Last week Jon Stewart criticized FOX News for being hypocritical about the use of sweeping generalizations of people based on their political beliefs and party affiliations.
He ended the segment with by showing a clip of Bernie Goldberg saying that a liberal would never allow a child with Downs Syndrome to even be born and then responded to Bernie’s flagrant generalization with, “Go fuck yourselves.”
Bernie Goldberg appeared on Bill O’Reilly’s show to respond to Jon Stewart’s attack, and last night, Jon Stewart responded in full force, complete with gospel choir backup.
Jon accurately describes FOX News as: “a terrible, cynical, disingenuous news organization.” (Note to Websters: Use this in your next edition.)
One of the things Goldberg said that I found particularly revealing was that Jon Stewart should try social commentary. Of course that’s what he does every night – through comedy – something Goldberg doesn’t seem to grasp.
And, since this video ping pong match started over the use of sweeping generalizations, I will use Goldberg’s remark to make one of my own.
Remember a few years back when Fox had its own comedy news show? You might have forgotten because it wasn’t on for very long. It wasn’t’ on for long because it wasn’t funny, and it wasn’t funny because conservative pundits like Bernie Goldberg don’t understand satire and are therefore incapable of producing it.
O’REILLY: OK, but is it fair for you to criticize Obama’s lack of experience when somebody could make the same criticism about you on the national stage?
PALIN: If you’re talking about executive experience, I would put my experience up against his any day of the week. I’ve been elected to a local office since 1992 and was the city manager, strong leader form of government, was a chief executive of the state, was an oil and gas regulator. There was some good experience there that could have been put to use in a vice presidential ticket. We have to remember, too, that I wasn’t running for president.
O’REILLY: Now, but that’s the key question because John McCain is up there in years. You had to be qualified to take that office over.
PALIN: Right, but I’m saying I was running for vice president just like Joe Biden in running for vice president. I’ve never once heard you or anybody else question Joe Biden and his experience. He…
O’REILLY: Well, he’s got a lot of experience. Let me be very bold and fresh again. Do you believe that you are smart enough, incisive enough, intellectual enough to handle the most powerful job in the world?
PALIN: I believe that I am because I have common sense, and I have, I believe, the values that are reflective of so many other American values. And I believe that what Americans are seeking is not the elitism, the kind of a spinelessness that perhaps is made up for that with some kind of elite Ivy League education and a fact resume that’s based on anything but hard work and private sector, free enterprise principles. Americans could be seeking something like that in positive change in their leadership. I’m not saying that has to be me.
I get the “common” part, but the “sense” part is not coming through at all.
Bill O’Reilly has been brought low by the same process that afflicted Jerry Springer. Once respected journalists, they sold their souls for higher ratings, and follow their siren song. Springer is honest about it: “I’m going to Hell for what I do, and I know it,” he’s likes to say. O’Reilly insists he is dealing only with the truth. When his guests disagree with him, he shouts at them, calls them liars, talks over them, and behaves like a schoolyard bully.
I am not interested in discussing O’Reilly’s politics here. That would open a hornet’s nest. I am more concerned about the danger he and others like him represent to a civil and peaceful society. He sets a harmful example of acceptable public behavior. He has been an influence on the most worrying trend in the field of news: The polarization of opinion, the elevation of emotional temperature, the predictability of two of the leading cable news channels. A majority of cable news viewers now get their news slanted one way or the other by angry men.
I never knew Bill O’Reilly was a “respected journalist.” If Ebert says so, well then maybe he was…
Anyway, read the whole post and watch the videos of how O’Reilly works. He really is an awful man.
While looking over the list of hits on this site and how readers got here, I could not help but notice that many of them were in fact looking for this segment of The Daily Show (thank you Amazon ads!), so here it is. Enjoy: