A newly uncovered archive of MSNBC host Joy Reid's former blog appears to show she made several homophobic comments and gay-baiting jokes at her opponents' expense, comments beyond what was revealed at the end of last year.
In December 2017, a series of Reid's posts emerged in which she insinuated then-Republican Florida politician Charlie Crist was gay, complete with insulting nicknames like "Miss Charlie." Reid apologized in a note for the "insensitive, tone deaf and dumb" comments.
Last week, the Twitter user who dug up the original posts on Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, an archive of information on the Internet, started sharing unverified screenshots of more homophobic blog posts that didn't just target Crist. But Reid insisted she never made those posts, saying the screenshots were photoshopped and her blog had been hacked. A lawyer for Reid claims they have contacted the FBI to investigate.
Reid's site was removed from the nonprofit's Wayback Machine in December after her apology. But a mirror of the Wayback Machine hosted by the Library of Congress shows many gay-baiting comments appeared long before she was a prominent national figure. Many of the posts did not appear in the original Twitter thread that, according to Reid, included fake blog posts.
In every case, the posts were archived only a few days after their publication date. In order for a hacker to have fabricated the posts, that person would have had to take action on a continuous basis over a decade ago.
One 2005 post characteristically attacked Crist and Republican Congressman Mark Foley (Fla.) as "undeclared, but assumed, gay Republican men" (Foley was later outed after an underage sexting scandal). But at the end of the post, Reid linked to a list of "Famous heterosexuals who are definitely not gay..." that claimed public figures from Orlando Bloom to Britney Spears were secretly gay.
In several 2006 blog posts, Reid suggested Republican Utah Senator Orrin Hatch wanted to fellate Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito. "Oh, look, Orrin Hatch is putting on his Supreme Court knee pads to save Alito..." she live-blogged during Alito's Senate hearing. "'Golly, you're really a swell guy. Can I be on top next time...?' Jeez..."
"Would somebody please get Orrin Hatch some mouthwash and a $20 bill...? He's got to be exhausted..." she continued, in the post titled "Brokeback Committee Room."
"Orrin Hatch just told Wolf Blitzer on the Situation Room that Democrats on the judiciary committee were 'blown away' by Samuel Alito's 'magnificent' performance so far. Well Orrin, someone was 'blown' in that hearing... but it wasn't the Democrats. Mr. Alito -- your cigarette, sir...," Reid wrote later the same day.
A post a day later likewise referred to "Orrin Hatch and Supreme Court knee pads..." and asked "why can't all the other Senators be more like Orrin Lewinsky ...er ... Hatch!!!???"
Reid returned to form in March 2006, during the Alberto Gonzales hearings. "Oh, god, it's Orrin Hatch's turn. Can somebody bring him his knee pads!!!???" she asked.
One of the targets of Reid's gay-baiting was ironically her current MSNBC co-host Chris Matthews. "Chris Matthews will declare the speech a masterpiece and in a surprise move, will kiss Rudy Giuliani full on the lips," she predicted before Bush's 2006 State of the Union.
"Matthews is so far resisting the Giuliani oral magnetism. In fact, he's actually disagreeing with him! ... oh, no wait he's kissing his behind again," she posted later in an update.
Reid's denigrating comments about homosexuality were sometimes removed from attacking her enemies. Reid said in one post that she hadn't seen the film Brokeback Mountain because it made her "too queasy," and she questioned why any straight person would want to see the film. "I guess I just don't understand the modern culture," she lamented.
In a June 2006 post, Reid said she wasn't a "gay marriage proponent."
Later that year, Reid wrote that the liberals "doth protest too much" when they insisted the scandal over Foley sending sexually explicit messages to teen boys wasn't actually about homosexuality, writing "the majority of Americans are, frankly, grossed out by the topic of male, gay sex."
She also sided with those suggesting one of the instant message exchanges with Foley was actually a teen boy's prank on a "pathetic old queer."
"I can imagine that there's nothing more hilarious to a teenaged kid, free from parental control in pre-college dorm conditions in the nation's capitol, than egging on the known House freakazoid -- a pathetic old queer whose near desperation to land a young, teen stud for sex, despite the fact that he's already in an adult homosexual relationship, is pure teenaged comedy gold," she wrote.
