When NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams appeared on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon last Friday to plug his upcoming NBC Dateline special, Taking the Hill: Inside Congress, Williams made the absurd claim that he was a fair and balanced journalist without an agenda.
Video.
JIMMY FALLON: We don't get really too political on our show, but now and then we'll do a joke about Obama, or we'll do a joke about Sarah Palin. Keep it balanced. But, man, people go nuts on Twitter. They go, 'Hey, stop making fun of Palin. Why aren't you making fun of Obama?' And I go, 'We do make fun of Obama.'
BRIAN WILLIAMS: Just today, somebody tweeted me, 'Hey, Brian, does your back get tired carrying all that water for Obama?' (Speaking with a mocking tone, sounding dim-witted)
FALLON: Wow.
WILLIAMS: Dude. Really.
FALLON: First of all, I apologize for sending that tweet. I apologize. I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing.
WILLIAMS: And it's always like, you know, 'Partyboy@Arkansas.' (Dim-witted voice again)
FALLON: That's crazy, yeah. But I mean, do you find it hard. Being, you know, Brian Williams you can't really have a side. You have to be... you can't pick a side.
WILLIAMS: Well, I try to play it down the middle like you do every night. I do it in news, you do it in comedy. We try not to take a side.
That exchange made me gag.
I think Jimmy Fallon does a great job of keeping his show balanced. It's not overly political. He doesn't push an agenda. It's a great respite from all that stuff. The focus is on fun, not mean-spirited political sniping.
Brian Williams, on the other hand, does not provide balanced coverage of the news. He most definitely has an agenda.
The fact that Williams mocked someone criticizing him the way he did is revealing. Williams didn't cite a tweet complaining about him carrying water for the Republicans. He didn't say it's always from 'Partyboy@Massachusetts.'
Of course, I didn't watch Taking the Hill, but Bozell's take is interesting.
Somehow, Williams never spent a second on his Obama special asking the President how he was going to handle the demands of “hardline liberals” – or any kind of liberal, for that matter. The only hardliners are conservatives who want to stop the spending madness. What this country desperately needs are more “hardline conservatives” to dismay network anchormen.
Williams undermined his own musical intro by questioning Boehner’s grip on power. “Mr. Speaker, is it fair to say you have a bit of a rebellion on your hands?” Sadly, Boehner tried to play along. “I've got a little rebellion on my hands every day. It comes with the territory.”
Williams pulled out the New York Times, not exactly where Republicans go to look good. “You don't look happy on the front page of the New York Times. It says ‘Boehner's Grip on His Caucus is Put to Test on Standoff.’ Feel like you're being tested?” Boehner agreed. The question is whether Boehner wants to pass that test by pleasing liberals like Brian Williams, or by pleasing conservatives.
Williams suggested the newest Tea Party Republicans in Congress weren’t real Republicans: “Your job is to run your party, but there is another party in there too. You have this Tea Party caucus that didn't come to Washington with the same values.”
This time, Boehner had a good answer. “It's not the Tea Party caucus. It would be more what I would describe as some hardline conservatives who want more. I don't blame them. I want more, too.”
And now we arrive at the point where Williams and NBC made colossal fools of themselves.
Williams wanted the political narrative to be painted by ultraliberal Sen. Charles Schumer. “Word has gotten around” that House Republicans held a meeting and showed a motivational movie clip from the Ben Affleck crime movie “The Town,” which Williams said “eventually involves hockey masks and baseball bats and tons of bullets.” Horrors!
After Schumer declared the Republicans were violent nuts, the NBC cameras turned to Republican whip Kevin McCarthy. Williams pushed him about this press-stopping scandal. McCarthy professed amazement that Schumer would be highlighting a movie clip from a meeting he didn’t attend.
He shouldn’t be amazed, and Brian Williams would never try to embarrass Democrats by accepting leaks about movie clips from internal party meetings. That partisan double standard defines the Old Media.
