hypocrisy on George H.W. Bush. As the Media Research Center’s Rich Noyes pointed out on Monday, many of the same journalists saying nice things now are ones who trashed him as a racial exploiter back when he was in power.
Scarborough complained, “I saw some of my conservative friends come out yesterday saying how hypocritical. The media hated Bush and Bush hated the media.” After admitting “that was the case,” the MSNBC host offered this ridiculous comparison: “It was like Ronald Reagan and Tip O’Neill had a deal that they fought like hell every day. And then at 6:00, they put it to the side.”
It’s not like that at all. When did journalists ever put aside their hatred for Bush? Was it when Dan Rather tried to torpedo the Republican’s hopes for getting the 1988 Republican nomination? Or when they implied he was a racist? (Go here for these examples and more.) On Saturday, hours after his death, MSNBC hosts were still attacking Bush for “appealing to racial animus.”- READ MORE