WashPost Signs Up Joe Scarborough for Its Opinion Page

February 29th, 2016 11:25 AM

The Washington Post opinions section is doubling its MSNBC host contingent. In addition to a monthly column from Rachel Maddow, the Post is adding Joe Scarborough, who's written a column for Politico for years.

The Post PR team lays it on thick on how “influential” Scarborough is, ignoring his actual morning ratings (no room for "routinely whacked by Fox & Friends"), and leaving it to liberal magazines like Time and Vanity Fair to tout how influential he is:  

Scarborough is one of the most influential voices in American politics, making his show a “must watch” for Washington insiders and politics junkies. He is extremely well-sourced and his posts will reflect that, weaving in fresh reporting and new angles gleaned from his day-to-day interactions with key players in politics.

Scarborough was a member of Congress from Florida from 1994 to 2001, and is the author of three books, including the New York Times bestseller The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America’s Promise. Time Magazine has named Scarborough as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and Vanity Fair listed him and Mika Brzezinski as two of the most powerful people in media.

In other words, Joe Scarborough is the kind of "conservative" that liberals would like to consider influential. He's not popular on the right. His “New York Times bestseller” sat at number seven for two weeks in 2009 and then fell off the list. (The hot book that summer? Mark Levin’s Liberty and Tyranny was number one both of those weeks, and sat at number one for 14 weeks. The Times never reviewed Levin’s best-seller.)

When The New York Times actually reviewed The Last Best Hope, they turned to Nick Gillespie of Reason magazine, who mocked the title: “If this book is indeed the last best hope of conservatism and America’s promise, well, it was nice knowing you. Ultimately, Scarborough offers what Barry Goldwater might have called an echo, not a choice, of a Bush-Obama status quo regarding everything from bailouts to stimulus spending to rendition policy.”

Go to the Amazon page for this book, and the Publishers Weekly review began: “In this disappointingly mundane book, Scarborough, host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, mistakes his skills at showmanship for those of critical analysis. From the Iraq War to the recent financial crisis, his arguments amount to little more than a superficial précis of the current political moment. For most readers, this book will be an ideological retread and an unimaginative slog.”

That’s what the Washington Post suggests is “dynamic” stuff.

“Joe is a dynamic addition to our roster of the best full-time columnists and bloggers in the business, boasted Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt. “No other publication can match the formidable group The Post has put together.”