MSNBC host Joe Scarborough stood up for embattled NBC newsman Brian Williams on Monday’s episode of “Morning Joe,” saying that he was “in no position to cast the first stone.”
Scarborough acknowledged that he “can’t be objective” about Williams, who is his friend and neighbor, and who admitted on Wednesday to telling bogus stories about his experience reporting from Iraq. Since the admission, questions have also been raised about Williams’ reporting about Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the war between Israel and Hezbollah in 2006.
Scarborough urged critics to make judgments about Williams “based on the entirety of his career and not on one or two or three mistakes.”
“We all make bad mistakes.” Scarborough said.
“I think we should all step back and ask ourselves whether we are so perfect that we want to be the ones to cast the first stone,” he added.
“There are very few people in this industry or in politics who could live by the standard of perfection,” he added. “Cast the first stone? I would be careful.”
Watch below:
h/t Erik Wemple
Every day, Joe. Every day.
Like the one you made this morning.
I’d make a rude comment about the intern who mysteriously turned up dead in his office, and Joe resigning from his newly won position in congress shortly after, but I’m above that.
“We ALL make bad mistakes.”
Joe’s is when he tries to play an unbiased reporter.
Shorter Scarborough “I hope I never get called out like Williams on any of the doozies I’ve told on air.”
I suspect that he’s got more than on-air doozies rattling around in his closet.