Sure, it was a year ago, but since I’m waiting to get cable, I’m depending on YouTube at the moment. It’s a good warm-up exercise; be sure to stretch well afterwards.
All I heard while O’Reilly was talking was “WAHHHH.”
The first thing O’Reilly says to Stewart (after a canned “Welcome”) is that it’s “frightening” that he has an influence on the election. From there, he continually insists that only “stoned slackers” watch the show, claiming that he has the information that 87% of Stewart’s viewers are intoxicated while watching the program. No citation on where the statistic comes from. He calls the show and the viewers “dopey”.
Stewart is actually pretty good-natured about Bill’s smarmy remarks. In response to O’Reilly’s butthurt whining that “John Kerry bypassed me and went right over to you” (gee, Bill, could that be because your station blasted him every chance they got?), Stewart deadpans that “I hafta tell you, and I mean no disrespect, but the snack selection backstage… I don’t want to say Guantanamo Bay, but it’s a little spare back there.”
About halfway through, things actually start to get a little more respectful, possibly because O’Reilly catches on that Stewart isn’t rising to the bait, and that he’s making himself look like an ass. It all goes downhill when Stewart mentions that Kerry may have come on his show to reach a new audience, and O’Reilly can’t resist adding, “the stoned slackers.” Again, Stewart responds seamlessly with some deadpan humor.
It seemed pretty clear that O’Reilly was looking for a fight. Stewart made no critical remarks about his show, and instead kept the discussion civil, mature and kept the level of discourse fairly intelligent. Points for him.
The “stoned slackers” assertion was amusing… Apparently intelligent, sober adults can’t appreciate political satire.
Or, apparently they can, according to this AP article.
“Viewers of Jon Stewart’s show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch “The O’Reilly Factor,” according to Nielsen Media Research.”
I don’t know where the “87% of viewers are intoxicated” stat came from, but I can’t imagine how anyone would measure something like that.
The difference between Stewart and O’Reilly is that Stewart is a comedian on a comedy channel, and his show is exclusively billed as entertainment. The O’Reilly factor, however, is on a news channel, and bills itself as a “No Spin Zone”.
