Scarborough's fair
The Republican TV host reveals why he launched his "Is Bush an 'idiot'?" segment and why conservatives are afraid to question the president.
By Alex Koppelman
Read more: George W. Bush, Politics, News, MSNBC, Alex Koppelman
Joe Scarborough
Aug. 23, 2006 | A member of the so-called Class of 1994, the 54 Republican freshmen swept into the U.S. House by Newt Gingrich's Contract with America, Joe Scarborough resigned his seat in 2001. Now the host of MSNBC's "Scarborough Country," he has recently been the focus of much attention from both Democrats and Republicans for his criticism of the president. On Aug. 15, he aired a segment that asked "Is Bush an 'idiot'?" Salon asked Scarborough what brought him to criticize a man he once bragged he'd helped get elected, and how he's dealing with the reaction.
What prompted you to do the now infamous "Is Bush an 'idiot'?" segment?
Somebody had suggested that we get Linda Ronstadt's quote where she called the president an idiot and do what we've been doing for the past three or four years, where we make fun of a Hollywood star questioning the president's intelligence. It's something we've been doing mindlessly over the past several years, but as I was reading it, I couldn't help but think, "Well, wait a second -- I've been hearing this from conservatives for the past year or so. Why don't we ask a question: whether Linda Ronstadt, Democrats and Hollywood left-wing types are on to something." So we put the question up, and I suppose if our lower third had read "Is Linda Ronstadt right?" instead of "Is Bush an 'idiot'?" in quotes, it would have garnered a lot less attention. But we put it up that way, and it has sparked a firestorm. The White House is unhappy. A lot of conservatives are unhappy. Well, not conservatives. A lot of Republican loyalists are unhappy. But again, the only thing I did was ask publicly what a lot of conservatives have been saying privately since Katrina and the Harriet Miers nomination.
That brings up another question I wanted to ask you -- you've been tough on liberals in the past, and you continue to be tough on them now. With your recent shift in viewpoint, have your feelings on liberalism, and the liberal critics of the administration, changed at all?
Obviously since the things they were predicting about Iraq have been proven to be accurate, or at least more accurate than what the administration was saying back in 2003, you certainly have to tip your hat to them.
At the same time, I believed then, and I still believe now, that what we did in Iraq was worth trying. We've had three democratic elections, and unfortunately the country's still descending into chaos. I suppose the biggest criticism, really, should be leveled at Donald Rumsfeld for trying to win the war on the cheap, like Tom Friedman and others have been saying. But looking back at it, there was no way we could have been successful in Iraq with the troop levels that we had over there. That, in part, is why conservatives like me are charging that George Bush is intellectually incurious, and that he stifles dissent.
I think, really, one of the most telling parts of [Bob] Woodward's book "Bush at War" is when he asks Bush if he talked to Colin Powell about the invasion of Iraq, and he says, "No, I didn't feel the need to, because I knew how we was going to respond, that he was against the war," which sort of sends a chill up your spine, because those are the people you want the president talking to. You want him asking tough questions of aides who actually disagree with him. If you talk to people at the DoD or at the State Department or Capitol Hill, they'll all tell you basically the same thing, that the president is a man who's not only politically incurious, but is also a leader who does not like dissent, and I think that's very dangerous.
And if Don Rumsfeld came through talking about winning the war on the cheap, that's one reason why he needed to talk to Colin Powell, because he's always -- I mean, he said it in the first Gulf War, and he said it in this gulf war -- said that you don't win wars on the cheap: You don't want a fair fight. You use military force very reluctantly, but when you use it, you use overpowering, overwhelming force, destroy your enemy as quickly as possible, and then bring the troops back home. That wasn't done, and I think if the president had asked tougher questions in February of 2003, we wouldn't find ourselves where we are in 2006.
That's a very long yes answer to your question.
