Anything You’d Like to Apologize For, ‘Morning Joe?’

Created: July 10, 2009 12:06 | Last updated: July 31, 2020 00:00

Much remains unclear about the substance of the “significant actions” that CIA Director Leon Panetta conceded that the agency didn’t sufficiently brief to Congress. What’s absolutely crystal clear is that for days on end, MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough popped off at the mouth about how the CIA would never ever never mislead Congress and how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) “needs to shut up” instead of saying otherwise. Just check out this new Media Matters video (after the jump).

I carry no brief for Pelosi, and Pelosi could indeed be misrepresenting what CIA actually briefed to her, even though the additional questions about its briefing schedule are numerous. But if Scarborough had bothered reading, say, an acclaimed history of the CIA, he would immediately see that it’s extremely well documented that the CIA has often misled Congress about sensitive intelligence programs. Basic due diligence, unfortunately, would get in the way of his preferred storyline, so don’t expect anything like this latest self-induced humiliation to prompt an on-air reflection of the way “Morning Joe” operates. The unaccountable ability of some cable TV hosts to just pretend to their audiences like they know what they’re talking about is really staggering.

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