Yeah, Jon's doing the cross-book-promo thing again. I thought the clip of his interview on O'Reilly the other day was right on the front page of TheDailyShow.com, but it's been replaced with their 'tonight on' blurb (O'Reilly , John Oliver, Olivia Munn, and a critique of politician's criticism of Colbert's congressional testimony). If it's not still somewhere on the site, it's elsewhere around the webs. Apparently the best parts weren't aired (looks like some of that made the Daily News piece I posted last week). Nice way to thank Jon for that ratings boost...
There's lots about this floating around, mostly fairly unoriginal, but the LATImes has this:
Jon Stewart vs. Bill O'Reilly: Won't someone cast these guys in a good buddy comedy
Some people will do anything to promote their new book...I don't know if Stewart sold any books, since the Fox News audience is not exactly his best fan base, but it was wonderfully wacky entertainment. Watching Stewart joust with Papa Bear was like watching a great buddy picture comedy team, their differences providing the perfect spark for the relationship.
Comedy teams are all about contrasts and opposing sensibilities, so you couldn't ask for more from this odd couple, who were strikingly reminiscent of Nick Nolte and Eddie Murphy in "48 HRS," ...
Much of the discussion, since this is after all Fox News, revolved around Barack Obama's failings, though for Stewart, Obama's biggest failing was that he hadn't done enough to change America, while at Fox they are petrified of what precious little change Obama has wrought. When O'Reilly asked Stewart if he had bought the whole Obama "messiah thing," Stewart quipped: "I don't buy the messiah thing even with the messiah thing, let alone with a politician."
..The more I think about it, these guys would make a great Hollywood comedy team because they don't even need a pesky screenwriter to write their insults and retorts. It comes right out of their own mouths. When O'Reilly finally turned his attention to Stewart's new book, the "Daily Show" host contrasted it to O'Reilly's never-ending stream of political texts, saying "I put effort into my books. I don't put one out every six months from stuff I dictate on the way home." Perhaps just to annoy Stewart, O'Reilly began casually leafing through the book during the rest of the interview, prompting Stewart to blurt out: "Is this really the time to skim the book? ... Should I join you in the bathroom while you read it?"
I didn't bother to look up anything about O'Reillys book, but I came across this conservative-ish critique in the Daily Beast:
Bill O’Reilly is a liar. He’s also a total pinhead, to pluck a word from his newest book, which bears the glib and gassy title Pinheads and Patriots...
How to evaluate Bill O’Reilly, poobah now, for 14 relentless years, of The O’Reilly Factor? There was a time when he was, I’ll admit, a breath of fresh air: Ten years ago, in a piece for The Wall Street Journal, I celebrated the refreshingly demotic counterweight provided to our nightly news by the likes of O’Reilly, men who were rebelling against the straight-laced and deeply anal Rather-ism (the spindly child of the straight-laced and deeply anal Cronkite-ism) that ruled our boring news screens. In American terms, news, then, was for smart people, people the British call "toffs," not the opinionated Americans—dismissed as unsophisticated—who made up the broad "middle class."
...O’Reilly changed that, barging into our living rooms with opinions and certitudes that masqueraded as news, thrilling a demographic that had previously been kept out of the self-righteous TV news-and-analysis loop. But with a deft sleight of hand (or mind), O’Reilly gave them slogans in lieu of analysis, certitudes instead of ideas. And his model of news-theater, which fused entertainment with information—and which pandered to conventional wisdom instead of challenging its boundaries—abetted the growth of a class of Americans who were lazily, even slothfully, ideological, who grunted in agreement when they were scratched under the chin and bellowed in fury when their chins were left unscratched. Purr-and-bellow, purr-and-bellow.
If American society is today an ugly squaring-up of partisan platitudes, its presiding deity is Bill O’Reilly...
Who is O’Reilly to say whether someone is a "patriot," especially President Obama, who is subjected constantly to a patriotism test? Why must a man, Obama, elected resoundingly by a majority of Americans, take a "patriotism" test prescribed by a town barker, O’Reilly, who was elected to no office by anyone? And why does O’Reilly feel the need, constantly, to compare himself with Obama as a fellow "alpha male"? (He does it frequently in the book, causing me to write "ugh" more than once in the margins as I read it.) Is there a form of penis envy at work here, I wonder, or just envy of a non-penile variety? I’d say that O’Reilly, given his public role as a news servant, has an obligation—a patriotic obligation, no less—to keep his didactic, insufferable, paint-by-numbers "pinheadedness" in stricter check.
Few figures have been more corrosive to contemporary American public and political discourse than Bill O’Reilly. His omniscient braying has set a standard for a public discourse by which no one approaches anyone else with an open mind—by which all minds are aggressively closed lest there be a mistaken conclusion, somewhere, that the conservative position has a chink, or a weakness. And in this way, he has, of course, done incalculable harm to civilized conservatism. No doubt, compared with Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly is a kind Pericles...
But I'm sure he's a nice guy, when he's off the clock. Better than those others, certainly. And no, that is not how radicalism creeps in and the previously abhorrent becomes perfectly acceptable behaviour, you immoderate lefty you.
(I suppose 'civilized conservatism' is the sort that wouldn't destroy the nation/planet for short-term profit. They'd milk those death throes for generations. The grandkids will need a world to exploit, after all...)
And if you've had enough of that for the night, watch this at 11:21 tonight instead:
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