The Rachel Madow/MSNBC Watch for Saturday, October 27

Lately it seems that everyone on MSNBC wants Rachel Maddow. She's been on Countdown almost every night, even holding over into Dan Abrams Hour O'Crap. Last night, she was even allowed into the Hallowed Sanctum Into Which Almost No One Is Permitted:

Meanwhile, in other Progressive Talk Radio Personalities news, Liberal Talk Radio reported this week on comments made by the latest utterly clueless jerk to manage programming at The Network That Used To Be Awesome But Now Only Serves Up Pablum, David Bernstein. Sayeth The Guy Who Decided that "Lionel" was better than Sam Seder:

"I do think the liberal programming that has occurred here has been far too extremist… It's not our job to get a Democrat elected to Congress. We need to be funny, we need to be enjoyable, and I don't think that existed at this company three years ago."

No? Three years ago the best damn radio show since Jean Shepherd went off the air was just starting to hit its stride. It was funny and it was entertaining. Yes, it was topical, but it was funny and it was entertaining, and its held its audience nearly two years after going off the air. But rather than try to atone for Danny Goldberg's Mistake during morning drive-time, we have the last remaining Young Turk Cenk Uygur and a rotating array of sidekicks consisting of whoever happens to be walking down the street that morning.

At least the pathetic New York affiliate, WWRL, is doing something to make morning radio more tolerable for those of us who have been reduced to plugging our MP3 players into the Bose Wave in the morning and listening to Morning Sedition shows from 2005 and noting with dismay at how current they still sound. Having realized that Armstrong Williams, that Bush apologist, useful idiot, and pocketer of a few hundred grand of taxpayer cash to shill for No Child Left Behind wasn't exactly an appropriate face for "the flagship station of Air America" and that Sam Greenfield is neither funny nor entertaining, WWRL owner Rennie Bishop has actually done something smart. He's decided to team up Marc Maron's old sidekick, Mark Riley, with former WABC host and Iraq war radio casualty Richard Bey, to do the morning show.

No, it's not Morning Sedition, but then, what else could be? But while Riley founders on his own, he plays well with others, and while Richard Bey's song parodies can wear thin after a while, he's one of the good guys, and after wandering in the radio wilderness for four years, subbing for Lynn Samuels on Sirius every now and then, before snagging the eight-to-ten PM slot on WWRL in September (when the station's signal is at 5000 watts), it will be nice to hear him at a time when WWRL has something vaguely resembling a radio signal.

Meanwhile, Marc Maron and Sam Seder are continuing to refine both the format and the technology behind their (for-now-titled) "Unshaven" VODcast. Perhaps when Rachel Maddow jumps to MSNBC, David Bernstein will decide that two smart, funny Jewish guys might be a good fit for the six-to-eight timeslot.