Is Web Intolerance “Hurting America?”

Phil Donahue may be long gone from his daytime shows, (or his MSNBC prime time show for that matter). But he was back in the form of Joe Scarborough today at a Huffington Post-sponsored panel about how new media are impacting the 2008 race. The panel was made up of members of old and new media as well as some stradeling both.

MNSBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinkski moderated the panel which touched on issues of blogs as a source of breaking political news, the vitriol that exists on some left and right wing blogs and the concern that the anonymity provided to blog commenters only fuels the hate.

The panel was filled with the likes of Arianna Huffington, Laura Ingraham, Tony Blankley, Frank Luntz and Peggy Noonan. But moderator Scarbourough took the mics into the crowd getting the thoughts of Joe Klein, Margaret Carlson and his MSNBC colleague Tucker Carlson.

Carlson, who was personally called out four years ago by Jon Stewart for hosting a show that was “hurting America,” today said intolerance on the Web is “what is hurting America.”

“And I’m saying this as the former host of Crossfire,” he told the audience of about 100 people at the Nicollet Island Inn in Minneapolis.

We panned the crowd before the panel discussion got underway. And after the jump, more pictures.

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