MSNBC's Scarborough: 'Do You Think' Mrs. Fred Thompson 'Works the Pole'?

NewsBusters.org ^ | Ken Shepherd

[SandRat]

Conservative blogs are abuzz with a controversial remark MSNBC's Joe Scarborough made on his Friday "Morning Joe" program about Jeri Thompson, the wife of former Sen. Fred Thompson (R-Tenn.), who is mulling over a White House bid.

Hot Air has the video.

Here's the relevant transcript:

JOE SCARBOROUGH, host, "Morning Joe": Have you seen, um, have you seen Fred Thompson's wife?

CRAIG CRAWFORD, Congressional Quarterly: Oh, yeah!

SCARBOROUGH: You think she works the pole?

CRAWFORD: That's what Hollywood careers will do for you, I guess.

SCARBOROUGH: [Laughs] What do you mean?

CRAWFORD: You get wives like that.

SCARBOROUGH: I mean, look at that guy. God bless him, I love his voice, but I mean, you know, he ain't Robert Redford in 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.'

CRAWFORD: Well, I'd like to see him get back into politics, 'cause I think he's a lousy actor!

Michelle Malkin is critical of the comments, noting that Scarborough replaced Don Imus, who was canned for his "nappy-headed hos" remark about the Rutgers women's basketball team:

Scarborough owes Thompson and his wife an apology.

Be a man, Joe. Would you let someone publicly joke about your wife that way?

On May 11, NewsBusters contributor Noel Sheppard documented Scarborough's kid glove treatment of Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.):

SCARBOROUGH: There's been such a division in this country. I really do think that people are exhausted, and they're looking for a president who can unite the country. . . And a lot of people who probably said some very nasty things about you in the 1990s, are extraordinarily impressed with the type of leadership you provided since you've been in the Senate, how you have been a unifying force.

Last November, NewsBusters senior editor Rich Noyes noticed that Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, declared of his pre-election coverage, "I have been bashing my party more than the Democratic Party."

[SuziQ]

I guess he thinks folks really miss Imus and he’s trying to be just as nasty.

[lightman]

The Ann Coulter post-a-picture rule should apply to all threads about Mrs. Fred!

[Fledermaus]

Frankly nothing. Joe has always been a lying piece of scum hiding behind “conservatism” when it was riding high to get ahead.

I’ve hated his lying guts from the first time I ever say him on TV as a representative. He was a media whore then and is still now.

[hole_n_one]

That said, ‘she works the pole’ or ‘does she work the pole?’ are hilarious phrases.

Yeah, the laughter is deafening.

Can someone please close the sarcasm tags for me......I'm too doubled up with laughter at the moment.

[Uriah_lost]

And it shows how much they fear him that they are starting that so early. I bet Joe wouldn’t be able to make eye contact without wetting his drawers.

[SandRat]

As a somewhat humorous aside the far left is planning to protest the DNC Denver convention in a manner that will make the 1968 Chicago DNC Demonstration pale in comparison.

All I can say about that is...

[ustanker]

Keith Dobermann must be working his “Puppet” strings.

[bray]

In May 2001 America was gripped by the 24/7 cable/network/press coverage of a missing congressional ex-intern, Chandra Levy. A couple of months later a second congressional aide turns up dead and virtually ignored by the media.

Two congressional aides, one missing and one dead, within months of one another is highly unusual – a story in itself, eh?

At the same time Gary Condit was being followed by video cams and a hungry press, the Ft Walton Police Dept came out in their first press conference saying their was no indication of foul play in the death of Lori Klausutis, the aide of Joe Scarborough., found dead in the Congressman’s Fort Walton Beach office.

Whoa, Nellie, unless the FWBPD had a video or eye witness they could not make that immediate statement about a woman found alone, dead, in the office of a US Congressman, or anywhere, with an unexplained injury to her head.

Why would the FWBPD do that? At request of Joe or at the request of the family of Lori Klausutis? But that is the classic way to shut out the media and any further inquiry. The good old boys closed ranks from the start. I could hear the backroom police chatter, “We ain’t letting those New York City types tell us what to do.”

That’s when the rumors began – and was fueled even more when the public (mainly on the Internet, because mainstream media was absent) learned of the injury to Lori’s head AFTER the FWBPD made that initial clairvoyant statement.

[Williams]

That expression is so uncouth I really didn't know what it meant. I thought at first it meant a pole as in the pole in a go go bar. And I'm not too naive in these areas.

To her credit, my wife always disliked Joe Scarborough for pandering to the left.

[borntoraisehogs]

Ask Joe what happened to Lori Klausutis?

[SandRat]

Then we’d be as salacious as Joe.

[Sleeping Beauty]

Absolutely disgusting. (Although we (the GOP) did lower the bar by bringing oral sex into politics.)

Nonetheless — I now know why Joe’s nose is bright red all the time. What a lush!

OTOH — I think Fred is going to have an issue with “Trophy Wife” syndrome. Women voters don’t like that at all.

[SandRat]

“I thought at first it meant a pole as in the pole in a go go bar.”

Were it that polite,... the inference was more to the thinking of Larry Flynt of ‘Hustler Magazine.’

[bray]

Just the facts: Scarborough got a divorce. Then he suddenly resigned from Congress, just six months after re-election. (Invoked old fallback excuse of wanting to “spend more time” with children.) Then he suddenly resigned as publisher of the Independent Florida Sun. Then, just as suddenly, Lori Klausutis, 28-year-old staffer to Scarborough, was found dead in Scarborough’s district office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Date was July 20, 2001. Cause of death: Blow to the head. Conclusion: Heart condition caused her to collapse, fall, hit head on a desk, and die. Story barely a blip on the radar. Lots of people left with lots of questions.

[Grimmy]

They’ll need to schedule following conventions in Pyongyang. The DNC moves any farther to the left and we can expect them to start a process of political purification through purges and assassinations within their own ranks.

[WOSG]

His conservatism must have been put in a blind trust as part of his MSNBC contract.

[Shortstop7]

Oh, that’s silly.

I find this all hilarious. Trying to find fault with Fred and his wife.

Women voters will have problems with Fred’s wife?

No.........nada. Not gonna happen.

Hillary .....not what’s a problem.

[Plutarch]

Ask Joe what happened to Lori Klausutis?

Heck, ask Joe what happened to Charles Dickinson .

[Josh Painter]

stockstrader wrote: “How is that any less insulting than what Imus said?”

Not a bit. That’s the point. Joe Scuzzboreough should get the full Imus treatment:

1. public apology
2. fired

Contact MSNBC now, and tell them that Joe must go!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339/