Somethings Been Missing On Morning Joe

I have a love hate relationship with Morning Joe and no matter how frustrating it is to watch I still find myself watching it every weekday morning. Well the last two days it has been very apparent that Joe Scarborough and his yes men and women have gone out of their way to not talk about the assassination of Dr George Tiller by a crazy right to lifer. I thought it was pretty cowardly for them not to talk about it but I just chalked it up to the yellow streak in Scarborough's nature.

Turns out there is more to the story.

Maddow actually led with a headshot of Michael Griffin, the first abortion-doctor murderer, who killed Dr. David Gunn in Pensacola, Florida in 1993. She then moved on to copycat Shelley Shannon, who wrote letters of support for Griffin shortly before she shot George Tiller in both arms, an ominous foreboding of his murder 16 years later.Maddow could have called on a colleague with first-hand knowledge of the Griffin case -- Joe Scarborough, the folksy host of the network's Morning Joe and Griffin's pro-bono lawyer in 1993. A Voice cover story in 2008 examined in great detail Scarborough's role in the case, as well as the singular impact his exploitation of the abortion issue had in Scarborough's 1994 initial election to Congress. So what might his colleagues have learned about defending abortion-doc killers from Morning Joe?

Well....

Scarborough's hometown of Pensacola -- where his show once frequently originated -- was the site of the first two abortion murders, the second also occurring during his first run for Congress in 1994. A raw 30-year-old, Scarborough's surprising Republican win was principally funded by anti-abortion groups and he immediately went to Washington and voted against bills to protect abortion clinics, including one version sponsored by a Republican congressmen.

Griffin handwrote the Voice two long letters last year after we contacted him in prison, describing in depth his relationship with Scarborough. While Scarborough tried to minimize his ties in an interview, claiming he was merely doing "a favor for a friend" and briefly searching for a lawyer who'd take the case to trial, Griffin detailed Scarborough's efforts to stay on the case and work with the trail attorney.

So Scarborough himself has first hand experience with representing domestic terrorists, and for free no less. Of topic but I would say representing a cold blooded killer because he is a family friend is worse to me than "palling around" with Bill Ayers.

So the question is will any guest who goes on Morning Joe this week push the issue and bring up the murder or will they do like most of them always do and kiss Scarborough's ass?