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MSNBC debuted on cable television on July 15, 1996, and now, MS NOW is weirdly putting on the screen a celebration of MS NOW’s 30th anniversary, when it just changed the moniker last November. An announcer proclaims: “Celebrating 30 years… Delivering journalism that informs, empowers and strengthens our democracy.”
When it began, it really came across as an NBC News farm team. “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Brokaw was still proud to be associated with it. On Oct. 29, 1996, Brokaw interviewed former Soviet dictator Mikhail Gorbachev on the show “InterNight,” hailing him as a “courageous, far-seeking prophet” who ended the Soviet Union. Brokaw even gushed: “Perhaps one day again we’ll see you in political office in Russia. We know that you’ve devoted your life to peace and to changing your country and those of us who have gotten to know you count ourselves among the privileged.”
MSNBC in the early days was much more ideologically diverse than it is now, with conservative hosts like politician Alan Keyes, Laura Ingraham and that guy who hosted “Scarborough Country,” who now hosts its left-wing version, “Morning Joe.” Pat Buchanan and liberal Bill Press had a “Crossfire”-style show.
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MSNBC hated the Iraq War and loved the protesters. Reporter David Shuster announced to “Hardball” host Chris Matthews in 2003: “The size of the demonstrators, at least here, at least in Europe, seems to underscore, Chris, that there are now perhaps two world superpowers. There’s the United States and then there are those millions of people who took to the streets opposing U.S. policy.”
The shift to the left became defined by rants from hosts Keith Olbermann and Matthews. Olbermann routinely accused George W. Bush of fascism, and loved to interview former Watergate co-conspirator John Dean, like this one in 2006 about Dean’s book “Conservatives Without Conscience”: “It deals with psychological principles that are frightening and that may have faced other nations at other times, in Germany and Italy in the ‘30s coming to mind in particular. But what—how does it apply now? And to what degree should it scare us?” He added, “What kind of danger — are we facing a legitimate threat to the concept of democracy in this country?”
In 2008, Olbermann famously yelled at the camera at President Bush to “shut the hell up.”
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This is why it remains eternally amusing that in 2008, when Matthews uttered what might be the quintessential MSNBC moment, that Obama’s speech gave him a “thrill up my leg,” Olbermann responded with, “Steady.” Matthews insisted he was serious: “He speaks about America in a way that has nothing to do with politics. It has to do with the feeling we have about our country. And that is an objective assessment.”
Matthews stuck to his thrills through the Obama presidency, like this silliness in 2015: “He’s done everything right. He’s been immaculate in the presidency. Nobody has accused him of any corruption. His kids are perfect. His wife is perfect. He’s done everything that these right-wing, white conservatives say we’re supposed to be in this country. He’s done everything right.”
When it was time for Hillary Clinton to be president in 2016, “AM Joy” host Joy Reid was the cheerleader: “If you look at Hillary Clinton’s qualifications, I mean, my God, since the Founding Fathers, has anyone tried to run for president with more on their resume?” Longtime NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell replied: “John Quincy Adams, maybe.” Reid: “I mean you have to go back literally to the 18th century to find somebody with a more packed resume than Hillary Clinton.”
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When Hillary lost, MSNBC star Rachel Maddow extolled Obama’s legacy: “I think he’ll go down in history as both a consequential and excellent president, viewed from the beginning of the country until now. I think that his economic record alone, in terms of saving us from the Great Depression, if that’s the only thing you knew, even if he hadn’t been the first African-American president doing it, that alone will put him in the top 10 presidents in U.S. history.”
This is why it remains eternally amusing that in 2008, when Matthews uttered what might be the quintessential MSNBC moment, that Obama’s speech gave him a “thrill up my leg,” Olbermann responded with, “Steady.”
Maddow is also the leader in Trump the Dictator analogies, exemplifying the never-ending Democracy Dies in Darkness tone of “MSDNC.” Last August, she warned: “Life in the United States is profoundly changing. It’s profoundly different than it was even six months ago, because we do now live in a country that has an authoritarian leader in charge. We have a consolidating dictatorship in our country.” She and “Last Word” host Lawrence O’Donnell and the rest love to say fascism is already here. This is what their ads claim is democracy-empowering journalism.
The alleged Trump autocracy hasn’t shut down any of the relentlessly anti-Trump networks. Merely suing them for defamation is cartooned as a censorship maneuver. Networks like these need to settle the lawsuits, because digging into their fact-defying malice against Trump would make for an easy week in court.
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