2006-01-06

Letterman makes O'Reilly Look good

Did anybody see the Letterman show the other night, with guest Bill O'Reilly? I rarely watch Letterman anymore; I just got lucky. I'm a huge fan of Letterman, and care little for O'Reilly. O'Reilly has a reputation among leftists as being a severe rightist, which merely means that leftists don't watch him enough to know. O'Reilly opposed the Iraq invasion, and supports laws against "price gouging." And he has a dispicable habit of declaring what is right and wrong, based on himself as the Universal Arbiter of such things. Anyway:

Letterman **EMBARRASSED** himself. O'Reilly came on to have fun, as the guest of a comedian, ready for jokes by Letterman cracked against him. Instead, Letterman attacked O'Reilly; yes, attacked. The entire exchange was an attack by Letterman against a guy who sat down with a big smile on his face ready for the fun that charactorizes every other minute of every other Letterman show. Instead, O'Reilly got bushwacked. Letterman showed himself to be a leftist, which is fine, but an extremely ignorant one, and one on this night in this situation who had zero humor.

O'Reilly did a great job, but missed at least one chance: Letterman constantly hammered O'Reilly about Cindy Sheehan, whom Letterman apparantly adores, and O'Reilly has repeatedly admonished. Though O'Reilly succeeded in suppressing all of his many negative charactoristics, he forgot to point out to Dave that of the slain soldiers from Iraq, at least as many of their parents support Bush's war as oppose it, and as many abhore Cindy Sheehan as support her.

Letterman's most embarrassing moment led to O'Reilly's best: Letterman sternly declared that O'Reilly wasn't "fair and balanced." O'Reilly humorously requested examples to support this claim. Letterman admitted that he had no examples, because he never watches O'Reilly's show. Stop here for a minute. Dave is in the business of pretending to have read every book or seen every show promoted by his guests. Have you ever known Dave (or any talk host) to admit that he never watches/reads the guest's stuff? So here's Dave lambasting his *GUEST*'s stuff, then admitting that he's never seen it. Pathetic. O'Reilly then scored a major point by humorously suggesting that Dave watch just once for 30 minutes, "which will make you a big fan. And I'll send you a hat." At this point, Dave further disgraced himself by un-humorously retorting, "Send Cindy Sheehan a hat."

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Yep, saw it too and you're absolutely correct...Letterman made a complete ass of himself and as far as I'm concerned so did the members of his audience who applauded like sheep at his ignorant remarks.

Bill O'Reilly's abnoxious, no doubt and I rarely watch his show anymore unless he's going to have a guest on who I really want to see him interview. However, while he may be abnoxious, you can hardly qualify him as a right-winger. He's all over the map with his opinions.

I stopped watching Letterman a long time ago and not because of his poltical, or social leanings, but because I no longer find him funny. His schtick is tired and worn out and he strikes me now as just bitter. Bitter that he's become irrelevant.

It's so pathetic. He'll have Stuart Smalley, or Al Gorge, or Hollerin' Howie Dean on and practically cum in his pants he fawns over them so, but he invites O'Reilly on and treats him like shit.

Now I have another reason to no longer watch Late Night with David Letterperson.

Nadir said...

The view of this interview must be skewed by political perspective. I saw a clip on Letterman's site, and I saw no "attack" from Letterman. It was O'Reilly who brought up the Christmas vs. Holiday discussion.

I thought Letterman held his own against O'Reilly and did a good job. You guys must have seen a different segment.

Unknown said...

"The view of this interview must be skewed by political"

It appears so.

Paul Hue said...

Nadir: Only a skewed perspective can explain you not seeing that Oreilly sat down in an ambush. Once Oreilly said, "Happy Winter Solstice," it was obvious that Dave already had some rude and very clunky ammunition poised to smash him on the side of his head opposite from his smile. As Six said, Franken comes on for a friendly, humorous interview, but OReilly gets a few bat-wacks to the back of his head.

Letterman "held his own"? All he did was offer a bunch of ad-hominans and very empty retorts. OReilly would make a claim, such as, "There's a movement to eliminate Christmas." Letterman asked for examples, which OReilly kept providing (very specific examples, by the way), and Letterman kept dismissing, and demanding more. On this issue, I think that OReilly missed a few rhetorical points (and I don't share his passion for this issue, though that's irrellivent).

