How My Dispute with Joe Scarborough Sheds Light on the Civil War Within the GOP

Editor's note: Both videos of Max Blumenthal's appearances on MSNBC's Joe Scarborough's Morning Joe show appear at the bottom of this article.

Before I first appeared on Morning Joe on September 22, I was warned about Joe Scarborough's tendency to filibuster guests he does not agree with, and to do so in a belligerent manner. But to my surprise, the former Republican congressman proved a remarkably genial host, presiding over a civil but spirited discussion of my book, Republican Gomorrah and extremism in the GOP.

Perhaps Joe's civility was rooted in cluelessness; when I was announced on the set as "the YouTube Michael Moore," Scarborough excitedly asked a producer if I was "the ACORN guy," referring to James O'Keefe, the young right-wing activist whose hidden cameras prompted a congressional investigation into the Obama-linked community- organizing group. Nevertheless, by the end of my segment, Joe promised to bring me back on. "I want to debate you more on this," Scarborough insisted.

I returned on October 7, just days after Scarborough instigated a food fight with Rush Limbaugh, by criticizing his higher-rated competitor for celebrating Obama's failure to secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago. Scarborough opened the segment by launching a scattershot of breathless accusations at me, including that I was being "intolerant" of evangelical Christians "concerned by the radicalism of the 1960s."

When I attempted to respond that figures like Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), who had labeled President Barack Obama "an enemy of humanity," were the truly intolerant ones, and that the right-wing opposition sought nothing less than the delegitimization of the president, Scarborough rattled off a flurry of examples -- each one without context -- of supposed Democratic extremism. Joe pointed twice to Rep. Jerry Nadler, who had called the disruptions of town hall-style healthcare forums by the far-right Tea Party movement "a fascist tactic."

"My point to you was that we can both pick out extreme rhetoric on both sides who are reckless and irresponsible on both sides" Scarborough declared. "We've gotta step back and try to figure out how to heal this country."

But were "both sides" equally culpable for the conflict currently polarizing the country? This narrative had been popular among many pundits during Obama's campaign for president and might have survived after his inauguration had Obama not gone to excessive lengths to generate bipartisan Republican sponsorship for healthcare reform while tens of thousands of right-wingers marched on the National Mall with signs comparing him to Hitler and Stalin; or if Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA), of the ranking Republican negotiating health care on the Finance Committee, had not warned that Obama might "pull the plug on grandma" if his healthcare plan passed, and urged his constituents to read Glenn Beck.

If I agreed with Scarborough's storyline celebrating an end to the culture war the right has intensified against Obama, then, as Rodney King might have said, we could have all just got along. Instead, when I refused to accept his version and debated it, the host grew exasperated and angry, shouting again, "You're being intolerant!"

Scarborough's reflexive response to the question of the right's responsibility for the trashing of Obama was to dilute and confuse the issue by blaming "the 1960s," the original focus of the right's culture war for decades. With the dog-whistle of "the 1960's," Joe instantly transformed into a 1994 re-enactor, recalling the crusade when he and a group of young conservatives backed Newt Gingrich's Contract for America, attempted to cut off AIDS research funding, seized the Congress, twice shut down the federal government, and impeached Bill Clinton in the name of the culture war. In touting his record as an authentic "small government conservative," Scarborough claimed credit for the federal budget surplus, prompting me to remind him that the surplus was created through Clinton's economic stewardship. The mere mention of Clinton seemed to incite Scarborough's rage even further.