Joe Scarborough has expressed serious doubts as to his Republican affiliation, and made clear that House GOP whip Eric Cantor "is not my friend." But caution to those who assume Joe has gone left: he has clarified to this NewsBuster that his critique of the GOP comes from the Ron Paul-esque right . . .
Scarborough's stunning comments came on today's Morning Joe in response to Dem Bob Shrum's taunting of Joe over his ostensible GOP membership, in the context of Pres. Obama's attempt to rescue Martha Coakley from the rubble of her campaign.
BOB SHRUM: The reason your friend Eric Cantor pulled back from --
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Well hold on a second, hold on a second. Hold on a second, Bob! No, just stop. Just stop.
SHRUM: Your fellow Republican.
SCARBOROUGH: Eric Cantor is not my friend.
SHRUM: You're still a Republican, Joe?
SCARBOROUGH: You know what? That is a hard question to answer. I am trying to figure out why the hell I would be a Republican. I'm dead serious.
Some might be tempted to take Scarborough's statement as a sign he's moved left. But when I reached out to Joe, he provided this explanation of his remarks:
I became a Republican because I believe in less government, tax cuts, balanced budgets and a rejection of Wilsonian foreign policy.
For the past five years, the GOP in Washington has increased deficits, doubled the national debt, championed a $7 trillion explosion in entitlement programs, and promoted a foreign policy that would make Woodrow Wilson blush.
The Republican Party in Washington needs to reform itself or die. I admire people like Paul Ryan, Ron Paul and John Shadegg but I am waiting to see if the Republican leaders in DC will follow their approach to championing less government and mean it.
Mockingbird Program Chief CIA PsyOps Directorate to Joe Scarborough:
Joe, it looks like a lot of the Republican base is moving away from the specified positions of the Republican Party. Our Psychographic Profiling of your viewing audience indicates that a change in tactics is required. In order to maintain good Perception Control on the viewing public we need to position some of our people as "Ron Paul" Libertarian Conservatives. So, along with a couple others, the control meme is to rhetorically move publicly away from the Republican Party so that the standard control memes of "support our troops", "Conspiracy Theory", etc., may still be effectively employed as control phrases. Repetition of key memes will continue as normal just downplay your allegiance to the Republican Party in order to remain an opinion leader for your audience.
Joe, it looks like a lot of the Republican base is moving away from the specified positions of the Republican Party. Our Psychographic Profiling of your viewing audience indicates that a change in tactics is required. In order to maintain good Perception Control on the viewing public we need to position some of our people as "Ron Paul" Libertarian Conservatives. So, along with a couple others, the control meme is to rhetorically move publicly away from the Republican Party so that the standard control memes of "support our troops", "Conspiracy Theory", etc., may still be effectively employed as control phrases. Repetition of key memes will continue as normal just downplay your allegiance to the Republican Party in order to remain an opinion leader for your audience.
You could well be correct. That is how it has been playing out for a long time.