On most days, Twitter is an absolute bowl of dumb and will leave you pulling your hair out and feeling a bit stabby the longer you subject yourself to the scorchingly bad hot political takes frequently on display from the so-called “experts” on either side of the aisle.

But this morning was one of those rare occasions when the social media platform was worth tuning into, popcorn in hand, as independent journalist Glenn Greenwald just finished smug MSNBC co-host Joe Scarborough in a heated exchange about the Liz Cheney drama and then Trump.

Their animated back and forth magnified the left-wing media’s stale and tiresome penchant for defaulting to the “but Russia!!” card when they have no cogent arguments to present in response to legitimate criticisms.

It all started off when Scarborough, a pseudo-conservative who fancies himself a supposed expert on Republican politics, took to the Twitter machine to defend Cheney as some sort of standard bearer for democracy and the rule of law by quoting a piece from far leftist Jon Chait:

“When Cheney’s liberal critics place her support for democracy alongside her other positions, they implicitly endorse the same calculation made by her conservative opponents: that the rule of law is just another issue.”
~⁦@jonathanchait⁩ https://t.co/VxYJI9J9fG

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 11, 2021

Greenwald countered by alleging Scarborough, a Beltway cocktail circuit guy if there ever was one, was either being “extremely ignorant or “extremely dishonest” to make such a suggestion:

Anyone who thinks Liz Cheney is motivated by some sort of sacred devotion to the Rule of Law – after everything she’s spent the last two decades supporting – is either extremely ignorant or extremely dishonest. In Scarborough’s case, of course, it’s always a shifting mix of both: https://t.co/1XmBPjxHE1

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 11, 2021

Instead of making his case in response to Greenwald, Scarborough pivoted to the “Russian agent” card because apparently that’s what’s supposed to pass for substantive debate these days amongst our intellectual betters in the media and in left-wing/Never Trump circles (but I repeat myself):

Comrade, wrong again but in your defense, this probably reads better in the original Russian. https://t.co/XXZykos5GA

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 11, 2021

As per the norm, Greenwald was not inclined to show Scarborough any mercy whatsoever and commenced with the smack down the fake conservative so richly deserved:

MSNBC hosts casually and publicly accuse people of being Kremlin agents — I think this is the fourth one who has done this to me — because they’re McCarthyite trash who look at Brian “War Stories” Williams & Joy “Hacker” Reid & know their network has no standards. https://t.co/CeE9iwU8nI

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 11, 2021

Then Scarborough laughably accused Greenwald, who has made a name for himself by exposing political corruption and media rot in both Venezuela and here in the U.S., of being a “useful idiot” who “lies with impunity … when all else fails” (yes, the lack of self-awareness on display at this point by poor Joe was just staggering):

Struck a little too close to the dacha, I see. It would be comforting to think you were little more than a useful idiot, but your approach is ridiculously consistent. Everything you write is shaded in one direction, and when all else fails, you lie with impunity. https://t.co/8erkF5Uqku

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 11, 2021

It was then that Greenwald did what Scarborough hates the most: Reminding him of his role in helping get Donald Trump elected:

Not one person on TV did more than Joe Scarborough to help Donald Trump get to the White House – he slobbered all over him on TV & in person at Mar-a-Lago. Calling everyone a Russian agent won’t erase that fact from the first paragraph of his obituary:pic.twitter.com/Z1mBJ9aWYi https://t.co/mEJJmaT0Ls

— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 11, 2021

Thoroughly trounced and floundering at that point, Scarborough stopped quote RTing Greenwald and then further beclowned himself by undercutting his program’s influence on electoral politics in 2016 and then proceeded to insinuate that because Greenwald was based in Venezuela that he did not know much about American politics (even though he was born and raised here LOL):

You would have to be a sheltered elitist or a clueless idiot to believe the people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 watched MSNBC’s morning show for clues on who to vote for. They never did, and anyone who says they did shows just how little they know about American politics.

— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) May 11, 2021

The cherry on top was Greenwald pointing to what may be the basis for Scarborough’s lack of love for him – a 2016 interview on MSNBC between the two where things got rather heated.

The best part of their exchange was in how Greenwald further exposed how accusing someone of doing Russia’s bidding, which the left, media, and Never Trumpers did for four years with Trump and his Republican defenders, can backfire so spectacularly on the accuser. Scarborough did not just default to that line of argument; he also did not provide any evidence to back it up (because none exists).

Yelling “Russia” has become the new “racism” in American politics. Not only has it lost all meaning, but the allegation – when obviously false – says more about the person making it than the person on the receiving end of it – with none of it being good. But then again, that’s par for the course for Joe Scarborough, all sound and fury but in the end, usually signifying not much of anything.

Bless his heart.

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