Jon Stewart tackled the recent news that Fox News's managing editor Bill Sammon purposely smeared Obama before the 2008 election as a "socialist", even though he felt this was utter bull at the time.
Now, I know when a guy from NPR with no connection to the news division was caught blue-handed making disparaging comments about the Tea Party, he resigned from NPR, and the CEO of NPR was forced to step down. I wonder if Bret Baier's all-star panelist Charles Krauthammer would think that these type of off-channel remarks are revelatory.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER (3/9/2011): The reason that NPR is in such trouble now is because in each instance, it revealed the bias inherent in NPR, and it gave you an insight into what people at NPR would say to each other when they're off the air. And that would then be denied when they speak in public and say, "we're even-handed, and there isn't any bias."
He's brilliant. But he's an opinion columnist, he doesn't have to be consistent. And we're all smart enough to discern the hard line between news and opinion on Fox, much in the way that you can taste all the individual ingredients that go into soup.
I'm sure Bill Sammon will be consistent about someone like that getting fired. I mean, how would I know how Bill Sammon feels about reporters expressing political opinion and what should happen to them? Ah! When reporter Dave Weigel was forced to resign from the Washington Post for participating in what was called the Journolist, an e-mail group where often times conservatives were disparaged.
BILL SAMMON (8/1/2010): Try to imagine if somebody in a mainstream publication had been on a Journolist, a listserv with 400 right-wingers who were saying horrible things about Obama and liberals. They would be thrown out of those news organizations!
Unless that happened on a boat! In international waters!
Video and transcript below the fold.
I don't know if you watch this program, I don't, but last week, we hosted Fox News's Bret Baier on our program, very nice man, and he set me straight about Fox News's ideological slant.
BRET BAIER (3/24/2011): I mean, you know that the shows are different. There's opinion shows and there's news shows. And we respect the viewer's ability to discern the difference between the two. I'm a news guy, I do news.
See, I did not know that. See, to me, it seemed that Fox was a relentless agenda-driven 24-hour news-pinion propaganda delivery system, covered with the thinnest possible patina of objectivity that would allow them to claim a mantle of totally undeserved legitimacy. But I was wrong. And he told me that, and now I know...
BILL SAMMON: Barack Obama admitted that for much of his life, he has been drawn to Marxists.
You know what, I think that's the voice of Bill Sammon, the Washington managing editor of Fox News. That's Bret Baier's hard news division boss. I think that might have been from a speech that Sammon gave on a, and this is true, thing that happens on a conservative cruise.
The boat kind, not the Minneapolis airport men's room kind.
BILL SAMMON (8/2/2009): Candidate Barack Obama stood on a sidewalk in Toledo, Ohio, and first let it slip to Joe the Plumber that he wanted to, quote, "Spread the wealth around." At that time, I have to admit, that I went on TV on Fox News and publicly engaged in what I guess was some rather mischievous speculation about whether Barack Obama really advocated socialism, a premise that privately I found rather far-fetched.
But you're the managing editor! Ah, you know what, I'm sure he's exaggerating. He was on a cruise ship! Everybody gets nuts with a belly full of buffet shrimp and bottomless Mai Tais. I'm sure Bill Sammon, a captain of the hard, objective news operation at Fox isn't going to go on his own news channel and stoke the wild flames of partisan hysteria.
BILL SAMMON (10/21/2008): Ive read Barack Obama's books pretty carefully, and he in his own words talks about being drawn to Marxists. ... Now that all this stuff's come out about whether he's a socialist, I don't know why anyone is surprised by it.
OK, first of all, complaining about socialism while wearing a tuxedo? Little on the nose, dontcha think? I mean, you gonna throw a monocle in? "Hrmph hrmph hrmph hrmph hrmph hrmph hrmph." But Bill Sammon, how can you justify that type of mischief?
BILL SAMMON (8/2/2009): Imagine my surprise when this year, I witness President Barack Obama standing in the cross hall of the White House and having taken over the American car industry, look into the camera, and announce to the nation essentially, that he would personally vouch for the warranty on your car's muffler. All of a sudden, the debate over whether America was headed for socialism seemed anything but far-fetched.
Oh, your previous mischief was justified because Obama actually turned out to be a socialist! I get it. "Oh yeah, when I was on Fox earlier, I was talkin' out of my ass. I actually thought I was kind of intentionally misleading the audience. But then the car industry goes belly up, we bail out GM, suddenly Obama's Karl Marx, and I'm fucking Nostradamus over here!"
Now, I know when a guy from NPR with no connection to the news division was caught blue-handed making disparaging comments about the Tea Party, he resigned from NPR, and the CEO of NPR was forced to step down. I wonder if Bret Baier's all-star panelist Charles Krauthammer would think that these type of off-channel remarks are revelatory.
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER (3/9/2011): The reason that NPR is in such trouble now is because in each instance, it revealed the bias inherent in NPR, and it gave you an insight into what people at NPR would say to each other when they're off the air. And that would then be denied when they speak in public and say, "we're even-handed, and there isn't any bias."
He's brilliant. But he's an opinion columnist, he doesn't have to be consistent. And we're all smart enough to discern the hard line between news and opinion on Fox, much in the way that you can taste all the individual ingredients that go into soup.
I'm sure Bill Sammon will be consistent about someone like that getting fired. I mean, how would I know how Bill Sammon feels about reporters expressing political opinion and what should happen to them? Ah! When reporter Dave Weigel was forced to resign from the Washington Post for participating in what was called the Journolist, an e-mail group where often times conservatives were disparaged.
BILL SAMMON (8/1/2010): Try to imagine if somebody in a mainstream publication had been on a Journolist, a listserv with 400 right-wingers who were saying horrible things about Obama and liberals. They would be thrown out of those news organizations!
Unless that happened on a boat! In international waters! Oh my God, my friend Bret Baier! This guy Bill Sammon is still his boss! Bret Baier has no idea he's actually been working for an opinion guy all along! There is no line! I've got to warn him!! (runs out of studiio)
(begin epic running montage)
Gotta... cross town... warn... Bret Baier! Bias... seeping into news! Running... hard... body... old!
(Jon appears outside Fox News window)
JON STEWART: Bret! Bret! It's a lie, Bret! There's no line in news and opinion, Bret! They're using you, Bret!
WYATT CENAC: Jon, you do know that Bret Baier works in D.C., right?
JON STEWART: Carry on, nice lady!
Jon also looked at the coverage of just who the
Libyan rebel forces are, and how prepared they are. Then John Oliver got an
interview with Ali Suleiman Aujali, the former Libyan ambassador to the U.N. who recently defected, and had some hilarous suggestions on rebranding Libya.
Meanwhile, Stephen focused on a, you have to see it to believe it, an
anti-feminist lawyer who has
sued bars (and lost) that offer a Ladies Night as discrimination against men. He took his case to the Supreme Court, where they told him to
get lost. No, this is not a parody from the Onion. This is real. Seriously.
Then, Stephen looked at the latest in
Wisconsin with Judge Sumi's ruling and the GOP's attempt to ignore her ruling.
Jon talked with
Norm Macdonald, and Stephen talked with
Piers Gibbon.