I wonder if Williams sincerely believes that he's fair and plays it down the middle.
Does he really fail to notice the way he exposes his bias?
JIMMY FALLON: During a speech last week, Texas Governor Rick Perry accidentally referred to Twitter as 'Tweeter.' Perry apologized for the gaffe and asked everyone to friend him on Headbook.
Justin Vernon of Bon Iver (and of Eau Claire, Wisconsin) performed a beautiful version of "I Can't Make You Love Me" on Monday's Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
Here's Justin being interviewed by Jimmy:
JUSTIN VERNON: Man, there's not enough Hornsby in my scene.
Bon Iver will be playing two dates at the Riverside in Milwaukee, with special guest The Rosebuds.
Friday July 22 • 8PM Saturday July 23 • 8PM SOLD OUT
Chelsea Handler was a guest Monday on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.
They talked about a previous appearance Handler made on the show, over a year ago, when Handler and Fallon had a "Martini race."
The two raced, running up and down the stairs of the aisles of the studio audience, carrying martini glasses. When Fallon made it back to the stage, he slipped, his feet going out from under him, landing flat on his back. He cut his hand on the broken martini glasses.
I remember that show. It was a really bad fall.
Here's a little bit of video:
So, Handler and Fallon were discussing this incident from March 2010, a memorable moment in the show's history. They watched a clip of the fall.
The problem: Handler made an unfortunate comment when describing Fallon's performance in the race.
Transcript
JIMMY FALLON: Last time you were here, I almost died.
CHELSEA HANDLER: You did! You had an injury. You sustained a big injury.
FALLON: Here's what we did. It's the dumbest thing ever. I don't even know the game we were playing.
HANDLER: Well, you wanted to race me making vodka drinks, which is not that original of an idea if you know me, but whatever, and I was sensible enough to put on a pair of nursing shoes. You...
FALLON: Nursing shoes?
HANDLER: Yes, because I had heels on, so I know how to run.
FALLON: What are nursing shoes?
HANDLER: They're...don't worry about it. They're private. But anyway, we ran and we raced. We had to race and make drinks, like martinis.
FALLON: Yeah, and I was just trying to do something fun and something different.
HANDLER: Right. And then you fell on your ass.
FALLON: It was horrible.
HANDLER: Yeah. You looked like you were in the Special Olympics, to be quite honest. Not the fun kind.
FALLON: I don't know what that means, but all I know is that I was bleeding. It was the last time we've ever used glass on the show.
Chelsea Handler is a comedian, and sometimes comedians say things that are offensive. It comes with the job. Making people laugh is likely to tick someone off.
However, the Special Olympics thing was really not cool.
Is it that hard to keep from mocking the mentally challenged, particularly referring to such a great program as the Special Olympics by name?
When Obama was Jay Leno's guest just about two months after his inauguration, Obama made a terrible remark about his bowling skills and the Special Olympics. More on that here.
When Leno was joking about Obama not being a very good bowler, Obama said, "It's like -- it was like Special Olympics, or something."
After comparing his bowling to the Special Olympics on "The Tonight Show" Thursday, President Obama called Special Olympics Chairman Tim Shriver to apologize before the program even aired.
“He expressed his disappointment and he apologized, in a way that was very moving,” Shriver said on ABC's “Good Morning America.” “It’s important to see that words hurt, and words do matter. And these words that in some respect can be seen as humiliating or a put-down of people with special needs do cause pain, and they do result in stereotypes."
Obama told Shriver he wants to have some Special Olympics competitors over to the White House for basketball or bowling.
I don't know if Obama ever made good on his promise to Shriver.
I do know that four months after Obama's cruel remark he hadn't found time to host Special Olympics athletes at the White House.
Previously an academic specialising in the social and emotional factors of learning, Shriver probably knows better than most that it can be counterproductive to preach — particularly when addressing your country's new commander-in-chief: "It was a tough experience for all of us in the field of intellectual disability, and Special Olympics in particular, because nobody wants to be in a situation where we're scolding, or perceived to be scolding, the president of the United States or a major political figure."
