The News Lampoon.com

By Mickey Sartre, News Lampoon cub reporter

June 24, 2010, Cleveland--People in Cleveland can’t stand former back-bench congressman Joe Scarborough.  Not his Morning Joe show, his failed book, his failed radio gig, his fake love for the Boston Red Sox (and him a Floridian, as he’s always telling us; what’s wrong with Tampa Bay?).  Anything remotely connected with him is repulsive to us, including his fraud masquerading-as-a-journalist sidekick, Mika Brzezinski, who never skips a chance to display her mindless love for President Obama by reciting the Administration’s talking points while on the air.  This is news?  Why is she always making those faces?  Just read the teleprompter, and keep your inane comments to yourself, please.  Mika’s days, like Joe’s, must be numbered; she’s looks like Phyllis Diller's older sister.  That just won’t fly on TV anymore, especially with hi def.  By the way, Mika recently began claiming to be a Red Sox fan, too.  Uh, yeah, right.

Clevelanders like real people, so that eliminates disgraced plagiarist, faux populist, also-faux Red Sox fan, and Morning Joe regular Mike Barnicle. A fitting name for him, though it should be spelled b-a-r-n-a-c-l-e, like the crustaceans you find desperately clinging to the hulls of ships, which in this case is sinking.

Willie Geist, a sincere Yankees fan, is tolerable, almost likeable, but be careful, Willie, you’re beginning to pick up the Morning Joe taint.

Don’t get me started on that idiot Donnie Deutsch.

Who at MSNBC is hiring these people?

Big Joe, a bully at heart who never skips a chance to talk about how big he is (six-feet-four), fancies himself a conservative Republican living among the liberal elite in Manhattan.  A tolerant superman among the limp wisps, a real John Wayne type.  In truth, he has become one of them, an elitist discussing with Mika last night’s party like a breathless schoolgirl.  The two of them seem almost connected at the hip.  Maybe they are sometimes, while Mika’s husband stays home and watches the kids.  There have been rumors.

Barnicle’s a crusty asshole who should be shoveling shit somewhere in Mexico.

Joe claims he resigned his congressional seat in 2001 to spend more time with his kids; he tells us this again and again, ad nauseam, as if trying to convince himself.  Oh, yeah, and there was also the matter of the dead girl found in his Florida office, but he never mentions that, except for the one time on Imus’s old MSNBC show, whose slot Joe slithered into when Don got the axe.  Anyway, Joe and Don got a good chuckle out of the young woman’s death.  Here’s the exchange:

IMUS:  Don't be afraid to be funny, because you are funny. I asked you why you aren't in Congress. You said that you had sex with the intern and then you had to kill her.

SCARBOROUGH (laughing):  Yeah, ha, ha ha, well, what are you gonna do?

Hilarious.  She was a twenty-eight-year-old staffer named Lori Klausutis, and Scarborough was alleged to have had an extra-marital affair with her.  She was found at eight o’clock in the morning, sitting in a chair, dead.  How does that happen?  Joe's people claimed she had a stroke or epileptic seizure, bumped her head hard on a desk, and landed, dead, in a chair.  According to Dennis Wright on Larry Flynt.com: “The autopsy report revealed that Lori had suffered two skull fractures and an additional wound.  A 7 1/4-inch crack all but spanned the top of her head, from right temple to left.”  There were loud whispers of foul play, murder, a corrupt coroner.  Lucky for Joe the Gary Condit/ Chandra Levy scandal was a concurrent event.  The left-leaning media left lucky Joe alone.  Normally they love to rip politicians, especially conservative Republicans.  How did that not happen to Joe?  It seems inexplicable.  Is it evidence that Scarborough is not the conservative lion he claims to be?  Is it all a masquerade?  Is he a closet Progressive?  A sheep in wolf’s clothing?  A pig wearing lipstick?  Some sort of reverse transvestite who after hours prances to the music of Barbara Streisand behind the closed doors of his glitzy Manhattan apartment, happy and comfortable in his pinko panties and airy yellow summer dress?  Is this why the Huffington Post throws parties for him?

            The producers of Joe's (and Mika's) radio show claim it's being "retooled," that it's "on hiatus.”  Imus has other ideas about it:  "They're not revamping anything!  He will never ever be on WABC in New York again, ever! Ever!...You know why they got blown out?  Because they suck!  And he's a punk and a phony."

            Then there’s his book, The Last Best Hope.  Here’s how Publishers Weekly described it:

In this disappointingly mundane book, Scarborough, host of MSNBC's Morning Joe, mistakes his skills at showmanship for those of critical analysis. From the Iraq War to the recent financial crisis, his arguments amount to little more than a superficial précis of the current political moment. For most readers, this book will be an ideological retread and an unimaginative slog. Unlike the recent writings of Reihan Salam and Ross Douthat, whose New Majority labored to be a prescriptive way forward for conservatives, Scarborough hardly gets outside of the well-traversed policy debates and received wisdom of Beltway professionals. While he sees his book as a blueprint for a renewed conservative politics, his only stab at unconventional thinking is to advocate a conservative embrace of green politics. For all the book's flaws, it never descends to ad hominem attacks or becomes a platform for gross personal vendettas, nor does it trade in the self-regard of the Olberman or O'Reilly variety, which is to Scarborough's credit. But these qualities are not enough to recommend readers pluck this one from the shelf, or even the bargain bin.

 Wow!  Thanks for the warning.  The Last Best Hope’s current Amazon ranking: #90,131.  Price for a new hardcover $3.99, used $1.04.

            I could go on and on about Joe Scarborough, especially his show: how it caters to a Northeast Corridor (Boston to DC) audience; or the weather reports covering only that part of the country as if the rest of us didn't exist; the endless artsy-fartsy promotional photos of  Joe and Mika wandering around New York (big celebrities!); Joe’s prattle about his beloved hometown of Pensacola, Florida, with its white sand beaches, though he no longer spends much time there, seeming to prefer Manhattan’s Upper West Side.  Not so beautiful now, those beaches, are they, Joe, all those turdy tarballs floating up to the shore?  Pensacola Beach is beginning to resemble your show.

Lake Erie is clean and beautiful, unlike the Gulf of Mexico.  But you wouldn’t know that, being so out of touch.  You see Cleveland as it was forty years ago.

Which brings to me to my real beef with you, Joe.  Someone on your show mentioned the possibility that LeBron might remain in Cleveland, to which you disdainfully responded, “Yeah, right.”  What do you know about it?  What do you know about anything beyond the confines of your Morning Joe limo?

 Red Sox fan, my ass!

Mika’s father, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, summed you up best.  You were discussing the Gaza situation, but Zbig's words are equally applicable to everything you've ever said: "You know, you have such a stunningly superficial knowledge of what went on that it's almost embarrassing to listen to you."

Ouch!