Smerconish On MSNBC Wrap-Up

Michael Smerconish took his first crack at becoming the next Don Imus — is that something you really want? — this morning on MSNBC, as his show was simulcast from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m. in the former Imus slot.

As a service to my readers, I watched all three hours of Smerconish’s show this morning. I learned a lot, actually, especially since Smerconish had 1500 guests on, including Ghandi, the late Frank Rizzo, Allen Iverson (fresh off his Game 1 Playoffs triumph) and Pat Sajak.

Okay, he really didn’t have any of those people, but he did have Rudy Guiliani, Arlen Specter, Camille Paglia, Jackie Mason and, of course, Jon Anderson from the band Yes. Richard Clarke also came in to plug his second novel and actually said terrorists could shut down the Internet by blowing up a little unguarded hut in Atlantic City. Oh, and Michael Smerconish and his sons went into the backyard Saturday and played paintball by shooting at an Osama bin Laden target.

More down below.

Like most radio shows simulcast on television, it’s pretty much boring as all hell to watch. Hell, like most talk shows. The way the old Howard Stern radio show on E! worked was because it wasn’t live, so the producers were able to edit it and select the best clips and turn it into a half-hour. But Smerconish’s morning show was pretty boring to watch even for a radio show. This wasn’t necessarily Smerconish’s fault; the set is approximately the size of a large airplane hangar. Smerconish’s MSNBC producer sits somewhere about a mile away from him, and his local radio show producers is back in Philly (or Conshy, or wherever 1210 AM broadcasts).

So for the first two hours, all the camera does is swoop wildly from left to right to show different angles of Michael Smerconish’s head. Whee! Somewhere around 8:15 or 8:30, a producer must’ve noticed the show, while possibly entertaining to listen to — and Smerconish does know how to run a radio show — was almost as boring as Don Imus, because we got to listen to banter sometime around then.

I assume this is the best day of guests Smerconish’s show has ever had. Jackie Mason came on first. He has a book out with another guy called Schmucks, which Smerconish says is being denounced for its title and how Jackie Mason is being censored due to political correctness. (This seems odd. Isn’t calling someone a “schmuck” one of the benefits of being an old Jewish man?) Turns out it’s odd because, uh, Jackie Mason says no, he doesn’t think much about political correctness “unless you say the word black.”

After Mason’s call-in, none other than MSNBC’s Chris Matthews calls in. Apparently, Matthews is hosting a mayoral debate in a few weeks, and it’s clear he has no idea what is going on in the Philadelphia mayor’s race. Smerconish attempts to talk about Tom Knox; Chris Matthews doesn’t answer the question, goes on rambling, and rambling and I’m beginning to realize why we Americans never seem to know anything: Even members of the media don’t answer questions!

Rudy Guiliani is on, and him and Mike talked about illegal immigration for about 15 minutes and I kinda dozed off. Guiliani wants to build a fence, he wants heat-seeking equipment on the border, he wants some sort of national ID card, maybe just for immigrants. He also said he wants to break up illegal immigrants this way “You separate the good ones from the average ones from the bad ones.” Will average ones be allowed to stay?

Smerconish then shows an old clip of him guest-hosting a show on MSNBC. He, or the producers, apparently thought it would be a good idea to put Fred Phelps on the show, and Smerconish calls him a “knucklehead.” While I agree the word knucklehead needs to come back into a more common usage, Phelps is a bit more than that: He’s a preacher who believes the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 and soldiers are dying in Iraq because of tolerance for homosexuals, and sometimes he protests outside funerals.

But the Smerconish-Phelps interview is pretty much the greatest thing ever. Smerconish asks a question, Phelps replies with “That’s the only righteous message for this nation that has gone the way of the Brokeback Mountain!” Phelps then refuses to let Smerconish get a word in, and keeps rambling on about the Bible and gays and finally Smerconish cuts his mic after a long time. Smerconish then takes his first call and a man says, “This is what happens when the Republican Party goes into bed with the religious right.” That’s a little odd, since it’s not like Phelps is part of the religious right’s political bloc, but Smerconish responds by immediately cutting the caller off and going to commercial. The caller got about 1/20th of Phelps’ time.

Actual preview coming in from break: Coming up next: Arlen Specter, Richard Clark, Camille Paglia, Albert Einstein and Louis XIV! Specter is on and he talks and talks and him and Smerconish mainly talk about Alberto Gonzalez and how people are unfairly targeting Karl Rove (at Smerconish says this). Smerconish says he’s willing to give the administration the benefit of the doubt and that there are alternate explanations for all the U.S. attorney firings. Because, really, if you can’t trust the Bush administation, whom can you trust?

Pagila is the next guest. She apparently was interviewed in an article for the Times of London where she claims that, because there isn’t shop class anymore, that dude had to go shoot up Virginia Tech. She also says if the shooter had been having wild sex all the time, he wouldn’t have shot up anyone. Now this is an argument I can get behind!

Also, apparently girls are now “servicing boys” — Paglia’s words — as young as 10 or 11. My first kiss wasn’t until, like, 35 (somehow it’s in the future). Smerconish brings up political correctness, since he wrote a book about how nobody is allowed to say anything anymore (except him, of course, since he has a radio and TV show, two newspaper columns and several books).

Richard Clarke talks about how the Chinese are going to attack us through the Internet and how the Internet can be destroyed in Atlantic City, or at least that’s the plot of his novel. Then there was a brief break to replay the Alec Baldwin voicemail, and how he called his daughter a pig. Smerconish keeps referring to this as “the p-word.” A caller: “We need to apply this vitriol to Al-Qaeda that he’s applying to his 11-year-old daughter.”

Oh, and then they talk about paintball and Smerconish brings out his giant, paint-stained Osama bin Laden picture. Of course.

Jon Anderson from Yes closes out the show. He’s accompanied by Zack Page (spelling is probably wrong) from the Paul Green School of Rock’s New York chapter. He begins by (really) singing a song about Michael Smerconish:

“Michael! That Irish Michael Smerconish! MSNBC! Every morning, every day. Michael Smerconish, on MSNBC! … Michael Smerconish, that Irish dude. Whoo! Tell it like it is, Michael! Don’t give up. No, no, not your name. The truth. We want the truth out there, MSNBC. We want the truth now.”

Michael closes out the show by previewing tomorrow’s guests, which include Ted Nugent (not performing) and author/Inquirer columnist Lisa Scottoline. (Hey, cross promotion!) He also says Philly has the strongest Yes fanbase in America. We then move on to MSNBC, who apparently has like 45 cute female anchors, and must be watched more in accordance with the Guy’s Code.