The Atlantic / David Frum: The Sound of Fear on Air

[Dennis Donovan]

The Atlantic / David Frum - (archived: https://archive.ph/dGh1r ) The Sound of Fear on Air

It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said.

By David Frum



December 4, 2024, 2:37 PM ET

This morning, I had an unsettling experience.

I was invited onto MSNBC’s Morning Joe to talk from a studio in Washington, D.C., about an article I’d written on Trump’s approach to foreign policy. Before getting to the article, I was asked about the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense—specifically about an NBC News report that his heavy drinking worried colleagues at Fox News and at the veterans organizations he’d headed. (A spokesman for the Trump transition told NBC, “These disgusting allegations are completely unfounded and false, and anyone peddling these defamatory lies to score political cheap shots is sickening.” )

I answered by reminding viewers of some history:

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated John Tower, senator from Texas, for secretary of defense. Tower was a very considerable person, a real defense intellectual, someone who deeply understood defense, unlike the current nominee. It emerged that Tower had a drinking problem, and when he was drinking too much he would make himself a nuisance or worse to women around him. And for that reason, his nomination collapsed in 1989. You don’t want to think that our moral standards have declined so much that you can say: Let’s take all the drinking, all the sex-pesting, subtract any knowledge of defense, subtract any leadership, and there is your next secretary of defense for the 21st century.

I told this story in pungent terms. It’s cable TV, after all. And I introduced the discussion with a joke: “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”

At the next ad break, a producer spoke into my ear. He objected to my comments about Fox and warned me not to repeat them. I said something noncommittal and got another round of warning. After the break, I was asked a follow-up question on a different topic, about President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son. I did not revert to the earlier discussion, not because I had been warned, but because I had said my piece. I was then told that I was excused from the studio chair. Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski read an apology for my remarks.

A little bit earlier in this block there was a comment made about Fox News, in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol. The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we’re in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there’s a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that.

/snip

[lapfog_1]

1. dear David, don't expect to see you again on Morning Joe

or possibly anywhere on Quisling TV.

of course I stopped watching MSNBC so I won't see your there anyway.

[dchill]

2. IDK about anyone else, but I'm ready for "Morning Frum."

[Irish_Dem]

3. We are becoming more like Russia and China every day.

Terrifying.

[herding cats]

7. It's definitely beginning to feel this way.

While it's nice to not be alone in my interpretation of things, I'd kind of rather just be wrong and/or excentric.

[Irish_Dem]

36. I wish I was wrong too.

But we are not wrong.

[Botany]

21. Yup! They know the election was a sham and are doing their best to pretend it wasn't a coup.

America is truly fucked.

[Blue_Tires]

41. By flag-waving "patriots" no less

Trumpers don't care if they have to tear everything down as long as they get to rule over the rubble...

[Irish_Dem]

43. Wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible.

And hanging on to white male minority rule.

They will not share their power or money.
Everything belongs to them.

[newdeal2]

4. Wtf was Mika trying to say?

Such fealty is sickening.

[Drum]

5. Joe & Mika are grotesque, simply pathetic.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

6. Will Joe and Meek be heading to Fox to deal with hurt fee-fees?

Maybe they could all have a hot toddy on the couch. I think what Frum said was spot on (in above text). I'm not a cable TV viewer, btw.

[Seeking Serenity]

8. I've said it before, and I'll keep saying it.

Last edited Wed Dec 4, 2024, 09:48 PM - Edit history (1)

Democrats cozying up to old Bushite neocon chicken hawks that we detested with a white-hot passion in times before gives me the ick.

They are war mongers first and foremost. Just because we share a common hatred of Trump doesn't mean we should be jumping into bed with or helping to rehabilitate the images of these blood-soaked monsters.

They'd have to come out in full-throated support of higher taxes, universal health care, and so forth to prove to me that they've truly changed. ETA: And be fully committed to being anti-war.

[ThePartyThatListens]

46. msnbc is chuck full of those types

Many of these neo-cons I see praised on this site daily.

It is kinda sickening.

I hope we snap out of this spell sooner, rather than later.

[TNNurse]

9. My goodness...they have gone full MAGA.

Cannot watch.

