Post Imus in the Morning

Have you ever tried to listen to news personalities forcing banter on T.V.? It's pretty rough. Just the bullshit between the weatherman and the news anchors is brutal. Imagine, then, a three hour morning gabfest with a bunch of yahoos trying to be funny. That, unfortunately, is what we have in the post-Imus era on MSNBC from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. central time. They've tried conservative wads like Larry Elder, Tucker Carlson, and Micahel Smerconish. They've tried the ho hum liberal humor of Stephanie Miller. Lately, they're giving former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough a shot. The common denominator with all these dorks is that they each have two or three lesser dorks on standby to banter with. I can imagine what all the two or three day contracts must say. Something like, "Host should have lively, irreverant conversations with his/her sidekicks without ever saying anything that could remotely be construed as 'edgy' or 'offensive.'" Translation: chat with your peeps like Imus did, but make sure that the chat is never interesting. Seriously, folks: the fucking chat on "The View" must be more entertaining. Or are you dying to hear Larry Elder's hi-llarious anecdote about Bernie Goldberg? (Yeah, I know: "Bernie Who?"). Or maybe all you clllaazzzy liberals are in stitches when Stephanie Miller and Co. go on and on and FUCKING ON about her armpit sweat. Hell, Scarborough is prolly the best of the candidates so far since he's at least proved himself on the oft entertaining "Scarborough Country," but watching him banter with John Ridley (who made his MSNBC bones appearing on S.C. repeatedly during the Imus controversy) is just a step or two away from the running gag on "The Colbert Report" where Stephen has an overzealous chat with his one black friend. It's all just too lame, and none of it is funny. Look, even Imus wasn't funny enough for my taste, but when he was funny...it was great T.V. and radio. You certainly could never accuse the man of trying too hard to be funny. He also didn't need fake guffaws from his crew to carry the three hours. Most importantly, Imus wuz grumpy in the morning, like most of us are. We don't need these over-caffeinated goofball pundits giving us their chipper brand of can-do bullshit as the world slides further into hell. Maybe, just maybe, with more people going into the ground every day in Iraq for nothing, with the environment going to shit, and with a psycho still running the country...maybe all three of those hours don't need to be a total yuk-fest.