Bizarre Fight Plays out between Joe Scarborough and Markos Moulitsas on Twitter

Special thank you to Clio the Leo for turning me on to this story.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Bizarre-Fight-Plays-out-be-by-Steven-Leser-100529-555.html


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May 29, 2010

By Steven Leser


It was like a train wreck. You didn't want to keep reading but you were compelled to keep on keeping on. The Twitter fight between Joe Scarborough of MSNBC's morning Joe and Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas was spread out over several hours in the early afternoon on Friday. Supporters and detractors of each man chimed in and it soon degenerated into a bloody mess. Halfway through the fracas, Joe blocked Markos but the messages kept coming at both men from third parties.

The incident started when Mr. Scarborough issued an attack on President Obama regarding the Sestak job offer. If you haven't been following this, Republicans are asserting that it was wrong for President Obama to offer, directly or indirectly, a job to Mr. Sestak during his Democratic US Senate nomination race against Arlen Spector. Scarborough tweeted:


@JoeNBC - The Sestak story is as unbelievable a cover story as Nixon throwing little Checkers under the bus. A farce on it's face. Luckily for the White House, the media has been negligent on this story since Day 1. The press will let this laughable story slide.
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Markos Moulitsas is getting a bit of a reputation for being direct and confrontational. He once caused former Colorado representative Tom Tancredo to storm out of a David Schuster hosted segment on MSNBC because he raised the issue that Mr. Tancredo avoided military service by claiming he was too depressed to be drafted.

Moulitsas was in no mood for this issue to be raised about the Sestak job offer and decided to fire back at Scarborough using an internet rumor that has been circulating about Mr. Scarborough since his days as a US congressman from Florida:


@markos - Like story of a certain dead intern. RT @JoeNBC: Luckily for the White House, the media has been negligent on this story since Day 1.

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If you aren't familiar with the story, a 28 year old intern who worked in Mr. Scarborough's office, Lori Klausutis, was found dead in the congressman's office one morning. If you google the name Lori Klausutis, you will find no shortage of websites that claim that she was murdered by Mr. Scarborough. There was an investigation and as the Washington Post reported:

"FORT WALTON BEACH, FL. - Lori Klausutis, a 28-year-old office worker for Rep. Joe Scarborough (R-Fl), was found dead in the congressman's district office. Police said preliminary findings from the medical examiner's office showed no foul play or any outward indication of suicide."

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There is every likelihood that the medical examiner was right and she died from fainting and hitting her head on a desk in the office late at night while no one else was there and thus was found dead the next morning.

There were also things that seemed odd. As many of us remarked at the time, Lori was a 28 year old runner and had had a physical exam not so long before she died. The investigation was remarkably swift and virtually no one said anything after a few days. Everything was wrapped up nice and tidy. You cannot even find a picture of Lori Klausutis on the web, at least not easily.


Let's assume that the official finding is the correct one because there is no evidence otherwise. Can you imagine the furor that would have erupted if Joe Scarborough had been a Democratic congressman? Actually, I think it is very easy to imagine this because of California congressman Gary Condit. One of Mr. Condit's interns, Chandra Levy, disappeared in May of 2001, only two months before Lori Klausutis died in Mr. Scarborough's office. Unlike the situation with Mr. Scarborough, the Condit/Levy incident blew up into a national scandal that played out in the media for years and we didn't know for sure if Chandra was dead or simply didn't want to be found. In fact, it wasn't until 2009 when another person was indicted for Chandra Levy's death that suspicion finally was lifted from Gary Condit. By that time, Condit had lost his congressional seat having lost a 2002 primary, the first ever election that he had lost.


By the way, in contrast with Lori Klausutis, there are several thousand pictures of Chandra Levy on the web. We feel sorry for her and are made to transfer some of that as anger toward Mr. Condit (at least until the real killer was found) but there are no pictures of Lori for us to raise any kind of feelings for her or what happened to her.


While it is true that a difference in the two situations was that Mr. Condit had admitted to an affair with Chandra Levy, its also true that there was literally a body found in Mr. Scarborough's office, i.e. the office of a sitting US Congressman. Like with Mr. Condit, had Joe Scarborough been a Democrat, regardless of whether any evidence pointed to his guilt, it would have been front page news for years and he would have been so tarnished by GOP innuendo that there is no way he would have landed the cushy and lucrative job at MSNBC.


Getting back to the Twitter fight between Moulitsas and Scarborough, the raising of the Lori Klausutis issue really upset Mr. Scarborough. Mr. Scarborough issued the following tweet several times:


JoeNBC Anyone in media who interviews @markos, know that you're extending your credibility to someone who regularly suggests that I'm a murderer.

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And also said things like:

JoeNBC @markos What is wrong with you? Is the blood sport of politics really that important to you? You have my pity.


JoeNBC @markos Unbelieveable. You have a long history of spreading lies suggesting I am a murderer. This is the 3rd or 4th time by my count.

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I hear you Joe and because you are almost certainly innocent, its not fair that someone should assert otherwise. The fact is, however, you are engaging in what I consider to be a minimally-analogous witch-hunt against President Obama for something that ought to be a non-issue and you aren't the only one doing it. The bulk of the party that you are/were associated with is doing it too. That might be the point that Markos was trying to raise in the inimitable way that he tends to do things.


It doesn't feel right that someone should raise red-herrings or what should be non-issues about you to make political points, does it? Maybe this embarrassing incident will help you get the message and will compel you to carry that message to your former colleagues in the GOP. I'm tired of the GOP talking about things like blow-jobs instead of jobs for the people of this country. We don't have time for this. Too many of your constituents are out of work.

a large sum of money?

I can only speak for myself but if a member of my immediate family was young and suddenly dead, I would be raising hell about it.

I wonder what her family members think?

