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The Daily Show Debates: Is Fox News Evil Or Stupid? (VIDEO)
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The Daily Show correspondents Wyatt Cenac and John Oliver debated last night whether Fox News' Fox and Friends was being evil or stupid when they didn't reveal the connection between Fox News and the funder of the Cordoba House Islamic center near Ground Zero. Or, as Jon Stewart put it, "the terror funder is Rupert Murdoch's News Corp funder. Nooooooo!"
Oliver defended Fox News as stupid: "Things are hectic on the morning show. Plus Gretchen [Carlson] wasn't there and she's the only one who knows how to use Google."
Cenac argued that they were evil, since they avoided showing pictures of Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal because "he already looks like he's about to feed Timothy Dalton to his white tiger."
Oliver said he has to believe they are stupid, "because if they're not as stupid as I believe them to be, they are really f*cking evil."
Cenac replied: "And if they're not as evil as I think they are, they are stupid. We're talking potatoes with mouths."
[TPM SLIDESHOW: CRACK DOWN ON THIS: A CATALOG OF FOX'S MISTAKES]
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imaletyoufinish
August 24, 2010 10:57 AM
This was pure gold! Brilliant!
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yhgb
August 24, 2010 11:22 AM in reply to imaletyoufinish
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farnsworth
August 25, 2010 2:24 AM in reply to yhgb
Here it is, more than 12 hours later, and this obnoxious spam is still on this thread. Don't you care?
I tell you what, contact me at my email address. Give me the power to delete these posts, and I will do it for you. You can check on which posts I delete, and make sure I am only deleting spam. You can make sure I don't delete any stupid liar posts.
Or, if you don't trust me with that power, give it to some other reader. I am sure there are hundreds who would gladly perform that necessary task.
Of course, the best idea is for YOU TO DO IT YOURSELVES!!! Is it too much to ask?
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de TOQUEville
August 25, 2010 8:43 AM in reply to farnsworth
Co-sign!
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mcjam
August 25, 2010 9:55 AM in reply to farnsworth
Why do you let this upset you? What skin is removed from your back?
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farnsworth
August 25, 2010 10:05 AM in reply to mcjam
Really? Is that really your response?
Is there any limit to the obnoxiousness that you will gladly put up with? "Oh, nothing ever bothers me. Ever."
It makes the comments section of this site less usable, and less readable. But the true issue is how easy it would be for TPM to address this. It annoys me that they have the ability to easily make this go away. And they don't.
Well, you are right. I do let things bother me too much. Look at how much effort I have expended responding to your stupid comment.
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deusXmchna
August 26, 2010 2:59 AM in reply to farnsworth
+1
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Joekuh
August 24, 2010 11:02 AM
EXCELLENT show last night. Its highly ironic that "The Daily Show" has more truth in its pinky toe every day than Faux News might have in a month.
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tinsk
August 24, 2010 1:44 PM in reply to Joekuh
Fox News, Unfairly Evil and Stupidly Imbalanced.
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jvwalt
August 24, 2010 11:07 AM
I want me one o' them "Team Evil" T-shirts!
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glblank
August 24, 2010 11:08 AM
What else can you expect from the Auto-colonoscopy by direct visual inspection channel and its mindless drones, I go with stupid and evil.
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traitorjoe
August 24, 2010 1:45 PM in reply to glblank
When viewers agree with Fox, it's the #1 rated news program. When Fox is found to be lying and inaccurate, they are an "entertainment" show ... but deep down it's OK to lie when you are fightin' them Mooslems.
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BoogAlou
August 24, 2010 11:09 AM
Actually, it is the Fox "News" audience that is either stupid, evil or more likely, both!
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jdb316
August 24, 2010 11:14 AM in reply to BoogAlou
Good point. All Fox News is doing is pandering to them in the name of increasing ratings, and hence advertising revenues.
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Mimi katz
August 24, 2010 12:00 PM in reply to BoogAlou
Tyhe audience is stupid. Not evil. Many of them are in nhursing homes.
Fox, OTOH, is both, but mostly evil because, as Wyatt showed, at least two people in that conversation had to know.
But is the Prince also laughing all the way to the bank?
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UTMark
August 24, 2010 3:06 PM in reply to BoogAlou
Yes, the "third alternative" is a putrid, toxic blend of evil and stupidity.
