'One cold bastard': MSNBC's Joe Scarborough says Obama intimidates terrorists by golfing

President Obama on Wednesday briefly interrupted his vacation to condemn ISIS's execution of journalist James Foley. Then he went right back to playing golf.

Naturally, many critics blasted Obama's decision to continue vacationing amid crises. MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was not one of them, as he countered that Obama was actually sending a strong message to terrorists about his dearth of empathy.

"I think there are probably one or two terrorists — because this is how they make their money," he said, referring to reports that ISIS demanded a multi-million dollar ransom in exchange for Foley's release.

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"They're negotiating with Spock with a pitching wedge," he went on. "And I'm sure there may even be one or two terrorists over in Syria looking at him and going, 'Wow, that's one cold bastard.'"

To be fair, it's unclear whether Scarborough was being facetious; he wound down his monologue by admitting, "I don't know what I'm doing."

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Jon Terbush

Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.