Tonight on 60 Minutes, with Steve Kroft playing Andy Cohen to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's Real Housewives, the president and the secretary of state had the reunion episode of their terrific show Barack Obama's First Term. And boy, were they complimentary of one another:
On top of the indignity of a 25-year marriage to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver now has to deal with the publicity tour for his new tell-all memoir.
The infamous and inevitable 60 Minutes interviews with the Chosen Two aired on CBS last night. Neither candidate said anything that they had never said before and everyone walked away forgetting why they had opted to watch the predictably uninformative interviews in the first place. (Is 60 Minutes even still a thing?)
CBS News' Mike Wallace, who died over the weekend at 93, is being hailed as an icon of broadcast journalism for his foundational role as 60 Minutes' investigative bulldog. This is bullshit. He was a failed soap actor and vaudeville hack named Myron who just wanted to be on television. He was as much a journalist as Ryan Seacrest.
Mike Wallace, one of the original correspondents of 60 Minutes, has died at 93. Wallace worked for the program for four decades and entered semi-retirement in 2006. Since then, Wallace appeared intermittently on the show to interview such contentious figures as Jack Kevorkian and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. His most recent 60 Minutes interview was with Roger Clemens in 2008.
Bob Simon profiled Angelina Jolie on tonight's 60 Minutes. In addition to stating that she once dreamed of being a funeral director, Jolie also shared that—given her past transgressions—she's surprised to still be alive: "People can imagine that I did the most dangerous, and I did the worst, and for many reasons, I shouldn't be here."
Taylor Swift is the subject of a probing 60 Minutes piece this Sunday, in which Leslie Stahl connects the crossover country sensation to the collapse of the European economy, Iran's secret nuclear weapons program, and an illegal baby-fighting ring in China. No, just kidding — it's about how pretty she is and how she makes nice songs about how the the boys on the football team never ask her to the sock hop. In this preview clip, Swift explains that she takes herself very seriously. As a role model! I mean as a role model. She takes herself very seriously as a role model. Take it away, Taylor! [60 Minutes]
Never retire: almost six weeks to the day after delivering his last cranky essay on 60 Minutes, writer and commentator Andy Rooney is dead of complications following minor surgery. He was 92, and had delivered exactly 1,097 of his trademark on-air bitch sessions.
Ruth Madoff appeared on 60 Minutes this evening for her first interview since her husband Bernie was arrested nearly three years ago for perpetrating the largest financial crime in U.S. history.
Everyone else wanted Steve Jobs to move quickly against his tumor. His friends wanted him to get an operation. His wife wanted him to get an operation. But the Apple CEO, so used to swimming against the tide of popular opinion, insisted on trying alternative therapies for nine crucial months. Before he died, Jobs resolved to let the world know he deeply regretted the critical decision, biographer Walter Isaacson has told 60 Minutes.
With his normally cluttered desk wiped clean and his hair slicked back—his eyebrows, however, roamed free—curmudgeonly commentator Andy Rooney signed off from 60 Minutes tonight. In his final show-ending segment, the 92-year-old said he is and will always be a writer before anything else, apologized for the (very few) times he's been wrong, and reminded us that we should never, ever approach him in a restaurant.
Momentously eyebrowed useless old crank Andy Rooney has finally said enough. Just a day after CBS announced that the befuddled nonagenarian would return to his slot on 60 Minutes next week, they're announcing that next week will be Rooney's last appearance on the show. He's been there since 1978. About fucking time.
