13 Jan 2012

The Thrill Is Gone, Daily Show Edition

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Aww too bad. At first I was elated that the Daily Show was going after somebody who had been a hypocrite in her attack on the Tea Party, but this skit totally breaks down. It is clear she knows what’s going on and is just happy to be on the show. It makes me wonder about all the previous pieces that were like this, but less obvious.

23 Responses to “The Thrill Is Gone, Daily Show Edition”

  1. Christopher says:

    What do you mean? I think it’s hilarious and the fact that she tries to rationalize it makes it even better.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Oh come on. Her getting in the elevator? She gets the joke, so it’s not nearly as “ironic” as if she really had no clue what he was getting at.

      • Silas Barta says:

        Well, she failed. To me, she looked clueless and like she didn’t even try to reconcile the obvious contradiction. At best, they edited out anything good she said.

  2. Prateek Sanjay says:

    Professor Murphy, I am going to make a guess here and say that you are not a member of the movement called The Tea Party. At least, you have not given any indication that you are a Tea Partier and you seem to not like certain candidates affiliated with the movement. So why would you feel personally invested in seeing someone called out for insulting the Tea Party?

    Why would you feel insulted by an insult on the Tea Party?

    It’s not like they are a group that shares your views – I mean, you are an anarchocapitalist, right? The Tea Party isn’t a group of anarchocapitalists. You are a sort of an antiwar pacifist. The Tea Party is not a group of antiwar pacifists. It’s not like Miss Harrop called any specific person a terrorist. She labelled an abstract group as terrorists. GENERALLY, one wouldn’t feel offended by it, unless one identified with that group.

    • Joseph Fetz says:

      Are you serious? Pointing out hypocrisy is now synonymous with being personally offended?

    • Dan says:

      Prateek, What? First, I agree with Joseph’s point that pointing out someone as being hypocritical is not the same as being offended. Second, you don’t have to be part of a group to be personally offended by another person’s remarks or actions toward them.

      I am not Iranian but I’m personally offended when I hear politicians extolling the virtue of killing innocent Iranian scientists. Me being offended has nothing do to with identifying with Iranians, it has to do with the individuals making hateful and distasteful comments about another groups of individuals.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Prateek, I don’t care about the Tea Party, but I know the Daily Show’s writers and audience probably aren’t big fans. So I’m glad that they took the risk to base a whole skit on this lady’s hypocrisy. It would have been a much safer routine to be poking fun at, say, a Christian pastor who had a girlie magazine on his table.

  3. Bharat says:

    Thought exactly the same thing when I watched this yesterday. I always assumed the interviewees were taken out of context or even agreed to say a few things, but this interview was just blatant about it.

  4. P.S.H. says:

    I thought all of these were scripted. Is there contrary evidence?

    • Silas Barta says:

      The fact that interviewees come out of it looking really bad, when they couldn’t possibly have wanted that in advance?

      • Bob Murphy says:

        Silas, you think she spontaneously said elevator, and then they adjusted the scene accordingly? You don’t think she knew going into that, that he was going to bust her on her past writing?

        • Dan says:

          Unless she comes out and says that it was all just for a gag then it seems like Silas would be right. What does she have to gain from being shown in an interview like that? If she doesn’t convince people it was all a gag then she just looks like a clueless idiot. I don’t see what she possibly gets at out looking like that on tv. You may be right but I find it much less obvious than you do. Sometimes life is stranger than fiction.

          • Bharat says:

            Sometimes bad attention is better than no attention. People don’t mind promoting themselves for the wrong reasons as long as they’re actually getting themselves out there.

  5. Bob Murphy says:

    You guys underrate the seductive power of fame. I don’t want to disillusion you, but if the Daily Show contacted me and said they wanted to interview me about my anarchy writings, and then were going to ask if I used public roads, and were going to hold up letters I had sent through the Post Office, etc. etc., do you think I would turn them down? You don’t think I would jump at the chance to have that guy do a hit piece on me?

    • Bob Murphy says:

      Ah! I think I know what you are doing. You’re saying, “Holy cow, if I woke up one day and realized I had been that much of a hypocrite, then I wouldn’t want to sit in front of a camera while someone pointed it out.”

      But that’s wrong. The real question is, “Suppose I were the type of person who would have the audacity to call the Tea Party a terrorist group, and then chide others for writing uncivil commentaries on politics. Would I be embarrassed to be interviewed by the Daily Show?”

      You’ve got to do Bayes Law or something, Silas.

    • Silas Barta says:

      Bob, I can find writings somewhere, on the various internets, of you explaining how to reconcile your mockable, apparently-stupid beliefs. For Miss “Tea Partiers are terrorists?” Not so much. (And I don’t even like the “not so much” phrasing!)

  6. TaiwanGuy says:

    i think she caught on in the elevator, but she seemed genuinely lost before then.

    • Bob Murphy says:

      You guys are crazy. It would be so much fun to be on the Daily Show, and then you’d also want to be “a sport” and play along to give them a funny bit. I would let them rip the heck out of me, because it would still be good publicity for my ideas/blog/etc.

      Silas, you’re right, I think I can defend my “contradictions” better than this lady could. But that’s just proving my point: This lady wrote those contradictions and so obviously doesn’t think it’s a big deal, just like I don’t feel like a hypocrite for driving on government roads. But Daily Show viewers would laugh their butts off at how much John Oliver “blew that right-winger Murphy up” for my hypocrisy.

      • Silas Barta says:

        I don’t think that’s responsive to what I was saying. To put it another way, you have writings that make private defense / roads / law / oceanfish seem reasonable, and which someone could find after the show, even if, in the context of a Daily Show interview, your mere position would get some laughs.

        In contrast, I looked up this woman and that whole debate (it was a big thing on several sites including a blog she apparently runs) and she was aware of these criticisms of her inconsistency, and still hasn’t posted, anywhere, any kind of reconciliation or statement that attempts to make her “be civil but you’re a terrorist” seem at all reasonable.

        (I would post what I found, but I’ve long since closed the tabs and it took a while. But people were making fun of how, at her best attempt at defense, she said incivility is “not letting someone speak their piece”, right as she closes comments on the matter on her blog.)

        • Bob Murphy says:

          Oh OK Silas, you’re right, I didn’t get what point you were making. Anyway, I still maintain that this lady knew John Oliver was going to rip her the whole time. I don’t think she will be surprised after the fact, that this interview is used on the Daily Show and people are laughing. Further, I think she was pretending to not “get it” during the interview. And my most certain claim: By the time she suggests telling “such a person” in an elevator, she clearly knows he is referring to her.

          • Joseph Fetz says:

            Hypocrites don’t usually admit to their mistakes, that is pretty much what makes them hypocrites.

            To be honest, I think that this was probably her half-hearted, hypocrite way of saying she was wrong, but at the same time getting some publicity.

            If I were her, I certainly wouldn’t think too highly of myself, regardless of the ‘Daily Show’ interview. It was noticeably contrived.

  7. Jim O'Connor says:

    Speaking to Bob’s point, who doesn’t know how these Comedy Central routines work? It isn’t like it will be on the nightly news, “So-and-so refused to talk with our reporter about this issue.” Without her participation there is no skit, therefore no news.

    However, I really don’t understand the mindset that being mocked so mercilessly is a good thing for one’s point of view unless one has literally NO readership and the only place to go is up.

  8. sandre says:

    This is highly edited. The sequence in which this particular interview may have been shot is probably not the sequence in which it was shown during the show. That’s my speculation.

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