The problem with any Republican shenanigans or potential shenanigans in that part of the country (FL Panhandle) is that the good old boy network is so strong there is no telling what they are capable of sweeping under the rug.

and due process would be wrong, and would be like a media trial that is done to many people in unfair ways.

How many times do we think some media comment about a person is true, guilt by media, not by fair trial.

It is something that happens to often.

And he should be thought innocent, since he was never convicted of such a crime in a court of law by a jury of his peers.



Interestingly, that is a reason to not blame an individual or group for something, but an ideology, then try to find if that ideology exists in an area by observation.

For instance can we blame bankers, or oil executives? Not without a trial, however we have observed that areas that have huge amounts of burden of proof of wrong doing did not go to trial. So in some way that two tier system makes it necessary to assume some guilt in some situations, since justice has not been shown to exist, or information systems are not accurate.

So blaming the banks, is that fair? well you have to look at the effects, what has come from their actions, and without a legal system try to decide if they are doing what is best for society from those effects, it becomes best guess. While also tring to find their intents so you can tell if it was intentional or lack of knowledge.

Justice is an interesting concept in our society.

We're always getting our arses kicked and they have an easy ride. So we either dive into the cesspool or get trounced. Or so it seems.

and it obviously doesn't. It hurts shen it's done to you, doesn't it Joe! All the crap raised about President Obama, from not born in the US to this most recent NON_SCANDLE, feels the same damn way to him! If you live in a glass house, quit throwing rocks!!!!

He simply tweeted that the media had let a story slide about a dead office worker in the Florida office of Joe Scarborough.

I recall the whole incident. There are many odd things about the matter. The medical examiner who rushed the matter closed was one of those weird FIXers -- he had been carrying body parts around in his car!

surrounding this 20 something girl being found with a cracked skull in his congressional office? We'd still be hearing about it non stop 10 years later.

It is more of a generalization on the topic and how some speak about it in posts.

He is doing a Rove trick. He says Markos is calling him a murderer. Deflecting the listener's attention from the visual of a dead woman in his office to the reporter's "unfair accusation". It's clever words. Totally calculated.

media outlet in America screamed Chandra Levy! Chandra Levy! Chandra Levy!

It was the year I stopped believing in the media without a fact check.

but I don't have to have "beyond a reasonable doubt" to form an opinion, especially if I'm open minded enough to change that opinion if I'm shown conclusively that I'm wrong.

RE: the bankers and capitalists in general, I've got my opinion and I don't need a jury to have it.

Another thing. If these bankers, congressmen,capitalists are never indicted for crimes and so don't HAVE to stand trial, we still can't form an opinion of their guilt or innocence from other sources and logic? Sorry that ain't happening.

In my belief Justice does exist outside of that context, and is shown in many forms, however free will being given makes justice a choice in the world not a requirement, however I believe in the end their will be perfect justice, however with free will and the flawed state of all people in the world, it is a struggle to try to reach justice within the context of the world. And that struggle makes for attempts to make the best systems possible in the world, innocent till proven guilty by jury of peers, bill of rights, democracies, and many other ways people can within a flawed state try to reach states of justice, while also having mercy since all people are flawed.

:hi:

;-)

Markos asked him to prove it, but I never saw the links. Joe, you got owned, shut the fuck up.

of this incident? Do you have any links to news stories of this incident? I don't recall ever hearing anything about this and the fact that it was so close to the Chandra Levy/Condit story I'm surprised. I followed that story very closely and can't believe that this Klausutis/Scarborough incident didn't get the same attention. Any links would be appreciated.

Thanks for the links, but where are the ones from NBC, NYT, WP, etc.?

There was VERY little (if any) coverage of this event in the mainstream media. More people still believe the myth Hillary that killed Vince Foster than know about this factual happening.

That CANNOT be an accident. America, as a nation, does not have a free press.

Consequently, it is wrong, regrettably, to continue to call the USA a 'free' country.

understand. It makes it look more suspicious actually.

and he dropped out of congress. Seems fishy to me.

kinda silly to think that he murdered her.
While a healthy, young woman who ran and just had an dr exam, it does not mean much.
Look at a couple of athletes who were in superb condition who died from heart attack, anurisms, ect.
things are not always caught with a dr.

Just saying.

So, I don't put weight on that but, it was fun for Markos to use it as an example of how damaging and ugly assumptions and rumors and gossip that is unfounded can be.

The media basically crucified and destroyed a Democratic Rep on little evidence. But a healthy young intern was actually found dead in a Republican reps office during the same time period and there wasn't a bit of coverage.

You don't find that the slightest bit odd?

:hi:

Not once in his entire life.

Markos raised the issue because it was a non-issue, but during the same time period the Levy case blew up in Condit's face even though that was every bit as much of a non-issue as Scarborough's intern.

Just like Sestak is a non-issue.

Markos won the Twebate.

He simply pointed out, correctly, that the media completely ignored the dead intern story. I think we can all agree that a dead intern found in a U.S. Congressman's office is a MUCH bigger story than the Sestak story, yet the media never reported on it. At least not that I recall and I was following it. I'm sure Joe wasn't so outraged when they ignored "his" story.

The wingnuts do this stuff all the time.

Tucker Carlson was especially good at it.

By whining that Markos called him a murderer, Joe deflects attention from everything else.

Karma is bitch..and his hypocrisy just begs to be answered.

Sight unseen! Mr. Scarborough is a boorish lout!

People like Scarborough and Markos epitomize what I hate about politics.

every day, with Mika right at (and on) his side. They are SO sure Obama broke the law, and every morning Mika would ask every guest who DARED called it something LESS than a crime, and politics as usual, "Why are you giving him the benefit of the doubt? What if they DID bribe Sestak?" I'm glad he "got his" from Markos.