An Open Letter To Joe Scarborough

Inspired by Bob Cesca.

_______________
From: Broadway Carl
To: joe@msnbc.com
Cc: phil.griffin@nbc.com, steve.capus@nbc.com

Subject: Who is the real John McCain?


Dear Mr. Scarborough,

I am writing this e-mail in response to watching your show on MSNBC this morning, October 9th.

You spent a good amount of time speaking of the negative campaigning that's been going on in the McCain campaign, their suggestions that we don't know who Barack Obama is and Palin's comments trying to link him to rehabilitated domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

As you well know, their caustic campaigning over the last few days have brought about frightening and angry outbursts from members of their audience. Shouts of "terrorist," kill him" and "treason" accompany the rallies, and although the McCain campaign has put out a statement condemning these outbursts, they seem very passive when those cries are actually happening. In fact, their choice to make their campaign an attack on Obama instead of speaking on the issues is inciting the crowd to this frenzied behavior.

I know that you and your journalists on your daily panels have to report these incidents, but what I don't understand is that if you're going to go on for approximately 20 minutes on Obama and Bill Ayers, showing clips of McCain and Palin with their negative message trying to cast Obama as an unknown, where is the objective reporting on Sarah Palin and what her associations could possibly be? You'd have to agree that Palin's past has not been nearly as scrutinized as Obama's as she's only been on the national scene for about a month now.

Here's what I would like to know:

- After all the criticism Obama received because of Rev. Wright, what is Palin's relationship with her Rev. Muthee, a man who drove a woman out of a village for witchcraft? Does Palin believe in witchcraft?

- Why is John McCain "palling around" with G. Gordon Liddy, a former Watergate burglar who instructed people how to murder federal agents?

- What is Sarah Palin's relationship with the Alaska Independence Party, a party that advocates seceding from the U.S. and whose founder, Joe Vogler, was gruesomely murdered under mysterious circumstances, some say in an apparent illegal plastics explosives sale gone bad? This same founder said, "the fires of Hell are glaciers compared to my hate for the American Government, and I won't be buried under their damn flag ..." What is Todd Palin's association with Vogler?

- What is her husband Todd's relationship with the AIP?

- Why is Palin sequestered from the press? We haven't seen any press conferences from Palin. What is she hiding?

- Why did the McCain campaign try to block a bipartisan investigation into the Trooper-Gate scandal? What is Palin hiding?

- Why is McCain not condemning those introducing him at rallies who attempt to disparage Obama by using "Hussein" anymore like he did with radio host Bill Cunningham a while back?

- The U.S. Council for World Freedom was part of an international organization linked to former Nazi collaborators and ultra-right-wing death squads in Central America. John McCain was on the board. Why was McCain on the same board with Nazi sympathizers?

Of course, there are many more questions than just these to ask and your team, being fair and balanced journalists, should ask them. If you're going to "report" and play the guilt by association game on Obama, then the pendulum should swing both ways and questions of McCain's and Palin's associations should be answered as well.

Thank you
__________________________

Maybe you should write a letter as well.

Joe Scarborough
joe@msnbc.com

MSNBC
Mr. Phil Griffin,
Senior Vice President, News
NBC Television Network
30 Rockefeller Plz
New York, NY 10112
phil.griffin@nbc.com

Steve Capus,
President, NBC News
steve.capus@nbc.com

MSNBC
letters@msnbc.com
MSNBC/Microsoft-NBC
30 Rockefeller Plz
3rd Fl
New York, NY 10112
(212) 664-4444