I'm watching MSNBC's hosts fill time on the first night of the Republican National Convention, and Tom Brokaw appeared as part of a panel on the O'Donnell show. I think Brokaw was a fine anchor, but he goes way overboard in giving Romney the benefit of the doubt on the racist nature of the "nobody has ever asked to see my birth certificate" line or the other dog whistles the Republicans have been using for years. More after the jump.
After O'Donnell plays the clip of Romney's "joke," and Jonathan Capehart comments on how it plays into the Republicans' general line about the President and how these kind of remarks might affect independent voters, Brokaw says:
I have a contrary point of view about what he said. My own impression is that I don't think any of us know what was in his mind ... My own impression is that ... he's about as awkward with humor as anybody I have ever seen on the stump ... If that were part of a longer narrative from him, I would take it much more seriously than I do. I just don't know whether his clear intention was to raise that once again ...
I honestly don't know whether we can pin this on Governor Romney, that he was trying to exacerbate again the birther question, and my guess is ... that next week at this time it will have a halflife of an ameba ....
I don't know for sure the depth of the ulterior motives here at that point and if he doesn't come back to that, if they don't make it part ... of the thematic campaign, then I think the country will be better served all the way across the board.
So Brokaw is saying that Romney is just a bad comedian, and that we should ignore the remark because it will be gone next week, completely obfuscating that Republicans have been running this game, in one form or another, ever since Obama won the nomination in 2008. And he does it with his wonderful gravitas, his senior correspondent way of speaking ... and O'Donnell allows it. In fact, he fawns on Brokaw, shaking his hand and thanking him for all his work on all the past campaigns.
This narrative reinforces Reince Priebus's obnoxious pushback at Chris Matthews, that people should get over themselves, that they should have a sense of humor. It makes Romney seem like the reasonable one, for goodness sake!
We can't let this happen. The Republican candidates are NOT reasonable. They are NOT playing by Marquis of Queensbury rules. With one hand, they are hitting Democratic candidates below the belt and behind the back, while shoving their other hand into the face of the referee so that he can't see what is going on.
If they are going to fight this way, then we have to fight this way. And we can't let some nervous nellie referee/commentator, no matter how high in the pantheon he may be, call a foul on us.
Tue Aug 28, 2012 at 7:21 AM PT: I appreciate the good comments everyone.