I wonder if the fact that I make fun of Democrats would then be proof that I'm not biased.
6/19/2011:
JON STEWART: Am I an activist in your mind, an ideological partisan activist?
CHRIS WALLACE: Yeah.
JON STEWART: OK. Then I disagree with you.
CHRIS WALLACE: OK.
JON STEWART: I absolutely disagree with you that that's the case.
CHRIS WALLACE: I think you're pushing....
JON STEWART: And I don't think....
CHRIS WALLACE: And I think you take shots at, at... although I think it's mostly to maintain credibility, and you're not as comfortable with it.
JON STEWART: Let me put it this way. Here's what I imagine is going through your mind....
CHRIS WALLACE: You take shots at Obama and the liberals. You like to make fun of conservatives.
See the game? I make fun of conservatives, or Republicans, because I'm a liberal partisan ideologue. I make fun of liberals or Democrats, because I want, as part of my brilliant yet cynical strategy, to maintain enough credibility to continue making fun of conservatives and Republicans.
And that narrative of conservative victimization is the true genius of what Fox News has accomplished. Any editorial judgment in news or schools or movies that doesn't favor the conservative view is elitism and is evidence of liberal bias. Whereas any editorial judgment that favors the conservative view is evidence merely of fairness, and done to protect them from liberal bias. And, if you criticize Fox for this game, guess what that's evidence of? How right they are, about how persecuted.... It is air tighter than an otter's anus. Don't ask me how I know that.
Video and transcript below the fold.
The marriage equality act passing in New York wasn't the only bit of good news from this weekend. Take a look at this.
CHRIS WALLACE (6/26/2011): Up next, setting the record straight about our interview last week with Jon Stewart.
Yes! Finally! So let me tell you what's going on. So two Sundays (ago), I do an interview on Chris Wallace's show, and along with some really salient and dynamic points that I made, I mentioned Fox News viewers were the most consistently misinformed viewers in every poll. PolitiFact took issue with that, and said I really shouldn't have said "every" poll, it was just "most". So I accepted it, and then I brought up a 21-lie salute of PolitiFact Fox-fact-checking.
So, I assume that Chris Wallace now begins the work of apologizing for Fox's many false and misleading statements. They'll probably do a few per show and carry us into the 2014 midterms with a clear conscience.
6/19/2011:
JON STEWART: You believe that Fox News is exactly the ideological equivalent of NBC News.
CHRIS WALLACE: I think we're the counterweight.
JON STEWART: You believe that.
CHRIS WALLACE: I think that they have a liberal agenda, and I think we tell the other side of the story.
CHRIS WALLACE (6/26/2011): Jon seemed to think that was a big deal, that I said "we tell the other side of the story". While I wish I had said "the full story", here's what I meant.
Wait! That was a big deal that you said that! That's your setting the record straight, I accidentally told the truth, and wish I could take it back? That's not.... You're the forward weight? That's crazy! How are you not the counterweight?
CHRIS WALLACE (6/26/2011): Let me give you a classic example of what "fair and balanced" means to me. After Hurricane Katrina, the mainstream media piled on FEMA for its failure to respond to the crisis. And the federal government did a lousy job. But it was Fox News that started reporting on the failure of the first responders, the city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana, to help people. Yes, we reported FEMA's problems, but we also told the other side of the story.
That's your example? You had a week to prepare an example, and you came up with, "Um, in 2005, everyone was shitting on the Republicans, and we made sure they understood that local Louisiana Democrats fucked up too." I mean, just out of curiosity, in your week of digging for that, did you find it on Thursday, or Friday, or was it like Broadcast News, where Joan Cusack sprinted in during the show countdown, "I found one!!"?
But all right, here's what I'll do. I'll find something. Here's what I'll do. I'll find something maybe more from the recent past that I think tells the fuller story. It's not crazy. Mother says I'm crazy to have these books but I don't think it's crazy. I think it's actually quite smart to have these books.
Ah! Ah!! Here's one, here's one!
Bret Baier's show, that's on the news side, um, they're reporting on the crazy ATF operation that allowed Mexican drug cartels to purchase automatic weapons in America and smuggle them back into Mexico.
WILLIAM LA JEUNESSE (6/13/2011): The President told Mexican TV Fast and Furious was a mistake. Some say it was innocent, others believe it was allowed to happen to justify tougher gun laws in the U.S.
Didja see that? Did you see? He just threw it right in there! President Obama is either incompetent, making an innocent mistake, or the architect of an evil conspiracy to wreak violent carnage in Mexico as a way to take away Americans' guns. You know, both sides of the story.
Who said that America was involved in the type of conspiracy that, if true, could ultimately lead to the impeachment of a President? Who said it? "Others".
But of course, Chris Wallace's main claim to credibility was simply this.
CHRIS WALLACE (6/26/2011): As we showed today, we don't go easy on Republicans.
Proof! That at least for one hour of Fox's 168 hours of programming a week, really, it's three hours, because it's repeated twice. Mother says it's crazy to watch it like that, but I don't think it's crazy to watch it like that. I think watching it at 2 and 6 when it's repeated is actually the right way to do it.
Oh. I wonder... I wonder if the fact that I make fun of Democrats would then be proof that I'm not biased.
6/19/2011:
JON STEWART: Am I an activist in your mind, an ideological partisan activist?
CHRIS WALLACE: Yeah.
JON STEWART: OK. Then I disagree with you.
CHRIS WALLACE: OK.
JON STEWART: I absolutely disagree with you that that's the case.
CHRIS WALLACE: I think you're pushing....
JON STEWART: And I don't think....
CHRIS WALLACE: And I think you take shots at, at... although I think it's mostly to maintain credibility, and you're not as comfortable with it.
JON STEWART: Let me put it this way. Here's what I imagine is going through your mind....
CHRIS WALLACE: You take shots at Obama and the liberals. You like to make fun of conservatives.
See the game? I make fun of conservatives, or Republicans, because I'm a liberal partisan ideologue. I make fun of liberals or Democrats, because I want, as part of my brilliant yet cynical strategy, to maintain enough credibility to continue making fun of conservatives and Republicans.
And that narrative of conservative victimization is the true genius of what Fox News has accomplished. Any editorial judgment in news or schools or movies that doesn't favor the conservative view is elitism and is evidence of liberal bias. Whereas any editorial judgment that favors the conservative view is evidence merely of fairness, and done to protect them from liberal bias. And, if you criticize Fox for this game, guess what that's evidence of? How right they are, about how persecuted.... It is air tighter than an otter's anus. Don't ask me how I know that.
They can't lose! But you know what this whole victim thing makes Fox? Well, perhaps this term a friend of mine used once to describe our current Presidential administration is most apt.
CHRIS WALLACE (9/18/2009): They are the biggest bunch of crybabies I have dealt with in my 30 years in Washington.
We'll be right back.