What Joe Scarborough Wished On Bob McDonnell’s Wife Says A Lot About Him

If the allegations surrounding former Gov.Bob McDonnell (R-Va.) and his wife are true, then they seem to be two petty, tacky people who deserve each other, but the hostility being directed toward Mrs. McDonnell, as exemplified by Morning Joe‘s Joe Scarborough, is telling of the deep misogyny dwelling beneath our media’s skin. Those allegations essentially involve the McDonnells shaking down businessman Jonnie Williams for six figures worth of gifts and loans, in exchange for help launching one of Williams’ products, a tobacco-based supplement pill.

The credulity with which the press is swallowing this story is due, in large part, to a predisposition toward all of the sexist and misogynistic tropes that go along with it; the scheming bitch wife, the devoted, blinkered husband, and the idea that a grown-ass woman can have her motivations infantilized into a “crush.”

So it was not surprising that Scarborough would come along and swallow the whole thing, too, but in critiquing Dana Milbank’s excellent paint-stripping of McDonnell, he brought the misogynistic hostility into helpfully stark relief. Aside from his willingness to buy into the stereotypes, listen to his visceral reaction to the allegation that Maureen McDonnell pitched Jonnie Williams’ supplements to Ann Romney as a cure for Multiple Sclerosis…READ MORE

By: Tommy Christopher

Tommy Christopher is The Daily Banter's White House Correspondent and Political Analyst. He's been a political reporter and liberal commentator since 2007, and has covered the White House since the beginning of the Obama administration, first for PoliticsDaily, and then for Mediaite. Christopher is a frequent guest on a variety of television, radio, and online programs, and was the villain in the documentaries The Audacity of Democracy and Hating Breitbart. He's also That Guy Who Live-Tweeted His Own Heart Attack, and the only person to have ever received public apologies from both Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck.