TheAgitator.com
Cable Blowhards in the News
Sunday, March 29th, 2009Let’s start on the left, where Keith Olbermann oddly named Twitter his “Worst Person in the World” for setting up a false account in his name (then somehow managed to blame Fox News for it all). Turns out, the account had been operated for months by . . . Olbermann’s employer, MSNBC.
Then there’s Bill O’Reilly, who sent one of his producers to creepily stake out, stalk, and harass ThinkProgress writer Amanda Terkel . . . at a conference for victims of rape. O’Reilly was apparently speaking at the conference, and ThinkProgress had the temerity to protest, given that O’Reilly in the past has made the “she was asking for it” argument about a rape victim or two (not to mention that he’s been subject to his own sexual harassment allegations). The stalking is particularly hypocritical given that . . . well, I’ll just let John Stewart explain:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M – Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Bill O’Reilly’s Right to Privacy | ||||
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I hate MSNBC and FoxNews. Glad to see that someone else shares my contempt.
Of course, the Right to Privacy is only with respect to govrnment intrusions as with nearly (if not all) Bill of Rights rights. So Bill O doesn’t really understand he Bill O’….. rights. Hey yo!
Yeah, but John Stewart is also a blow-hard, with his, “you can’t contest what I do or say…I’m just a comedian!” shtick.
I’d be shocked too if I found out I had 13,000 followers on twitter.
They’re almost all blowhards in the national press (except for John Stossel, of course, who is a reformed blowhard). But Jon Stewart was dead on about O’Reilly…that guy’s one of the biggest hypocrites on television.
There are a lot of things to blame here: gay marriage, drug lord supporting college kids smoking locally grown pot, kids under 18 having sex with other kids under 18, socialist/lefties, the wussification of America, and a couple other dozen boogey men.
But seriously, we all here obviously know that the goal of anything on TV is to sell the product of the sponsors. The goal, even on NPR, is never about truth, consistency or justice.
Why the negs for the anti-John Stewart post by anony? Comedians do a quick, unfair reduction of an argument for laughs. IMHO, Stewart steps over the line every night trying to position himself as actually having done some real journalistism work. Posing a joke should still be different than posing a premise for actual analysis.
Oh, he’s funny. But, he’s also about as unfair with his arguments as David Cross, Louis Black, Janine Garafalo, Bill Mayer and Cornel West.
What, Cornel West isn’t a comedian? Next you’ll be telling me Lou Dobbs isn’t a comedian, either!
While I enjoy The Daily Show, I do find it Stewart’s habit of responding to criticism with “but I’m just a comedian” to be rather annoying. It should be obvious to any regular viewer that the show is intended to be far more than “just comedy”. At some point Stewart needs to decide which side of the comedian/commentator line he wants to be on instead of running back and forth as convenient.
I used to enjoy Olbermann’s ranting, right up until he ignored Obama’s flipping on FISA and telecom immunity.
Stewart, on the other hand, does a decent job of mocking hypocrisy, by using the actual behavior of the people being criticized. It’s pretty hard to screw that up, not to mention even compare it to the behavior of an actual hypocrite like Olbermann or O’Reilly.
“even on NPR”
The goal, even on NPR, is never about truth
That is why when the red team vs blue teams discussions arise I take graet pains to point out that I am not even on the spectrum. The conservative to liberal line? Hell, I’m not even on the same plane.
O’Reilly and Olberman are a couple of self-important blathering idiots. When either rarely reaches a correct conclusion I chalk it up to the blind pigs/acorns phenomenon.
What about a woman who goes into a bad section of town, alone, gets drunk and walks home alone through said bad section of town? Can you really say that her behavior wasn’t inviting harm to come her way? Blame is not a zero sum game. It is possible for both the offender and the victim to be responsible for the incident happening.
The fact is, if a rich guy were walking through Anacostia alone, at night, with $30k of bling on him out in the open, no weapon and drunk or stoned, no one would have any real sympathy for him if he got mugged. He could be robbed, beaten into a coma and left in a ditch for dead, and the average response was “that sucks, but he was a total moron for putting himself out there like that.”
Plenty of feminists have no problem arguing, with a straight face, that women have absolutely no responsibility for their own security. Plenty of major feminist bloggers have gone apoplectic on Vox Day for suggesting that they do.
It’s something of a lexical gap in the English language. We need a word to distinguish between things that rightfully should happen to us (which is what ‘deserve’ normally implies) and things that are a likely, yet undeserved, outcome of our actions.
Incorrect: I and many people I know would have sympathy for him.
Possibly an average response; not the only possible or reasonable one, nor the universal one, nor a necessary one. How about “that sucks, and he was a total moron for putting himself out there like that”?
As Stormy Dragon #14 observes, provoke != deserve; to invite != to merit; imprudence is not a species of viciousness, and foolishness is not always wickedness. To deny that is arbitrarily to limit the range of meanings term embraced by the term “tragedy.”
Plus, it justifies opportunism, holds might as the only right, teaches us that exploiting the vulnerable is acceptable or even commendable.
Can you tell I disagree? :-)
Here ya go.
I’m having a hard time feeling sorry for Terkel. My brain summarized the story….”An asshole was being an asshole to a bitch who was being a bitch to the asshole.”
[...] Bill O’Reilly might want to explain this before I start stalking and harassing him myself: Then there’s Bill O’Reilly, who sent one of his producers to creepily stake out, stalk, and harass ThinkProgress writer Amanda Terkel . . . at a conference for victims of rape. O’Reilly was apparently speaking at the conference, and ThinkProgress had the temerity to protest, given that O’Reilly in the past has made the “she was asking for it” argument about a rape victim or two (not to mention that he’s been subject to his own sexual harassment allegations). [...]