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bibimimi
August 24, 2010 11:41 PM in reply to BoogAlou
They are most likely evil. It's their viewers who are stupid.
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boo_lala
August 24, 2010 11:19 AM
Wow. This is hilarious and fantastically executed, but it's also a little shocking that the Daily Show "broke" this story: the second largest shareholder in Newscorp is helping fund the Islamic Center. So far it has only been picked up by blogs, but I trust (sob) that it will be in every newspaper in America tomorrow. And I trust that those stories will include the Fox News and Friends explicit attempt to connect the Islamic Center to terrorism because of its association with bin Talal.
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Ann Arbor
August 24, 2010 11:35 AM in reply to boo_lala
Believe it or not, it looks like it was a Yahoo blogger who first made the link between News Corp.'s No. 2 shareholder and Imam Rauf. Here's the post from Friday:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/20100820/bs_yblog_upshot/news-corps-number-two-shareholder-funded-terror-mosque-planner
But obviously the Daily Show gives it much more visibility. And Fox created an opening big enough to drive a truck through by talking about the evil Kingdom Foundation without noting whose foundation it is.
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BeeClone
August 24, 2010 11:21 AM
(A) Evil
(B) Stupid
(C) All of the above
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Ann Arbor
August 24, 2010 11:25 AM
Is this the most awesome Daily Show segment ever?
It's in my personal top three, along with what they did on the Cheney hunting accident and a Colbert segment on Bush's brave use of words in the struggle against reality in Iraq:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-1-2004/bush-s-words
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Shalimar
August 24, 2010 1:25 PM in reply to Ann Arbor
The most memorable segment to me was when they discovered that Frist admitted to murdering cats in his biography.
"Of course, he may have a few skeletons in his closet, you never know, but it's not like he killed kittens.....wait, I'm sorry, I'm being told that he actually killed kittens."
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Labor Lawyer
August 24, 2010 9:41 PM in reply to Shalimar
I have always been partial to the opening segment on the Monday following the week in which the Larry Craig "wide stance-gate" story broke. Jon Stewart, returning from vacation, opens with a line to the effect of: "Well, we are back from a two week break -- and thank god that while we were gone we didn't miss any inherently funny scandals . . . .what . . ." In fact, here's the link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-10-2007/trapped-in-the-men-s-room
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navamske
August 24, 2010 11:46 AM
Yes.
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navamske
August 24, 2010 11:47 AM
Does an ursine mammal defecate in the copse?
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trog69
August 24, 2010 12:31 PM
Stevil or epid?
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sean
August 24, 2010 12:37 PM
Let the eagle sore...
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Sniffit
August 24, 2010 12:49 PM
This is the problem with the Western mind. Confronted with questions like whether God exists, the western mind says "either or," "alive or dead" (borrowing from Jung here in case you didn't notice)...whereas the Easter mind can fathom "both and," "alive and dead." So I say to you, my fellow libtards, the answer is "both and," "evil AND stupid"...don't be so narrown minded haha.
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Sniffit
August 24, 2010 12:50 PM
ha...funny the difference a missing "n" makes...
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BrokePimpStyles
August 24, 2010 12:54 PM
third option Team EvilStupid or Team StupidEvil
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marionetta
August 24, 2010 1:17 PM
"What’s Right with Islam, by the way, was published by HarperSanFrancisco, which last I looked is owned by Rupert Murdoch."
From an article in The New Republic: http://www.tnr.com/blog/foreign-policy/77176/ground-zero-mosque-the-subversive-theology-imam-rauf-contd
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Ego
August 24, 2010 1:27 PM
Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have so many awesome moments, I couldn't just choose one.
They have the balls that the Democratic party needs to grow.
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ejreed
August 24, 2010 1:38 PM
arrogance breeds stupidity.
from the archive another Daily show favorite on fixed news
News Corp. Gives Money to Republicans
Fox News exposes the money trails that are corrupting America's political process, while News Corp. gives $1 million to Republicans
http://www.newslook.com/videos/242899-news-corp-gives-money-to-republicans?autoplay=true
and yes, the GOP should be paying fox.
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ahumbleopinion
August 24, 2010 5:20 PM in reply to ejreed
David Frum, former speechwriter to President George W. Bush was correct when he said: "Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we're discovering we work for Fox.” And what will they be doing for their Fox employers? Pushing a pro corporate and especially a pro oil company agenda at all levels of government.