On the claim that OReilly isn't fair and balanced, OReilly asked for facts, and Letterman had nothing but an empty head that espoused a certain declaration.

If you think that Letterman "held his own" and that he was fair with OReilly, as opposed to rude and vacuous, I have to lump you with the critics who've given good reviews to King Kong (which is one the most un-watchable movies you'll ever see).

Paul Hue said...

PS: I think that Letterman is a comic genius, and highly admire him as a talk show host. Meanwhile my estimation of OReilly is much lower. I agree with OReilly about half of the time, and also about half of the time I highly object to how he expresses himself and how he advocates his positions.

As for the two issues that they discussed, I agree with OReilly that once Cindy Sheehan entered the political arena, (1) her view on the war gets no more credability than does the pro-war views of other parents who lost their kids; (2) her credability -- as a political player now -- warrents the same scritiny as the other playser; and (3) her views are nuts. But on the issue of organized religion, OReilly is a practicing catholic who believes that judges should have the right to erect religious symbols in the courthouse. I think that catholicism is rediculous and that all religion should be removed from all government functions. I agree with him that school officials should have the right to include religious songs, and that the PC police are unneccessarily removing xmas, though I think that xmas is rediculous.

Nadir said...

I think O'Reilly opened the bag with the winter solstice remark and then proved how stupid his attacks on "the pc police" were with each remark he made. Letterman's remark, "I don't pay attention to that stuff," essentially because it isn't important and is blown out of proportion.

On the "happy holidays" thing, practicing catholic Stephen Colbert answered this very well when he demonstrated that the Old English word from which "holiday" is derived means "holy day". Therefore saying happy holidays encompasses all the holy days of the season and doesn't specifically exclude Christmas, though pundits like O'Reilly and Lashawn Barber would want to exclude "some people's" holy days.

My view was that Letterman allowed O'Reilly to hang himself with his own pompous attitude. He stated that Cindy Sheehan, who has lost a child in combat has a right to grieve in any way she likes, just as pro-war parents of fallen soldiers do.

The soldiers who are fighting the US invasion in Iraq are fighting for the freedom of self-determination and are fighting invaders in their country. If Canada invaded Michigan, and we took up arms to combat them, we would be called freedom fighters as well. Don't be hypocritical about it because we are on the wrong side of the equation.

Paul Hue said...

Nadir: Cobert's comment about Holiday = Holy Day is irrellivent, because nobody is aware of that when they say or hear the word "holiday", though I do value the semantic lesson. I might inform you that the term, "fuck you", derives from an Aramic phrase, "phicku", which means, "I hold you in high regard, and I am gay." But what would that lesson do for our national discourse? No more than Cobert's.

When OReilly said, "Happy Winter Solstice," he had a big smile on his face, and appeared to me ready for a brief, light-hearted banter about one of the topics that he's promoting these days. In all my years of watching Dave, this is the only time I've seen him be totally serious, and mean. He had no questions, only rhetoric. I don't understand how you can dismiss OReilly's information, which was to cite specific examples from around the country about how schools are taking religious christmas songs out of school assemblies. Dave irrationally dismissed these facts. Rationally, he could have stated that he supports this trend; that would have made sense, and I suppose I agree with this trend. However, I also agree with OReilly's proposal to include various religious songs and sights during the public school year.

There is also certainly a trend to remove Christmas from commerce. When you and I were kids, Nadir, there were Santas, Jesuses (white ones), and Merry Christmas all over the malls, stores, and publis spaces. This is no more. I do not share OReilly's concern for this, and there is an intelligent way to express this view. There is also Letterman's way, which was ugly and illogical.

As for Cindy Sheehan, she and her supporters apparently want a special halo for her. She wants to grieve in public, and make relentless and extreme proclaimations, but she and her supporters expect no return bombast. That is illogical.

I do oppose OReilly in his insistance that Cindy and Nadir shut up and stop loudly criticizing the president and his war. Bush had a responsibility to know that 25% or so of his constituents would behave this way when he chose to take this action. This is one of the drawbacks of a democracy during war time. OReilly himself opposed the war, and I admire him for constantly reminding everyone that he did. But he should debate Cindy Seheen on the points that she makes, instead of insisting that her points hurt the war effort. Her points do hurt the war effort, but they would less so if people like him could effectively counter her points, and especially if our president did a better job of this.