The Washington Post's Greg Sargent [1] on Tuesday seemed shocked that Joe Scarborough, who he paints as the voice of moderation, agrees more with Democrats on deficit issues than Republicans. On the subject of fiscal problems and the debt, the MSNBC host told Sargent, "I don’t expect to be cheering House Republicans anytime soon."
The left-leaning Post writer asked if, on deficit issues, Scarborough's "views are indeed more in line with Dems than with Republicans."
The cable host replied, "yes." He then went on to attack Barack Obama from the left: "I don’t see the Democrats focusing seriously on Entitlements or cuts. The president is even scared to cut defense."
Sargent then asserted that Scarborough's opinions prove the House GOP are out of the mainstream:
The broader point is that there really is something approaching a consensus on what to do about our short term fiscal problems. For all the suggestions that the two parties are far from reaching that elusive compromise position that lies in the ideological center, the truth is that Democrats already inhabit the ideological middle ground in this debate — as Scarborough himself defines it. You can argue over whether Dems will support large enough entitlement cuts, but the broad strokes are that Dems are far more in sync with this general consensus position than House Republicans are.
Of course, Scarborough has long enjoyed trashing conservatives and his own Republican Party. Way back on November 7, 2006 [2], election night, the ex-GOP Congressman lectured Chris Matthews that he has "spent the past two years trying my best to be very critical of my party."
He added, "In fact, if you look at my transcripts you will see that I have been bashing my party more than the Democratic Party because I want to make sure that I am fair and down the middle."
Bashing his party more than the Democrats, slamming the House GOP? This is MSNBC's voice of the right.
-- Scott Whitlock is the senior news analyst for the Media Research Center. Click here [3] to follow him on Twitter.