Obama offered to have some Special Olympic athletes to visit the White House to play his favourite sport, basketball, or bowling, one the president has perhaps had enough of — but to date nothing has happened: "We have not had a specific event yet where the president can interact with Special Olympics athletes yet, but we're hopeful. He has been busy."
Obama hadn't been too busy to find time for his excessively publicized "date nights" and to host several events highlighting celebrities performing at the White House, but he was too busy to host Special Olympics athletes.
That was really a terrible misstep by Obama.
Now, comments disparaging Special Olympics participants made by Chelsea Handler certainly don't carry the same weight that such comments made by the president of the United States do.
Still, I am troubled by the ease with which some people use the Special Olympics to ridicule others.
It's wrong. It's cruel. It's not funny. _______________
"DONALD TRUMP": Ladies and gentlemen, as you all know something hugely important and gravely serious happened last night. That's right. The last 16 minutes of Celebrity Apprentice were interrupted by President Obama.
Instead of seeing the thrilling conclusion of the Farouk Hair System hair show challenge, people were forced to watch President Obama inform the nation that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is dead.
I don't know about you, but to me, the message is clear: President Obama is so scared of me and so desperate for attention that he felt the need to hunt down and kill Osama bin Laden right in the middle of my show. That's an Obama move.
Mr. President, you mean to tell me that of all the times you could have picked to bring the most wanted man in the world to justice, you had to do it during one of the most exciting boardrooms in the history of Celebrity Apprentice?
I mean, it was great TV. NeNe was yelling at Star. Star was yelling at NeNe. Great, great stuff.
But why couldn't you have interrupted a low-rated NBC show, like America's Next Great Restaurant, or Chuck, or The Event, or Perfect Couples, or Outsourced, or Friday Night... basically any other show on NBC? Where were you during The Paul Reiser Show, Mr. President?
Don't get me wrong. I think it's great news that Osama bin Laden is dead. It's fantastic news, terrific news. But couldn't this news have waited 15 more minutes? This way you could have interrupted - let's see what comes on after The Celebrity Apprentice - oh, yeah... THE NEWS. Maybe you could have waited to announce this news during THE NEWS.
The fact is the President clearly coordinated this secret CIA mission, assassination, and ensuing press conference specifically to cut off the end of my show, The Celebrity Apprentice.
So, basically, I killed Osama bin Laden. So congratulations to me - Donald Trump. Thank you. You're welcome.
Anyway, we now return to whatever the hell is on NBC right now. Honestly, I have no idea. I think it's The Late Times with Jason Fallon.
I'm Donald Trump. And God bless Donald Trump.
Thank you, Mr. Trump, for bringing bin Laden to justice.
On Tuesday, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon examined the pros and cons of a Donald Trump presidency.
Video.
Pro: He has a 10-point plan to fix the economy in four years. Con: He has a 300-point plan to fix his hair in the morning.
Pro: We'd get to hear a president say, "You're Fired!" Con: Obama says that to Biden at least 10 times a day.
Pro: It might be refreshing to have a president with almost no political experience and zero qualifications for the job. Con: That's actually Sarah Palin's campaign slogan.
Pro: As president, he can save taxpayer money by flying in his own personal jet. Con: Hair Force One.
Pro: Contestants on "Celebrity Apprentice" might vote for him. Con: Meat Loaf said, "I would do anything for Trump... but I won't do that."
Pro: He could be the first president to take us to Mars... Con: ...and finally reunite Gary Busey with his people.
Pro: The First Lady... Con: ...would be his third lady.
Pro: If he wins, he'd move into the White House. Con: If he loses, he'd build an even taller White House in front of it so it ruins Obama's view.
Pro: His greatest foe in 2012: President Obama. Con: His greatest foe any other year: a strong gust of wind.
