The Most Awesome Early Show Segment Ever

(Note: Curse words edited to get this blog past dirty word filters at your office, not because I'm a nice person.)

Kathy Bates

Sheila Blair

Maggie Rodriguez

This morning on The Early Show on CBS, Harry Smith was interviewing Sheila Blair, chairman of the FDIC. Sheila looks a lot like Kathy Bates. She and Harry were doing their damnedest to assure all of us that money in federally insured banks is safe (up to $250,000, that is) and that we shouldn’t worry our pretty little heads about it because the money is “…backed by the full faith and credit of the United States government. So, the money will always be there. We can't run out of money.” I’m not sure what that means exactly, but if Kathy Bates believes it, it must be true.

When the interview was over, Harry did his wrap-up and Maggie Rodriguez who was sitting next to him suddenly decided to throw a turd in the punchbowl. She informed us that she spoke to “her banker” yesterday and he told her that federally insured money is indeed safe, but there is no law stating how quickly a person will have access to their money and that it could possibly take years for people to actually get their money. Harry went pale looked at Maggie with eyes that said, “WTF, Maggie? We were trying to make everybody feel better. STFU!”

So, the producers cut to Dave Price doing the weather and when they went back to Harry, he was split screen with Kathy Bates and Kathy was pissed. Kathy/Sheila told us that if the FDIC steps in to insure your money, the transition is seamless and people can still use their ATM cards and write checks and yada, yada, yada. Piece of cake.

Not to be outdone, Maggie the Turd Thrower pressed Kathy Bates to admit that there is no time limit provision in the law saying how quickly the money must be made available to bank customers. Sheila/Kathy said, “No b*tch. There is no provision in the law about time limits, but I’m the chairman and this is how it’s done and don’t make me go all Misery on your ass and bust your ankles and sh*t.” I’m paraphrasing.

Sheila went on to say, “There are disreputable people out there like your dumbass banker ‘friend’ who are telling people it could take years to have access to their money, because they’re trying to sell people high risk insurance policies and gold coins and c-r-a-p like that.” Once again, I paraphrase.

Maggie, who obviously took a toke off the old crack pipe right before air time couldn't let it go. “Well, I’m going to make a phone call to my banker at Chase, right f-u-c-k-i-n-g now.” (She didn’t say f-u-c-k.) So, Mags caused this whole uproar, made Harry Smith go off-script, disrupted the entire Early Show, pissed off the FDIC and then decided, as an encore, to throw Chase Bank under the bus.

At that point, I had to turn off the television and get ready for work, but I imagined this going on all morning. Did the president of Chase then come on after the next commercial break to give us his two cents? Did Maggie then admit that perhaps it wasn’t her banker “friend” who gave her the bad information and that maybe it was actually Tom on MySpace who said he’d be her friend if she bought a krugerrand? Then, Tom comes on and is all, “WTF, Maggie?” and she’s banned from MySpace forever?

Would serve her right.