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August 24, 2010 1:55 PM
The man is clearly a terror-funder. "Terror" is, of course, a synonym for "fear," and he helps fund Fox News...
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averb
August 24, 2010 2:00 PM
evil, evil, EVIL. They are at least as smart (in knowing how to achieve their political ends) as anyone on our side.
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traitorjoe
August 24, 2010 2:04 PM
Why does Fox News fund terrorism?
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bibimimi
August 24, 2010 11:44 PM in reply to traitorjoe
They fund and foment it.
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lovethesinner
August 24, 2010 2:31 PM
An instant classic. One of the best segments ever. Hope they expand it.
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tinsk
August 24, 2010 2:31 PM
There is an obvious pathology to what is going on.
1. Fox / right wing media makes an inflammatory claim based on snippets of partial truths.
2. It ricochets around right wing media where the false comments get amplified and then compounded by speculative extrapolation.
3. The comments become so voluminous on right wing media, that mainstream media begins reporting on the right wing media and what they are saying.
4. The mainstream media begins repeating couched versions of the right wing claims.
5. Two days later, fact checkers have debunked the original right wing claims. Mainstream media timidly report the claim (now a story) with the fact checked caveats.
6. Fox News and right wing media has already moved on to a new outrageous claim starting a crazy cycle all over again.
Just once I'd like to see a real news organization NOT report on Fox news before the fact check. And once the fact check has been done, take a stand and make "FOX News lies" as the story and call Fox News out as the liars that they are.
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Ripper McCord
August 25, 2010 2:59 PM in reply to tinsk
Bingo. Salute.
But MSM don't like to criticize their (gulp) *peers* (gulp). They are chicken that way...way chicken that way.
And because they know it, that means THE MSM IS EVIL, TOO!!!
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Cheryl44
August 24, 2010 2:51 PM
I have to go with Team Evil on the network and Team Stupid on its viewers.
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averb
August 24, 2010 4:49 PM in reply to Cheryl44
Sad but true. Part of the genius of Fox is that it knows very well how to plug into the stupidity of its viewers. For them, truth is whatever they can persuade viewers to believe.
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Ego
August 24, 2010 6:43 PM in reply to averb
They play to the lowest denominator of their base.
"Stupidier than a potato."
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mepmep09
August 24, 2010 6:57 PM in reply to Cheryl44
Faux Nooz viewers are basically a mixed team of the genuinely root-level stupid, the incurious, and those who are frustrated by life and in search of scapegoats. But yeah, stupid works about as well as any other single word description - among these folk, it's only the degree of eagerness and determination to be stupid and ignorant that varies.
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Joekuh
August 24, 2010 4:22 PM
"Because they're STUPID Jon. Staggeringly.....achingly....almost inspiringly stupid"
Sounds like a pretty fair assessment of Faux news to me!
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averb
August 24, 2010 4:54 PM in reply to Joekuh
I think there is a distinction to be made between the bimbo newscasters on fox (female and male) that viewers can see, and those in control who pay them, and tell them what (and what not) to say.
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nine-omite
August 24, 2010 6:49 PM
Fox News is not stupid. Not the anchors, not the producers, not the owners. Do you see bin Talal refuting the claims that he is a supporter of terrorism?
No, Fox news is just plain evil, in the most basic and cynical way possible. They don't care what it is they're saying, as long as it keeps their audience terrified and riveted. They don't care who they're scaring, as long as the narrative keeps sponsors coming back for more. They don't care what they do to the country, and for that matter the world, so long as they can laugh at the flames from their fortified villas. They don't care if someone publicly points out their massive hypocrisy, so long as the dividends stay high. They are evil, stupid-by-choice if necessary, but just plain evil.
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August 24, 2010 10:56 PM in reply to aomall
I can't help but wonder if "aomall" is the same person as "Your City Mom" so prominently featured in these pages a month or so back for bringing home ~$8K/mo part-time.
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August 25, 2010 5:01 AM
What if the Government did not subsidize the media?
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August 25, 2010 10:09 AM
I've made this point before, but it's worth repeating... psychiatrist M. Scott Peck theorized that "militant ignorance" was the root of all evil.
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