Posted on 09/23/2016 6:47:03 AM PDT by Kaslin
The Sept. 26 issue of Time magazine cover featured the heads of comedians Stephen Colbert, Samantha Bee, John Oliver, Trevor Noah, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel, and the headline "We Joke. You Decide." The allusion to the Fox News tagline was deliberate. The subheadline declared that they would report on "The seriously partisan politics of late-night comedy."
Finally, liberals are acknowledging what conservatives have claimed for years.
Inside, the headline was "The New Politics of Late Night." And writer Richard Zoglin began the article saying, "In a wild election with a ripe orange target, comics are ditching balance and taking sides." Zoglin started with a collection of Bee stingers, calling her description of the Republican convention a "poorly attended rage-athon of hemorrhoidal has-beens."
But just when you thought Zoglin was going to concede and celebrate the left-wing tilt of late-night TV, his analysis fell apart -- as liberals' analyses normally do when they are called to analyze the obvious.
Zoglin quoted Bee saying that Jon Stewart "worked really hard to try to be nonpartisan." Baloney. But he also proclaimed that the departures of Stewart, David Letterman and Colbert's fake-Bill-O'Reilly brought "an unexpected and largely unappreciated payoff." The new comedians are shooting arrows "from the left flank" and have "triggered an extreme makeover" of political satire, which is now more pointed and "partisan than ever before."
This is a payoff? For whom? Zoglin touted their "fresh perspective on the increasingly vitriolic U.S. political scene." But they are the ones who are increasingly overflowing with infantile vitriol about their opponents being "hemorrhoidal." What's "fresh" about that?
Apparently the "payoff" is the comedians convincing the press to get even nastier with Republicans. Noah told Time: "There's a certain level of naivete when you say Hillary Clinton is worse than Trump. I think that's a very dangerous position to be in. And I think the press has gotten to a place where they are realizing it's about truth and not neutrality."
The comedians and the press must favor "the truth." That's the Clinton side -- the lovers of "truth"? Trump's existence is somehow entirely mythical, as Bee contended saying, "News organizations simply are not equipped to cover a candidate whose entire being is a lie."
It gets better, folks. Of NBC's Meyers, Zoglin claimed that "it is rare, not to say unprecedented, for the host of a mainstream network show to push such a blatant political viewpoint, yet Meyers says NBC is fully on board." Zoglin somehow slept through the precedent of the last two election cycles, where Comcast loaded up Barack Obama's campaign treasury, and NBC added in-kind contributions at the newsrooms and entertainment studios. In 2012, which NBC comedian mocked Obama? And which NBC comedian didn't mock GOP nominee Mitt Romney?
Obama knew he could show up at Comedy Central with that "nonpartisan" Stewart slobbering at his feet, in awe.
The "satire" spared the Democrats never seems to come up. Zoglin briefly mentioned that Hillary Clinton "gets her share of jabs," but he couldn't be bothered to quote one, while he eagerly shared anti-Trump insults, like Bee's calling him a "sociopathic 70-year-old toddler."
He didn't mention how Meyers lectured grumpy Bernie backers at Democrat convention time: "We're on the cusp of electing a racist demagogue, and that never ends well. I don't know which class you ditched to go to those Bernie rallies, but I have a feeling it was history." By way of contrast, Kimmel offered his show to Clinton by letting her open a jar of pickles on stage to mock those who question her healthiness.
The network comedians are pressuring the network "news" to abandon any pretense of fairness and use the full force of their propaganda power to tar and feather Trump. It's working.
The only one whom I can recall being fair and close to non partisan was Craig Ferguson. And that’s because he tended toward the small “L” Libertarian view of things.
CC
Late night TV has become a cesspool of immaturity. Back in the day, I think most of us knew Carson was a Lefty, but he was still funny and skewered both sides. Leno wasn’t Carson, but he still maintained a pretty good balance....right up until Obama. NOT ONE late night comic held Obama accountable, probably because they didn’t want to be accused of racism, because that’s what happened to anyone who brought up Obama embarrassing mistakes (I’ve been in 57 states, McCain didn’t question my Muslim faith, etc.). Late night declared ‘Obama isn’t funny’, while genuflecting to their Masters on the Left. Leno didn’t make jokes about Obama and I was sorely disappointed. Late night TV is over.......much better to get our sleep for the fight ahead.
That is not an earthquake, it is Henry B Luce, founder of Time-Life, spinning at very rapid RPMs in his coffin! The former staples of a well educated, well informed person in the 1940s-60s were having (and reading) Time and or Newsweek. I haunted the library stacks for their coverage of various topics for College papers. It was almost equally interesting to read the advertising as well.
By the 1970s the liberal bias started getting strong, first in Newsweek, always the more liberal/left, then in Time. Also the information and intelligent content started getting displaced by “entertainment” and gossip. It has been so long since I allowed my subscriptions to lose, I no longer get discount solicitations from them!
Never
It's a pamphlet
I can recall a time when I was in a bar on a Saturday night when the usual goings on stopped because many of the patrons were clustered around an old 19inch boob-toob watching Saturday Night Live.
I had never previously witnessed such a thing but I could see why - SNL was funny. Even that didn’t last long and I can’t imagine it ever being significant enough for people to interrupt their debauchery for it now.
Comedy is only valuable if it is funny. Today’s comedy isn’t funny, but it continues to be useful if on;y in a mean-spirited sort of way. I’m thick-skinned and don’t GAS if assholes are making jokes at my expense, but I’m not inclined to be a party to it.
Back in the day of The Blues Brothers, the Coneheads, Steve Martin as King Tut, even the Killer Bees. It was funny!
Samantha Bee is just a loud mouth _itch who thinks loudness and insult are comedy and funny. In truth, she is just a propagandist for the Democrat Party and is totally unfamiliar with truth.
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