The Volokh Conspiracy
[Orin Kerr, January 19, 2007 at 2:29pm] Trackbacks
O'Reilly on Colbert, Colbert on O'Reilly:
See the segments via YouTube here (O'Reilly on Colbert) and here (Colbert on O'Reilly). Best line: Colbert's "If you're an act, what am I?"

  Hat tip: Raw story.
Hattio (mail):
Colbert was awesome. If you're getting laughs in Bill O'Reilly's audience by making fun of Bill O'Reilly...you the man.
1.19.2007 3:03pm
Ron Mexico:
Best line was more likely: "I've got a restraining order against John Stewart for sexual harrasment in the workplace. You have no idea what that's like ..." I was waiting for Bill to blow a gasket, but I don't even know that he got the jab.
Or perhaps the stolen microwave (which FoxNews admitted today was truly stolen from their studios). I thought the segment on O'Reilly's show was incredibly boring. But the Colbert stuff was pretty good.
1.19.2007 3:24pm
Just an Observer:
Perhaps Bill O'Reilly should emcee the next White House Correspondents Dinner.
1.19.2007 3:47pm
JosephSlater (mail):
Although there were many, I'll agree with Orin about the very best line, although I thought the one Ron Mexico mentioned was pretty good too.

Also, when Colbert brought out O'Reilly's book with the "30% discount" sticker obscuring O'Reilly's face, I almost felt sorry for Bill. But then I remembered what a destructive and hateful sham O'Reilly's "culture warrior" crap is, and generally what a pompous liar he has been. So I enjoyed the laugh. Colbert rules.
1.19.2007 3:55pm
Steve:
I thought both men were pretty hilarious. I'd nominate Colbert's line: "They criticize you for what you say, but they never give you credit for how loud you say it."
1.19.2007 4:04pm
Q the Enchanter (mail) (www):
Colbert is an artful culture warrior. Bill O'Reilly, not so much.
1.19.2007 4:45pm
jp2 (mail):
How does Colbert keep a straight face?
1.19.2007 4:54pm
Public_Defender (mail):
O'Reilly doesn't do well when he can't control everything. Remember that book publisher's panel a year or so (or more) ago when he let Al Franken get under his skin?

To be fair to O'Reilly, he really couldn't win this. When wit meets boarish force, wit wins every time. Also, since Colbert is a comedian, he's free to just make stuff up, even when it's obvious he's lying. Trying to nail Colbert in a serious interview is like trying to nail Borat in a serious (or even semi-serious) interview.
1.19.2007 5:07pm
Public_Defender (mail):
"To be fair to O'Reilly. . . ."

I can't believe I wrote that.
1.19.2007 5:08pm
ruidh (www):
"How does Colbert keep a straight face?"

He doesn't always. But he always seems to recover quickly.
1.19.2007 5:27pm
Kovarsky (mail):
(1) my impression was that there really was a thing bill'o said he wouldn't talk about; he started to say "children;" i'm assuming that was about the stockholm syndrome.

(2) the sexual harassment line was the best
1.19.2007 6:20pm
Jay:
Of course, the book was 30% off because it was a bestseller, not because it was in the bargain bin.
1.19.2007 11:31pm
JosephSlater (mail):
Actually, Public_Defender, I can't believe you wrote this:

Also, since Colbert is a comedian, he's free to just make stuff up,

as if that was making a contrast. Not to pile on, but O'Reilly routinely makes stuff up (my favorite was citing the entirely imaginary "Paris Business Review" to support his demonstrably false argument that the "boycott France" idea he was pushing had cost the French X amount of money.
1.20.2007 8:42am
Spartacus (www):
Maybe I'm not as big a Colbert fan, O'Reilly hater as the rest of you, but I thought that for a non-comedian stiff, O'Reilly handled himself pretty well, both on Colbert's show and with Colbert on his own show. It's easy for Colbert, the comic, to throw jabs at O'Reilly; it's touchier for O'Reilly to survive without seeming vicious, which I thought he managed to do.

That's not to say I'm O'Reilly's biggest fan--I duisagree with a lot if not most of his positions, but I find Colbert to be pretty unfunny.
1.20.2007 3:44pm
Josh Jasper:

time. Also, since Colbert is a comedian, he's free to just make stuff up,


Except if it didn't ring true, it wouldn't be funny. He's lying in the sense that he's a satire, but all good satirusts present a somewhat distorted mirror of the truth. Colbert is a master satirist. He's on Swift's level for certain. Posibly beyond it.
1.20.2007 4:02pm
Ramza:
Here is another related video

Jon Stewart interviews Bill O'Reilly
1.20.2007 7:01pm
JosephSlater (mail):
Josh Jasper:

Exactly right. Colbert's humor doesn't rely on him making things up. The humor is based on him being an exaggeration of some of the nuttier right-wing "pundits" out there, like O'Reilly. The bite in his humor is that he's actually not exaggerating very much.
1.21.2007 8:48am
Clayton E. Cramer (mail) (www):

The humor is based on him being an exaggeration of some of the nuttier right-wing "pundits" out there, like O'Reilly. The bite in his humor is that he's actually not exaggerating very much.
You should listen to O'Reilly more, just so tht you would realize that he isn't particularly right-wing. He's more of a populist, including his social conservatism. Remember that one of the great Progressives of the late 19th century, William Jennings Bryan, was also the lawyer who prosecuted Scopes. Bryan correctly identified where Social Darwinism would lead--to extermination of subhumans.
1.22.2007 4:53pm

PicoSearch
Help