The host of a comedy show posed tougher questions to conservative-basher David Brock on Tuesday night than did Today co-host Matt Lauer or CNN’s Aaron Brown back in mid-March.Posted on 04/04/2002 12:44:33 PM PST by JURB
The host of a comedy show posed tougher questions to conservative-basher David Brock on Tuesday night than did Today co-host Matt Lauer or CNN’s Aaron Brown back in mid-March.
On the April 2 Daily Show on the Comedy Central cable channel, a mock newscast, host Jon Stewart asked Brock: "Is the left-wing innocent in all this?" He wondered: "Don’t they have their own team of guys trying to dig up dirt on the right? Isn’t this a relatively balanced operation?" When Brock disagreed, Stewart pointed out: "Hustler, Larry Flint, offered millions of dollars to people for sexual material on right-wingers, on Gingrich and those folks. There is some balance to it."
Lauer set up a March 14 Today segment by treating Brock’s claims as fully credible. Lauer even added a colorful dose of invective toward conservatives:
"His specialty was character assassination and throughout the 1990s he made a living as a right-wing hatchet man. But after years of lies and, some would say, malicious journalism, this Washington insider wants to clear his conscience. In his new book, Blinded by the Right, best-selling author and ex-conservative David Brock, exposes how he says the GOP tried to destroy the Clinton presidency through a series of well-plotted smear campaigns."
Lauer did not once question any of Brock’s claims as he prompted him to elucidate on how wealthy conservatives who directed the anti-Clinton conspiracy allowed him to smear people.
That night, CNN NewsNight anchor Aaron Brown assumed David Brock’s charges were beyond dispute. Brown set up the segment: "He helped trash Anita Hill, went looking for the illegitimate children of Bill Clinton, took money from conservative patrons, and made things up if it made Mr. Clinton look bad. And then he says he saw the light, the errors of his ways." Brown failed to challenge anything Brock charged as he outlined his claims about a conservative conspiracy against Clinton fueled by anger at Clinton’s anti-segregation policies.
For more on the Lauer interview, as well as an overview of Brock’s transformation from an American Spectator writer to a right-wing basher, plus what he now claims, refer back to the March 14 CyberAlert: http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2002/cyb20020314.asp#1 For more on the Brown interview, as well as how FNC’s David Asman actually challenged David Brock’s on his broad accusations and took on some of the specific allegations made in his book trashing conservatives, check the March 19 CyberAlert: Back to Tuesday’s Daily Show on Comedy Central, like Lauer and Brown, Stewart bought into Brock’s claims, but he at least suggested conservatives aren’t the only ones who do the awful things alleged by Brock. Stewart’s first question, as taken down by MRC analyst Brian Boyd: "When Hillary Clinton went on the Today Show and went, ‘there’s a right wing conspiracy,’ everyone said [makes dismissive noise], but there was." Stewart jokingly asked: "But is it ‘vast’ or is it, is it relatively narrow? Actually, it’s you and who else?" Stewart pursued Brock’s claims that his Paula Jones reporting and defense of Clarence Thomas were inaccurate stories funded by one rich conservative: "Let me ask you this though, how did it get such legs, what’s frightening to me, is that, I’m assuming you’re saying these allegations are not true, how does it get such legs? How does this small, like you say, paranoid sort of guy, conspiratorial, very rich, get such play in the mainstream world?" Stewart soon got to a line of questioning never broached by CNN or NBC: "But let me ask you this, is the left-wing innocent in all this? Isn’t, don’t they have their own team of guys trying to dig up dirt on the right? Isn’t this a relatively balanced operation?"
http://www.mrc.org/news/cyberalert/2002/cyb20020319.asp#1
Stewart jumped in: "Well, they had Hustler, I believe. No, I mean that seriously. Hustler, Larry Flint, offered millions of dollars to people for sexual material on right-wingers, on Gingrich and those folks. There is some balance to it."
Brock insisted: "There is no liberal movement that is funded the way this is, that is basically a, essentially a cult, that has lots of institutions all focused on a single message. Everyday you hear it on right-wing talk radio, they have their own TV network, they have their own subsidized magazines."
Stewart: "What’s their TV network?"
Brock: "Fox."
Stewart, laughing: "That was one of those where I kind of knew the answer but I was just hanging around."
Liberals, of course, have six networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, MSNBC and, especially, PBS. Plus NPR.
Reverting to network news style, Stewart next pressed: "How dangerous do you find this and has it been exposed and has it been dismantled?"
Brock: "It certainly hasn’t been dismantled. I’m trying to expose it, I don’t think people really understood it, I think that they laughed off Hillary Clinton when she said that."
Stewart: "Is it ideological, what is their message?"
Brock: "It was abuse of the political system."
Stewart: "In what sense, what’s the abuse of the political system?"
Brock: "Because the Paula Jones case was a fake case, they were just trying to set a perjury trap for Bill Clinton. And that -"
Stewart: "Beforehand, they said, ‘we want to set a perjury trap.’ How did they choose this, how did the troopers-"
Brock: "Well, because what they were doing was trolling for any piece of sexual information they could get. And it ended up being something that was consensual which really was immaterial to the case."
Stewart realized how Brock had dissembled in earlier implying Jones never had an encounter with Clinton: "Oh, you’re saying, so there was a liaison between Paula Jones and Bill Clinton but it was consensual and not what?"
Stewart’s last question: "The thing that I can’t quite get my head around is why the reversal on your part. Why now, how do we believe you? After, you know, the Anita Hill stuff, after the Paula Jones stuff, where does your credibility lie now?"
CNN and NBC should be embarrassed that a comedian managed to conduct a more discerning interview than did their anchors.
I might just be getting too old but he doesn't cut it as a comedian for me!!
Also I see Brock is using the old "I am telling you I am a liar so you should beleive me now" excuse!!!
"I'm a liar and here's my story."
I watch it on a daily basis. Jon Stewart is hardly conservative, but hardly liberal either. I'd say he is an everyday joe, one who makes fun of both sides.
Funny, that's how I remember Politically Incorrect was during its Comedy Central days before the move to ABC.
Can the network slogan "Fair and Balanced Comedy" be far behind?
I also think his timing needs some major work, aside from that he is well suited to a niche cable show!!
The comparrison of christmas carols and santa songs vs. The Dradel Song had me on the floor.
"All the little christian kids get to play with their X-Box and Playstations. Jewish kids get a Dradel. Whats a Dradel? I'll tell you what a Dradel is. Its a top! Its something you give to a child to see if he's... damaged."
The problem is that he has never specifically denied any of his accusations against them. The troopers have not recanted, nor have any other of the witnesses he quoted. Nor has any of the documentary evidence he cited disappeared. Its just his word, now, against his word, then, and the word of all of his sources who still stand by their statements, some of them, sworn statements.
Furthermore, some of his accusations later turned out to be undeniably true, such that even Clinton's own supporters no longer deny them. It is truly bizarre that now that Clinton's supporters now admit most of the charges against him, that Brock would now be denying what has sadly become very public knowledge.
And the sexual charges, though salacious, are only the most trivial tip of a very serious ice-berg. Brock did some good reporting in his day, but the real credit belongs to Judicial Watch, Infowar, and some of the others who investigated Clinton's financial dealings.
A little light reading from their investigations shows what real investigative reporting is.
And the charges against Judge Thomas, in the aftermath of all we know about Clinton, now seem positively childish, even if true. As, really, they did even then.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.