In an Oct. 28 NewsBusters post, Mark Finkelstein is shocked — shocked! — that anyone would suggest that Florida Gov. Rick Scott is anything but morally upright:
If on national TV you pass along from a “friend” an extremely damning charge about someone’s morality, do you have an obligation to identify that “friend” or provide some sort of substantiation for the charge? Nicolle Wallace apparently doesn’t think so.
On today’s Morning Joe, speaking of Rick Scott and Charlie Crist, Wallace blithely passed along the charge from an unnamed “friend” from Tallahassee that “these are two guys who are the least tethered to any sort of moral compass that have ever run against each other.”
Wallace provided nothing in support of the harsh assessment. But she made it in the context of a discussion of a new ad by Scott attacking Crist for taking big campaign contributions from strip club owners. At the center of the ad was a clip from a TV interview in which Crist said he would not return the contributions.
Actually, evidence of Scott’s apparent moral turpitude is easy to find, if Finkelstein had bothered to look. Scott was the head of a for-profit hospital corporation when it was fined $1.7 billion for welfare fraud.
It’s been called “the largest ripoff of taxpayers in the history of Medicare and Medicaid.” Not by any liberal — by right-wing outlet Newsmax, before it flushed any suggestion of corruption by Scott down the memory hole.
The welfare fraud committed under Scott’s watch is common enough knowledge that it’s not necessary for Wallace to outline it. Finkelstein, it seems, would rather feign ignorance.