On Monday's Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough repeatedly referred to Congressman John Ratcliffe as a "clown." But that wasn't contemptuous enough for Joe. And so Scarborough also suggested that President Trump's nominee as Director of National Intelligence be called a "fascist," and proceeded to do so time and again.
Scarborough justified his slur by claiming that during the Mueller hearings last week, Ratcliffe called "every Democrat a socialist." Turnabout being fair play, suggested Scarborough, it was fitting to refer to Ratcliffe as a "fascist."
JOHN RATCLIFFE: The Mueller Report, it's really going to be difficult for the Democrats or anyone to rely upon the findings of a report when they just listened to the man whose name was on top of it, not have a command of what was even in it.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well, you know what a clown show for a guy like that to be attacking a Marine hero, a guy that changed the FBI. He doesn’t know what Robert Mueller did or didn’t do. Maybe he didn’t give a type of performance that Ratcliffe gave, the screaming and humiliating himself.
And by the way, Mika, Ratcliffe was the guy who I think spurred a discussion here, where I asked a question: if Republicans are really — I hate to even call them that, a Trumpist, a Trump sycophant, is going to call every Democrat a socialist, can Democrats call Ratcliffe a fascist? Because it seems fair to me. that if they're going to mislabel Democrats who are not socialists, socialists, then should just start calling Ratcliffe a fascist. And call him a fascist throughout this entire process. Call him a fascist for the rest of his career until this fascist apologizes to capitalists who are Democrats who he has mislabeled.
Except that . . . if Scarborough had read his favorite paper, the New York Times, he would have known that Ratcliffe didn't accuse all Democrats of being socialists. Rather, he spoke of "Democrats and socialists on the other side of the aisle." And of course, there are at least two self-proclaimed "democratic socialists" in the House: Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and another in the Senate, Bernie Sanders.
Moreover, there are 98 members of the far-left Congressional Progressive Caucus, founded by Sanders and Ron Dellums, another self-described socialist. So yes, it was fair of Ratcliffe to suggest that there are socialists on the Dem side of the aisle.
What wasn't fair was for Scarborough to brand Ratcliffe a fascist. But Joe is so sorely afflicted by TDS that this kind of excess is to be expected.
Note also Scarborough's multiple mentions of "fascist" and "clown." It's yet another example of Joe's propensity, as we noted last week, to beat a verbal hobbyhorse to death.
He asked: "When you have Susan Collins in Maine, when you have Cory Gardner in Colorado, when you have Jodi Ernst in Iowa, are they really going to vote — they’re up next year, are they really going to vote for a clown like this? And yes, he’s a clown. He acted like a clown last week."
Finally, Scarborough began his tirade by calling Ratfcliffe a clown for suggesting that Mueller didn't know what was in his own report. But it was simply an undeniable fact that Mueller wasn't familiar with many aspects of "his" report. That was something asserted not only by Ratcliffe, but by many of Joe's liberal friends as well. For example, David Axelrod admitted to finding Mueller's performance "painful." Is Axelrod a "clown," too, Joe?
