It's one thing for Republicans and conservatives to question whether we're on the right track in Iraq and to start insisting on substantive results, but when people like Joe Scarborough, host of a low-ratings television talk show on MSNBC called Scarborough Country, suggest that "George Bush is an idiot", they have crossed the line of legitimate and civil political disagreement and have joined the ranks of liberals for whom this sort of invective is considered standard discourse.
The Washington Post's Peter Baker reports that:
For 10 minutes, the talk show host grilled his guests about whether "George Bush's mental weakness is damaging America's credibility at home and abroad." For 10 minutes, the caption across the bottom of the television screen read, "IS BUSH AN 'IDIOT'?"
But the host was no liberal media elitist. It was Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman turned MSNBC political pundit. And his answer to the captioned question was hardly "no." While other presidents have been called stupid, Scarborough said: "I think George Bush is in a league by himself. I don't think he has the intellectual depth as [sic]these other people."
"as these other people"? How much intellectual depth does that sentence evince?
Scarborough is one of those whom Thomas Paine, surveying the early desertion and disaffection from the ranks of Washington's Continental Army, referred to as summer soldiers and sunshine warriors. They're with you as long as conditions are congenial and the struggle looks promising, but as soon as adversity strikes they slip out of camp.
Machiavelli cautioned his Prince to be wary of those who profess their unwavering loyalty and willingness to give their lives for the regime when dangers were remote, but when the enemy is pounding at the gate and the Prince needs all the help he can muster, he finds these "loyal cadres" to have fled the city.
People like Joe Scarborough, not content to simply critique the president's policy, but wishing also to boost an anemic viewing audience by insulting him in the most demeaning and humiliating way, would have no doubt led the flight from Washington's encampment. What he did was a cheap shot taken for the sake of television ratings and it turned Scarborough Country into an uncivil moral wasteland.
Besides, where does Joe Scarborough get off calling into question somebody else's intelligence?