Michael Tomasky was back on Morning Joe today, beating his dour, one-note samba: right-wing media is the root of all evil.

Last month, we caught New Republic editor Tomasky blaming conservative media for Kamala Harris's defeat. He even claimed that right-wing media is more powerful than the MSM. As we wrote: "If only!"

Today, Tomasky blamed right-wing media, singling out Rupert Murdoch for particular opprobrium, for Trump's current popularity, as reflected in majority support for his handling of the transition.

Trump has nominated "unqualified extremists" across the board, and yet the public approves of the transition. He doesn't blame "people," he blames Fox. "First and foremost, I blame Rupert Murdoch and, to a lesser extent, his imitators, whose media properties have injected so much poison and so many lies into our discourse since 1977 that common civic agreement about basic morality in public life has become impossible."

"Common civic agreement about basic morality." Translation: when the liberal media set the agenda.

Care for an example from the liberal media of that "common civic agreement about basic morality" and "what kinds of actions did and did not reflect our best values?"

Try this bit of rank, rancid bigotry in a description of the South:

"Reactionary, prejudice-infested, fetid, reject[ing] nearly everything that’s good about this country, just one big nuclear waste site of choleric, and extremely racialized, resentment."

The author? Michael Tomasky, as we caught him ten years ago.

Tomasky approvingly cited John Dean asserting that if Fox News were around in 1973-74, Nixon would have survived Watergate. And yet, though Fox News was alive and well in recent times, that didn't prevent the Democrats from twice impeaching Trump and indicting him for 90-plus felonies in several separate criminal cases.

Note: Tomasky, in both word and mien, has to be the most lugubrious guy in the liberal media.

Here's the transcript.

MSNBC
Morning Joe
12/20/24
6:31 am ET

JONATHAN LEMIRE: So, Michael Tomasky, in your latest article for the New Republic, which is titled, "The Real Reason Why Americans Approve of Trump's Disastrous Transition," you write in part this. "How can it be, you may be wondering, that 55% of Americans tell pollsters they approve of how Donald Trump is handling the transition? He has nominated almost, but not quite literally across the board, unqualified extremists. I don't blame people," you say. "I blame the larger culture, which has been almost totally drained of common concern about our civic health. 

"First and foremost, I blame Rupert Murdoch and, to a lesser extent, his imitators, whose media properties have injected so much poison and so many lies into our discourse since 1977 that common civic agreement about basic morality in public life has become impossible."

You go on. 

"We had a basic understanding about what kinds of actions did and did not reflect our best values. And this was why Richard Nixon had to resign in disgrace for committing far fewer offenses than Trump already has. Everyone, whatever their politics, agreed that Nixon had clearly crossed a line. But that impulse is dead in the United States, and the right-wing media killed it.

Michael, a powerful piece tell us more about your argument about the right-wing media. What it's done, and do you see any way that this civic bond, this civic concern can be repaired?

MICHAEL TOMASKY: Uh, I'm not very hopeful about that, Jonathan, unfortunately. You know, John Dean famously said a few years ago that if Fox News had existed in 1973-74, Richard Nixon would have survived Watergate. I think that's probably true.