January 24, 2011, Jon Stewart on the Daily Show plays a clip of Representative Steve Cohen (D-TN) stating:
They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie. Just like Goebbels, you say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, and eventually people believe it. The Germans said enough about the Jews, and people believed it, and you had the Holocaust.Stewart then empties a cup and five dice fall out whereby he yells " And he rolls...Nazi!" He then leads in with the comment "Many people were annoyed but none more than Fox News." He plays some clips, then completes it with a bit of a fracas between Megan Kelly of Fox News and Richard Socarides a "Democratic Strategist" above a banner called "Implausible Deniability."
Richard. Socarides says:
"If we want to get into who heats this and who's overheating this, every night on the very network we are on now, leading commentators use this kind of language."Megan Kelly responds:
"That's just not true Richard. I don't know know if you sit and watch our programing every night, but I watch it every day and you are wrong."Jon Stewart, feigning disgust, says in a whisper:
"Megan...Megan. I watch it every day too. Twelve long years....I think he may be right."He then plays a bunch of Fox News clips in which reference to Nazis or that group/time is made by a whole slew of different Fox News' "leading commentators." It starts off with Bill O'Reilly stating:
"If you look back at what happened in Germany, you cannot escape the similarities between what Hitler and his cutthroats did back then and the hate-filled blogs, what they're doing now."Well Bill O'Reilly took a bit o' offense to this, and in a Fox Nation piece titled: "O’Reilly Catches Jon Stewart's Deceptive Nazi Edit" lambastes Jon Stewart stating:
"If Stewart were a journalist, I would pound him into pudding. But he's not; he's a comedian, and as such, has license to take things out of context for entertainment purposes."Hmmmm....Unless you want to get hung up on the wording of "every day" or "every night" the point Jon Stewart was making, was that indignation over the comparison to Nazis by Rep. Cohen is no less reprehensible than similar types comparisons made on/by Fox News and their "leading commentators", of which, Bill O'Reilly, is one.
Megan Kelly was pretty adamant that Fox News does no such thing. The Daily Show showed differently. There was nothing taken out of context because context was not needed.
Did Bill O'Reilly use a Nazi Comparison in his commentary on February 28, 2008? Yes
Does the reason it was used matter? No (and Jon Stewart is pretty clear about his feelings on using a Nazi comparison for anything other than the most despicable of acts against humanity. And as nasty the comment was about Nancy Reagan, it's not in the same league as what the Nazis did.)
Context Mr. O'Reilly? I'm sure Mr. Stewart can spoon feed that particular flavor of pudding right into that pie hole of yours.
Update 1/29/11: Here is what Jon Stewart had to say about Bill O'Reilly's comment
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