*Written by Rob Rimes.
I am still recovering from that horrible Barack Obama vs. Mitt Romney debate that saw the POTUS come off as weak and the Mormon hair model come off as not as weak. Either way, both dudes came off as weak and it was a difficult debate to watch. I’d call it disastrous and honestly, that might be an understatement. So I do find it somewhat refreshing that a debate that wasn’t meant to be taken seriously came across as an entertaining anecdote that was superior than the debate we were supposed to regard as a big moment in American history. The credit for this goes to Jon Stewart, who decided to have this debate against Fox News’ ratings king Bill O’Reilly. I don’t give O’Reilly much credit, other than being a good sport and taking part in this thing – graciously succumbing to Stewart and providing him with a good punching bag.
Now I’ve been highly critical of entertainment in politics, especially with it being on the level of the presidency. For example, I have trashed Donald Trump for wanting to host presidential primary debates as well as dangling a carrot in front of conservatives on whether or not he should run for president. We all knew he wouldn’t, well we all should have, and his wasting our time with the whole thing, as well as his incessant pressing of the birther issue, should be something that people in this country reject not embrace. Stewart on the other hand, is a totally different egg to crack.
Jon Stewart, while being a comedian and an entertainer plying his trade in the realm of politics, does it the right way. Sure, his critics think that he is a mockery and can’t be taken seriously but that’s all bullshit. What Jon Stewart does, is he talks about the political events in America on a daily basis and through his use of comedy, is able to expose the bullshit on both sides of the political coin. Yes, he’s a liberal but he dishes it out to those on his side just as he dishes it out to the conservatives. Stewart, in my estimation, has always been fair. His method at getting his message across has always been effective, despite making a “mockery” of things. The truth is, it isn’t a mockery because he respects what he does and respects the political realm – unlike a guy like Donald Trump who is an opportunist out to stroke his own senile cock and could care less about who occupies the Oval Office just as long as millions of people watch ‘The Apprentice’ finale. Now I don’t agree with Stewart on several things and often times I find his assessment to be incorrect but I do find it to be honest and even with the comedy he dumps into his reports, I find it more credible than the vast majority of the serious talking heads he competes with. This of course brings me to Bill O’Reilly.
Bill O’Reilly is an ass: plain and fucking simple. Hell, he’s a stupid ass. He’s not funny and this debate was just proof of that as it saw this out-of-touch old man try way t0o hard to convince Jon Stewart and his audience that he’s a “hepcat”. Stewart said it best when he dissed O’Reilly during the debate saying, “Bill, your audience is calling my audience to ask them how to download this thing.” And as funny as Stewart’s zinger was, it’s pretty much true. Out-of-touch O’Reilly tried to imitate Deepak Chopra and just came off looking like an unfunny ass that was horrible at mocking accents. His other jokes were awful and the fact that he is considered to be the conservative champion of media but doesn’t know what Keynesian economics is is frightening! It’s obvious that his over-confidence is just arrogance and it’s arrogance born from ignorance. This is why he made a great cork board for Jon Stewart’s quick-witted comedic darts.
This isn’t to say that I wholeheartedly agreed with Stewart and all of his points, I didn’t. I found myself on his side more than O’Reilly’s for sure though. Bill’s idiocy was clearly on display as he actually held up a little flash card that read “Waterboards. No. Drones. Yes.” He then went on to say that it’s good for the United States military to use drone strikes on towns harboring potential threats. Bill obviously sees no value in the life of those innocent people on the other side of the world who have been killed as collateral damage in these drone strikes. In response to the U.S. ambassador to Libya being murdered in a terrorist attack, O’Reilly said, “When there’s a dead ambassador, we do whatever we want.” Really, dude?! So if we force a country to house our ambassador against their will and they react violently because they don’t want us there, as we have no right there, than it is okay f0r us to strengthen our grip on them? And these conservative mouthpieces think we are at war with all of these extremists because of religious differences and because they hate out “freedom”. O’Reilly is clearly a fool.
O’Reilly kept talking about how awesome Lincoln was, completely negating the fact that Lincoln basically told the Constitution to “fuck off” as he locked up people in the press who didn’t agree with him on top of ignoring states’ rights to secede and thus bringing the United States into a civil war that took the lives of over 750,000 Americans! Yet O’Reilly calls the guy a hero and regards him as the best president in United States history. Mr. O’Reilly, being a former public school teacher, proudly promotes the same quasi-history lessons that our educational system gives to our kids. You can’t tell half a story and brush off the bad bits. Well, you can but then you are a dishonest douche and that’s really all that O’Reilly is.
Other idiotic moments of O’Reilly include, his support of a national sales tax, which Jon Stewart also agreed with. O’Reilly also told the young people to “get off the Net” all while he was pontificating to them via the Net! He said these words, “I believe in God because everyone has a talent.” He also cited Time Magazine and mentioned a “good piece” they recently ran. The Time Magazine comment just proves he’s a moron. The only other really bad thing that Stewart said, apart from the national sales tax comment, was that he would support a law that would force kids to have to serve their country in some way for a year, whether that be military service or some sort of City Corps. program. Sorry Stewart, kids aren’t born with a contract over their heads from the government. At least they shouldn’t be because otherwise they are born into slavery.
While Stewart’s low points are big black marks of doom in my book, he still outshined O’Reilly and made him look like the old buffoon that he is. However, despite O’Reilly’s contribution to the debate, it was still more engaging than the Obama and Romney debacle from earlier in the week. Maybe the two guys competing for the Oval Office could learn something from the Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium. While Jon and Bill didn’t take themselves too seriously, they put on a good show nonetheless that had more real content and real talk on the real issues than the first presidential debate. Both men looked to be having fun and it was the audience who bought the event that really won the debate. As refreshing as the event was, it was also disheartening in realizing that the two men vying for the White House can’t be this open and connect with the American people this effectively.
No comments