Christmas came early on Black Friday! Why? Because MSNBC is the pop media network that just keeps giving.
Thanks to the pretend news people behind the scenes and the pretend news people on camera, the world was gifted the wonderful display of Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and their go-to gaggle of gadflies pretending to be broadcasting live the day after Thanksgiving -- when the show was actually recorded the day before Thanksgiving.
This is almost as sweet as Rachel Maddow telling the world in March that she had the scoop of Donald Trump’s “smoking gun” tax records, then spending a half hour waving three sheets of innocuous paper and trying to gloss over the fact that Trump paid a TON in taxes and gave a bunch of cash to charities.
And these folks have the audacity to bristle when viewers call them Fake News?
To quote Mika: “The day after Thanksgiving! Woah! I’m stuffed!”
So are we, Mika.
At times, the meat puppets on screen almost couldn’t keep straight faces as their corporate bosses pulled their strings and they danced the dance of doom. Scarborough and Brzezinski crossed their streams when Joe began talking about her not cooking “the bird” properly. Mika mumbled something about always leaving the “guts in” when she cooks, while Joe talked about frying it.
Perhaps if they could stop giving viewers the virtual “bird,” people might respect them more and their ratings might rise higher than some of my favorite test pattern channels on YouTube.
And at the close of all the chatter “on this Black Friday,” as Mika called it, she almost made the horrible mistake of actually telling the truth. She began to wish viewers a wonderful Thanksgiving, then cut herself off and said “have a wonderful, uh, weekend.”
It can’t get much better.
Well, perhaps a tad better, because MSNBC went so out of its way to have its “Morning Joe” crew appear as if they were working hard on Black Friday that even guests such as Rick Tyler were roped into play-acting, blinking like deer in the Fake News headlights and offering generalities about conversations with family members when Scarborough asked how his Thanksgiving "went."
No honesty. No disclaimer that this was pre-recorded and fake.
Perhaps they thought people tuning in to “Morning Joe” have been aware for a long time that it’s fake, just like pretty much everything on MSNBC?
Sadly, a producer for the “news” show wouldn’t comment, but a cute punchline was offered by an MSNBC spokesperson, who said, “There was no intention to deceive viewers.”
Which, of course, is as patently false as the rest of the show and most of MSNBC’s content.
The entire point of their fakery was to deceive viewers. Otherwise, why pretend and lie? Why not record a show, and -- ye gods! – actually tell viewers it’s recorded because you and yours will be together mobbing a mega-store to grab that last 8,000 inch flat-screen at 40 percent off?
Sorry, the MSNBC crew would never stoop so low as to mob a store on Black Friday. Their servants can do that for them. And, given the fact that Scarborough’s salary is estimated to be $5 million a year, he could likely have more fun counting his bucks than mingling with potential audience members to whom he’s lied.
And so, Thanksgiving 2017 will be remembered as the holiday that saw the turkeys of MSNBC’s flagship morning show do what MSNBC does so well: make things up. Could there be any better gift than that?
Well…they could all retire.
Where’s my pen and paper? I need to write to Santa...