Morning Joe‘s Heated Debate Over Obama’s ‘Self Righteous Indignation’ On Gitmo

In a lively–and at times heated–debate on Tuesday morning’s Morning Joe, Joe Scarborough questioned whether President Obama–who began his re-election campaign yesterday–has lost the “halo” he wore when he ran for president in 2008, focusing specifically on his campaign vow to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay. “He found Gitmo so repugnant, he vowed to get rid of it in his first day in office,” Scarborough said, noting that has of course not happened.

“I am not going to allow this president and everybody else to let the parade roll by after listening to them beat their chests in self-righteous indignation like Jim and Tammy Fay Baker for two years. They have been outed, okay?” Scarborough said, accusing Obama of implying that President Bush and Vice President Cheney “didn’t love the Constitution as much as he did.”

Scarborough came under criticism from Mika Brzezinski, and commentator John Heilemann accused Scarborough of “mischaracterizing” the president’s points during the 2008 campaign. “To (Obama), it was the torture policy he was most morally outraged by,” not the ongoing presence of military combatants at Gitmo. And, Heilemann said, President Obama has “veered” strongly away from the policy on torture.

Watch it here, from MSNBC:

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