While You Were Offline: John McEnroe Gets Served (By Serena Williams)

Happy long weekend, friends. How’s it going? Feeling rested? After last week, you deserve a break. And that's not even because everything that happened last week was bad—Jay-Z did drop a new album to apologize to Beyoncé and Germany did legalize same-sex marriage, after all—it was all just kind of a lot. In other words, it was another seven days on the internet. Convinced you missed something? Take our virtual hand, dear readers, we’ll revisit the highlights and the lowlights together. Let us dance through the wreckage of the hopes and dreams of the world wide web.

John McEnroe Got Served

What Happened: John McEnroe decided to pass judgement on Serena Williams' tennis skills. It didn't go well for him.

What Really Happened: Turns out, Serena Williams is as good at serving shade as she is serving tennis balls.

This, you see, is in response to an interview John McEnroe gave to promote his new book in which he suggested that although he believed Williams was the best female tennis player in history, "if she played the men's circuit she'd be [rated] like 700 in the world." Not only were people upset about McEnroe's comments, they were elated by Williams' response.

Even former tennis greats felt the need to weigh in:

But as the topic picked up steam, McEnroe said he regretted his comments, even though Billie Jean King and others came to his defense, saying that he wasn't so much insulting Williams as simply stating a fact about the difference of physicality between men's and women's tennis.

Look, there's only one way to deal with this: We need to get McEnroe and Williams playing against each other at Wimbledon next year. That or playing together against alien invaders so that they come to appreciate each other's strengths and gain a new insight and understanding into the power of teamwork. That'd do as well.

The Takeaway: Let's at least all agree that Williams is capable of all kinds of stuff that McEnroe could never manage, OK?

President Trump Goes After Morning Joe By Talking About Mika Brzezinski's Face

What Happened: President Donald Trump's Thursday morning Twitter rant was… well, it was surprising even for an early-morning tweetstorm.

What Really Happened: By now, everyone expects some tweets at dawn from the US president. Folks even know what to expect: some commentary about what he's watching on Fox and Friends, some self-aggrandizing. It's almost comforting, except that it's also kind of jarring. Well, last Thursday, Trump swung for the fences with his missives.

For those who like the "Trump tweets nonsense as a distraction" theory, there's grist for that mill; Thursday was the first day of a Supreme Court-ordered return of the (scaled back) travel ban, as well as the roll-out of new visa regulations relating to it. Also, the failing Republican healthcare bill was continuing to threaten to embarrass the president, but we'll get to that later. Nonetheless, this seemed extreme, even for Trump.

Mika Brzezinski's response came within 20 minutes, and seemed surprisingly restrained, considering. (Don't worry; she had more to come.)

Others weren't quite so obtuse. Here's MSNBC's head of PR, Mark Kornblau, for example:

And here's MSNBC's official response:

Not enough? Well, here are some members of Congress—Republican members, notably:

Of course, not everyone was impressed by this level of moral outrage from those who had previously supported Trump despite his past behavior.

Media Twitter in general seemed to be taken aback by Trump's tweets, although not exactly surprised, per se.

And, of course, the story was a pretty big deal in the media. That said, Trump had his defenders. For example, this came from the office of First Lady Melania Trump (who, you may or may not remember, promised to make a stand against cyber-bullying during the election):

And, of course, the White House stood behind the bully-in-chief:

We said that Brzesinski would have more of a response, right? Well, a day later, she and Morning Joe co-host Joe Scarborough took to the airwaves to respond, and also wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post about the whole topic, called "Donald Trump is not well." It… didn't hold much back.

Maybe the president took this as a sign that, perhaps, he should take a moment and reflect on things?

OK, guess not.

The Takeaway: Considering the outraged response that Trump's Thursday tweets received from most of the Republican political elite, it's actually weirdly soothing that this tweet seems a little cynical in retrospect…

…that said, you know, the president is still a guy who said a woman was "bleeding badly from the face" to humiliate her publicly. So, you know, there's that.

Trump's Fake News (Magazine)

What Happened: President Trump, who often decries "fake news," was found to keep fake covers of Time magazine with his face on them at his golfing establishments.

What Really Happened: But, wait. If Trump was "hitting back" at Mika Brzesinski with his offensive tweets, what was he actually hitting back about?

Ohhhh. For those who somehow missed this story earlier in the week, it emerged, via the Washington Post, that a framed copy of Time magazine that hung in the clubhouses of numerous Trump golf courses internationally was a fake. Despite the fact that Trump has actually appeared on a number of real covers of the magazine, the one on display was a fake of as-yet-unknown origins. Although David Fahrenthold, the writer of the Post piece, had some ideas:

Were people amused by this? Why, yes, they were.

The story went viral quickly. And, of course, it was easily parodied.

People couldn't resist revisiting this real Trump Time cover, either.

The Takeaway: Of course, some people just had to make it about them…

The New Healthcare Bill's Biggest Surprise

What Happened: Meanwhile, let's check in on one-sixth of the US economy. How is that going?

What Really Happened: It's been impossible to miss, but last week the Senate unveiled its healthcare bill, the officially-titled "Better Care Reconciliation Act of 2017." Already unpopular at its debut—in large part because of its secretive creation—a Congressional Budget Office scoring of the bill made it even more so, to the point where the vote on the bill was delayed because not enough Republicans could be relied upon to support it. (Democrats en masse were primed to vote against it, considering it would take healthcare away from 22 million Americans.)

While all this was going on, the repeated question from many was, "Where is the president during all of this?" Healthcare was one of his signature pledges, and supposed to be something he cared deeply about. He even celebrated the passing of the House healthcare bill with a photo op in the White House Rose Garden. So, shouldn't he be standing behind this bill a little more closely? Shouldn't he be trying to get it passed?

Turns out, he did have something to say about the process. And it was something very strange indeed.

A surprise? As Trump's weird, quasi-promise got reported by media, people asked more questions: Is this real? And who wants a surprise when it comes to healthcare, anyway?

Of course, maybe the reason he was so vague was that reports were already coming in that Trump didn't really know what was actually happening with healthcare reform anyway. Just saying.

The Takeaway: Hey, maybe we're going to get lucky, and the surprise will be that the Senate bill will get a second draft that stops stealing healthcare from poor folk to give tax breaks to rich folk like a Bizarro Robin Hood! That's not impossible, right? Right?

…Yes, that's probably true.

After This Message

What Happened: The National Rifle Association has a new message for America. What are the odds it's a call for peace and unity?

What Really Happened: So, last week the National Rifle Association released this video.

For those thinking, "What the hell was that?" you're not alone. Not even slightly.

Media also seemed at a loss over the ad. But not everyone was upset by it. Indeed, some people seem to be watching an entirely different ad altogether, judging by their response.

The Takeaway: But really, what's the worst that could happen in response to a call for people who own firearms to use the "clenched fist of truth" against people who have a different opinion to them?

Oh, right, that. Yeah.