{"id":11012,"date":"2007-06-04T15:15:22","date_gmt":"2007-06-04T19:15:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/11012.html"},"modified":"2007-06-04T15:15:22","modified_gmt":"2007-06-04T19:15:22","slug":"media-electionappearance-obsession-turns-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/media-electionappearance-obsession-turns-ugly\/","title":{"rendered":"Media election\/appearance obsession turns ugly"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I had an item<\/a> detailing the bizarre interest in some media circles with the presidential candidates’ (and their spouses’) appearance. Apparently, the craziest example hadn’t come yet.<\/p>\n

Consider this exchange<\/a> on MSNBC this morning, between Joe Scarborough and CQ’s Craig Crawford.<\/p>\n

SCARBOROUGH: Have you seen Fred Thompson’s wife? <\/p>\n

CRAWFORD: Oh, yeah.<\/p>\n

SCARBOROUGH: You think she thinks she works the pole?<\/p>\n

CRAWFORD: That’s what a Hollywood career will do for you, I guess.<\/p>\n

SCARBOROUGH: What do you mean?<\/p>\n

CRAWFORD: You get wives like that.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I’m not even sure where to start with something like this. This level of misogyny is uncommon among major national media figures, especially on the air.<\/p>\n

I can vaguely understand joking about Thompson marrying a much-younger woman. This seems like standard fare for those looking for a cheap laugh related to the presidential race. At the time of their marriage, Thompson was 60; his wife was 35. It’s entirely irrelevant, but if someone’s looking for something to tease him about, this is going to get some attention.<\/p>\n

But even this joke is about the candidate<\/i>, not his spouse, who has nothing to do with politics at all.
\n
\nEd Morrissey’s take<\/a> mirrored my own.<\/p>\n

Anyone who has watched Scarborough for any length of time knows that Scarborough can be an ass. What we didn’t know was that he could also be tacky enough to attack someone’s wife in the most personal of terms. Thompson’s wife is beautiful, but that doesn’t make her a whore or a stripper. Perhaps it speaks to Scarborough’s view of women that he immediately associates one with the other. […]<\/p>\n

This is nothing more than character assassination, and especially egregious as it targets someone who isn’t even a political player. Scarborough should be ashamed of himself.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Indeed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I had an item detailing the bizarre interest in some media circles with the presidential candidates’ (and their spouses’) appearance. Apparently, the craziest example hadn’t come yet. Consider this exchange on MSNBC this morning, between Joe Scarborough and CQ’s Craig Crawford. SCARBOROUGH: Have you seen Fred Thompson’s wife? CRAWFORD: Oh, yeah. SCARBOROUGH: You […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}