Andy Serwer

The following post was based on a misunderstanding of the conversation described. Please see our retraction here.

Tuesday's Morning Joe treated the conviction of former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich as a relatively minor affair, and gave it little to no coverage save a brief discussion about the supposed injustice of the process. "It's any other day and that's any other news story," said Mika Brzezinski, who appeared annoyed at being asked to cover the story at all. Later, she insisted "We're not going to waste the first block on this."

It seems no matter what Sarah Palin does or doesn't do, she's going to be lambasted by America's press - even the supposedly "conservative" ones.

On Tuesday's "Morning Joe," co-host Joe Scarborough used Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann's successful campaign launch as a means of bashing the former Alaska governor (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Joe Scarborough was on fire this morning, his ire trained on twin targets: Dick Blumenthal, and the New York Times' John Harwood, who casually dismissed the candidate's lies about having served in Vietnam as just a case of getting "a little carried away."  At one point, Scarborough claimed he wasn't calling Blumenthal a "scumbag"—but it sure sounded like it.

Harwood began his Blumenthal defense with a barroom analogy: "the occasions where he was loose is more akin to a guy who had a few too many at the bar and hit on somebody rather than somebody actually trying to slip a mickey into the girls drink." He later added this lame defense: that even if Blumenthal lied to the veterans groups about his record, they weren't deceived by it.  "Were all those veterans groups fooled by it?", asked Harwood, implying they weren't.  "You're a reporter, you go ask them," snapped Scarborough.

Scarborough later pointed out that Blumenthal lied and trafficked on the valor of others on precisely those occasions when, appearing before veterans groups, it would benefit him politically. Harwood miscast Joe's criticism of Blumenthal as a demand that all candidates explain why they didn't serve.  A peeved Scarborough called Harwood out: "John, I don't know show, what feed you're listening to."

Life was hell under Bush.  But hang in there: things'll get better under Obama.

Class dismissed: that's really all you need to know about the latest Time cover story—The Decade From Hell And Why The Next One Will Be Better.  But just to drive home the Manichean message, Time editor Rick Stengel and Andy Serwer [of Time stable-mate Fortune], who wrote the cover story, appeared on Morning Joe today.

Of course there's the inconvenient detail about Barack Obama having been elected in this decade.  But not to worry.  Serwer suggests we "see Barack Obama being elected as the beginning of the next decade."

Excerpts from the pro-Obama babble . . .

As if the ABC filibuster for ObamaCare wasn’t enough. The network, at it again, plugged Obama’s universal health insurance on “The View” with a huge assist from the editor of Fortune magazine.

The June 26 episode of program was a special, “Bank on The View: How to get a Job,” and was supposed to highlight what industries were hiring and offer tips to successfully find a job. Yet Joy Behar unabashedly used the show to promote Obama’s overhaul of the healthcare industry, even when it wasn’t the topic.

Andy Serwer, the editor of Fortune magazine, was in the midst of a discussion about the jobs available in the health care industry when Behar interrupted him and pointedly asked, “If Obama can push a healthcare, single-pay or whatever he’s trying to do, through, will that alleviate the problem, do you think?”

What problem Behar is referring to is unclear, since Serwer was speaking of the jobs available. But to Behar it was the perfect time to slide in support for Obama’s plan, even though she is not even sure what it entails.