Is Morning Joe The New Crossfire?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Media, VideoRemember Crossfire?
No, not the hacktastic version with Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala/James Carville that was publicly embarrassed by Jon Stewart in 2004 and was subsequently cancelled.
No, I’m talking about the original one with Pat Buchanan, John McLaughlin and Tom Braden. You know, the one that seemed like a genuine debate show. Eventually John McLaughlin went off and created the seminal show The McLaughlin Group which is still on today and is the gold standard as far as debate shows go, but Crossfire sort of started it all off.
Well, I’m finding more and more that Morning Joe with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski is quickly becoming a must watch in the same way Crossfire was and McLaughlin Group is now.
Here’s a clip where Joe and Mika argue both sides of the gay marriage issue with Pat Buchanan and Jonathan Capehart of the Wash Post.
Long story short, Joe and Mika are two of the most honest brokers on TV right now because they’re not afraid to challenge their own assumptions. That’s surprisingly rare right now in the media and I hope they get more credit for it.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 24th, 2008 and is filed under Media, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
December 24th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Is McLaughlin really the gold standard?
I knew a guy who drove him around – dude is really weird, reads books about immortality apparently.
I enjoy Morning Joe. That’s the sort of thing a liberal needs to stay quiet about though. :)
December 24th, 2008 at 10:20 am
I agree with you on this one, Justin. It seems Morning Joe has taken a backwards path to get there, though, as I remember watching it one morning at leats a year ago and Joe was just trying to put out a hatchet job on some Dem, I don’t remember who. Having watched it several times in the last couple of months, the intellectualism of the show has definitely increased and the thoughtful and (mostly) reasoned discussion (erm, debate!) is something I look forward to when I watch it…
… even with J Pat Buchanan.
December 24th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
Every morning before work. The entertainment segment that Geist does with the resident *expert* couldn’t worthless. Fortunately that’s not what I’m tuning in for. Justin just likes watching Chuck Todd shout down Buchanan and Noonan.
December 24th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
I tend to like Morning Joe too, but this particular discussion was bland, typical, and amateur. I could point you to ten blogs that make better arguments vis gay marriage than Jonathan Capehart. Neither side really even rebutted the other. Joe compared the gay marriage ballot losses to a sports game–an utterly silly analogy–and no one deigned to rebut it. Buchanan and Barnicle make the ‘definition argument’–nobody challenges them on their definition. Capehart mentions civil rights, but only in an abstract, buzzword-like fashion. It took Joe Scarborough to finally put the equality argument into half-way decent terms, asking Buchanan how gay marriage would affect his own marriage.
I hate television. :)
December 25th, 2008 at 6:55 am
[...] http://donklephant.com/2008/12/24/is-morning-joe-the-new-crossfire/ [...]
December 29th, 2008 at 8:07 am
it’s become must watch TV for me – post-election. wrt this discussion – I’m surprised at how Joe was able to turn the discussion around on Pat albeit for the last 20 seconds. You’re never going to get deep thoughtful debate on TV like you will in the newspaper, on vlogs/blogs and even on the radio, but the intellectual bar has been raised on this show.
save for Joe’s occasional righty rants. I just wish Mika could articulate her thoughts better as his foil
February 4th, 2009 at 6:29 am
it belongs on Fox
February 5th, 2009 at 6:19 am
The Economics 101 I learned – Early man bartered a side of beef for medicine ferns. Barter became too complex and money became a means of exchange and has nothing else to do with a countries ability to produce. A countries wealth is its ability to produce and natural resources. How much money is cranked out by the government may not matter – as long as people can get the stuff they need (food shelter medical and maybe a TV and car). The money is only a means of exchange!! A depression or recession is only a breakdown it the way the money is spread out so everyone can get the stuff they need. We do not have a real famine or lack of steel to build cars. We only have a breakdown in people getting the money to buy them. We get a breakdown in ethics where the greedy think the money is the stuff and don’t care if the rest of their citizens get stuff or not.