Morning Joe’s “troubling” report about liberal elitists from the Upper West Side
Today the Morning Joe crew was making a big deal about this video of co-host Willie Geist pretending (?) to be a McCain-Palin supporter on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They were shocked (shocked, I tell you!) about the responses Geist got from passerbys. You’ll see at the end of it Mike Barnicle says it proves “why so many people are so right, no pun intended, to really loathe so many on the left.” Mika Brzezinski was playing the full-on drama queen after it aired (she was “troubled”!) and everyman’s everyman Joe “Gumby Head” Scarborough wanted people on the Upper West Side to “take a closer look at themselves” because they’re “really, really hostile people.” Sounds pretty bad, right? Take a look:
Yep, that’s it.
And since I’ve been documenting the “polite” way McCain-Palin supporters “disagree” with people who are backing Obama, I felt the need to bang out a quick email to them…
Are you guys kidding me about the upper west side? That footage with Willie was “eye-opening”? For the most part, everyone seemed pretty cordial. Send Willie to a small southern town with Obama t-shirts and then get back to me.
And if Joe and Mika thought that was eye-opening, tell them to watch these videos from outside of McCain and Palin rallies. There’s plenty more than what I’m providing in this email. These are only some of the more recent ones that have surfaced:
And then there’s this report from Nate Silver’s blog FiveThirtyEight.com:
Tony Garcia, 63, and Raul Sorando, 31, were suddenly surrounded by an angry mob. There is a moment in a crowd when something goes from mere yelling to a feeling of danger, and that’s what we witnessed. As photographers and police raced to the scene, the crowd elevated from stable to fast-moving scrum, and the two men were surrounded on all sides as we raced to the circle.
The event maybe lasted a minute, two at the most, before police competently managed to hustle the two away from the scene and out of the danger zone. Only FiveThirtyEight tracked the two men down for comment, a quarter mile down the street.
“People were screaming ‘Terrorist!’ ‘Communist!’ ‘Socialist!’” Sorando said when we caught up with him. “I had a guy tell me he was gonna kill me.”
Asked what had precipitated the event, “We were just chanting ‘Obama!’ and holding our signs. That was it. And the crowd suddenly got crazy.”
Breaking down the front door of a suspected al-Qaeda stronghold in Fallujah took great courage. But even that fearless feat pales in comparison to the dangerous mission that Willie Geist undertook.
I totally agree with you K that Nov. 4th can’t get here soon enough. I really find a stark contrast between the responses from the “left” and the “right” depicted in the video. The most “hateful” thing in the video seems to be the word “moron”. But to make things more statistically correct, we need to see more videos of these. For example, why not do a comparison at an Obama campaign rally? That will definitely be the most suitable way to contrast the responses from the people.
Comment by Zero on 10/31/08 at 08:50 AM
Good for you for pushing back against phony equivalence. “Disturbing” my ass. I’d like to invite Willie, Mike, Joe and Mika to accompany me on an Obama canvass in Wingnutopia, FL. Scarborough knows exactly what that would be like.
What a bunch of assholes. I think I’ll send my email after the land-fucking-slide on Tuesday. Should be pretty evident by then that the Upper West Side better reflects the ‘new’ real America, than the outdated version they’re clinging to.
I saw the Willie Geist video on Morning Joe this morning. Would have been far more interesting if he had staked out some spot on the Upper East Side, like in front of Ralph Lauren or the Met. (For the record, I grew up on the UES and then lived on the UWS post-college and the latter is way more liberal, as Geist surely knew.)
These false equivalencies are absolutely ridiculous, as you note, Kevin, but playing fairly has never been the GOP’s strong suit.
Maybe if the GOP hadn’t spent the last eight years fucking up everything they touched, they’d get a better reception.
It’s like the drunk who crashed your car into a tree demanding that you be nice to him.
Comment by Tom65 on 10/31/08 at 09:32 AM
In the interest of fairness , Gumby Head should send Willie down to his former district in the Florida panhandle wearing an Obama shirt. I’ve got a feeling that “moron” would be the most polite response he would get. Hell , we might even get to see a public lynching on national T.V. Actually , that might make for some quality entertainment , although it would be better if they had Barnicle do the bit.
Comment by Speedy on 10/31/08 at 10:07 AM
You know what is troubling? The fact that my head just exploded....Jesus mother fucking christ you have got to be kidding me...close minded? Ah fuck my head just exploded again..at least I’ve got my Halloween costume: guy with twice exploded head. Maybe if I hit myself in the head just right with a hammer I will go into a coma for the next four days....Jesus fucking retards.
Comment by iceberg wedge on 10/31/08 at 10:23 AM
guy with twice exploded head
Comedy gold!
Let me depressingly predict that whatever we’re experiencing now will pale in comparison to the continuous idiot whinefest beginning January 20.
Comment by trollhattan on 10/31/08 at 11:42 AM
I insult people I actually like and read every day on blogs worse than this faux “disturbing” bullshit.
Comment by HumboldtBlue on 10/31/08 at 11:46 AM
Not one of those hateful liberals called John McCain a war hero!
They failed to fellate him for his service to Murka!
Clearly we must hijack a plane and crash it into the UWS!
Sincerely, al Christianofascista
Comment by Allan on 10/31/08 at 12:33 PM
That’s just plain silly. As with most statistical analysis, the media is totally off-base. They are looking at a subset of New Yorkers, some of must educated and opinionated people in the country. The key here is that they are as a whole opinionated. Would the reaction been different in a liberal ‘section’ of another city? Yes, absolutely. We’ve already seen the reaction in strongly pro-Republican areas to Obama supporters. To make a parable from liberals to upper west side new yorkers is where they’re wrong. They’re not taking into account the people in question. I would, however, be interested to see what happens if he did this in other cities.
Basically, he went to the heart of the beast and is claiming that those few represent the liberals en masse. The same claim is wrong for criticizing those at McCain/Palin rallies who have such strong opinions. Let’s just carry on with our lives and stop worry about name calling. As a whole, it degrades our political effort.
Comment by newob on 10/31/08 at 01:14 PM
Oh dear. With the clutching at the pearls and the rending of the clothes…
I live in “a small town” and I have my Obama gear on and I don’t get that type of response. I am serious that some of us on the left are snobbish (elitist isn’t the correct word) as there are some on the right that are snobbish about their support. Anybody who is proud to disown a friend because they support another politician needs to realize that friendship is a lot more than politics. A lot of my friends are complete opposites than me, and I enjoy that because we challenge each others pov.