[totodeinhere]

10. I have never trusted Joe Scarborough.

Remember he was one of the House's impeachment managers when the pukes impeached President Clinton. But then he went on MSNBC and changed his stripes and left the Republican Party in order to fit in with that network. He is obviously a phony.

[Botany]

24. And Joe was one of the point men in installing w and stopping the counting of the vote in Florida 2000

He also made his bones being on the front lines by being anti abortion too.

[arthritisR_US]

27. I have never watched their show and always thought he was

a fecking sod.

[kysrsoze]

26. You're absolutely right. I remember when Tucker Carlson was on MSNBC

These pricks go wherever the money is, and say what they’re told. Joe and Mika can both fuck off.

[Nigrum Cattus]

11. Wow - they don't get it

They are being played. Once the right has used them up, they will be
kicked to the curb. Gutless.

[PSPS]

16. Yeah, they'll cry all the way to the bank.

[NBachers]

12. I'd love to see him flash a gaping moon on his way off the stage.

[CrispyQ]

13. They could give a crap about Fox hosts.

They're worried the con is watching & heard his defense pic got slammed.

[dlk]

14. This is why I no longer watch Morning Joe

I don’t have any interest in watching Trump apologists and biased propaganda from Mika and Joe.

[Jarqui]

15. When you've lost the media, it makes it very difficult to fight back.

That is where we are.

[Demobrat]

17. That's it. I will never tune in to that channel again.

I will follow my favorites on BlueSky and to wherever they wind up next, but it’s clear who owns MSNBC, and that makes it not worth watching them or their damn drug commercials.

[tulipsandroses]

18. I'm done with MSNBC for awhile. I will resume at some point, Morning Joe has lost me

I actually enjoyed the show, not for Joe or Mika, but I liked their guest panel. I didn’t mind Joe’s rants. Cowardice and sucking up to trump is unacceptable.

[yellow dahlia]

19. Yikes!

False equivalency with Fox - alternative facts just as good as the truth...reasonable opinions on both sides. Aaargh!

[SunSeeker]

20. Joe and Mika can fuck right off. Never watched them. Never will.

Fucking cowards.

[MontanaMama]

22. I haven't turned on any cable news since

election night. Don’t miss it.

[DallasNE]

23. This Really Reminds Me Of McCarthyism

Where everybody was afraid to stand up to Sen. Joseph McCarthy. Then one day someone stood up and said "have you no shame" and that expression broke the back of McCarthyism.

[wnylib]

33. That was when shame and decency mattered in most people's minds.

Not so today.

[barbtries]

25. So, David Frum,

perhaps you take your commentary elsewhere. Because it does suck, badly.

[yorkster]

28. Well, I think this particular commentary was

pretty chilling. Also think it took some spine to write it.

[barbtries]

29. i like also

that he slapped back just that fast.

[yorkster]

31. Good point. The timing alone is powerful.

Then there's the content....

[Meowmee]

30. omg

[jalan48]

32. Manufacturing consent is what the great Noam Chomsky said about the mass media in 1988.

[tishaLA]

34. Joe and Mika seem to be angling for a job

In the Murdoch empire. I'll cheer their departure if it happens.

[czarjak]

35. From Frum, that's rich.

When W and Rove were "creating our own reality", he was in lock-step too. Vlad was listening AND watching. And here we are. I'd tell the whole lot to GFY's, but as Clint told the empty chair, "You can't do that" .

[BoRaGard]

37. Pathetic to see them GROVEL

[Dennis Donovan]

38. Scarborough just discussed this

He said that the reason they told Frum to tone it down wasn't out of fear, it was out of concern for Hegseth's alcoholism (they felt Frum's comments were "mean-spirited" because alcoholism is a disease).

[intheflow]

40. CYA.

It’s bullshit. If it were about mean-spiritedness, they wouldn’t have fawned over the 🍊*, the most mean spirited person to ever be elected.

[intheflow]

39. Well, I guess they don't mind losing even more viewers.

[Blue_Tires]

42. If nobody is fighting Trumpism anymore

If everyone is obediently falling in line, what's even the point anymore?!

[Oneironaut]

44. The MSM are all boot-licking cowards.

It’s not shocking - especially from a program that had its hosts run to Mar-A-Lago and polish Trump’s boots with their tongues while he laughed at how pathetic they are. And, he’s right.

[stollen]

45. Ciao Joe and Mika...

LA Times and Washington Post...