This is so funny…
…it’s painful. It also happens to be a case of the Jon Stewart show making fun of a liberal:
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
…it’s painful. It also happens to be a case of the Jon Stewart show making fun of a liberal:
Hard to know what to think of that. She couldn’t possibly have been serious but then why would she agree to participate in looking so dumb? Is just an inside joke?
That was like a Monty Python sketch! Froma Harrop is a very intelligent person. She had to be in on the joke.
I don’t know. She may have thought it was funny but at the same time believed that comments are okay because they are sufficiently truthy.
I actually checked to see if she was a real person or an imaginary character. She’s for real, all right.
Left Coast Conservative: it certainly occurred to me that she was in on the joke. I don’t know, but if she was, then she’s one of the greatest deadpan comics in history. My opinion is that she was probably in on the fact that something about the sketch was somewhat tongue in cheek, but still thought she was making good points.
I had never heard of Froma Harrop until now. And, after the viewing the video and reading the link below, I have no wish to read/hear anything else she has written or said.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/05/hypocrisy-irony-and-the-new-civility/
I don’t see how she was not in on it.
After Oliver lamented not having access to a chain, or a car, and then the idea of locking the person in an elevator comes to her….and the camera man then follows them both into the elevator…..where Oliver still can’t get through to her….well, it just seems obviously staged to me. Still clever, though.
See especially the final four paragraphs . . .
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froma_Harrop
Froma Harrop (born March 18, 1950 in New York City) is a liberal writer and author.
She is best known for her twice-a-week syndicated column which appears in about 200 newspapers including the Seattle Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Denver Post, Dallas Morning News, Houston Chronicle, Detroit News, and Miami Herald.[1] Media Matters for America ranks Harrop 20th among the top 100 syndicated columnists for total reader reach and 14th based on average circulation.[2] She is syndicated by Creators Syndicate.
She is also a blogger for RealClearPolitics.
Born in New York City, Harrop was raised in suburban Long Island.[3] After graduating from New York University, she worked on the financial desk at Reuters, covering business and the Federal Reserve.[4]
Harrop later became a business editor for The New York Times News Service.[1] She returned to her reporting roots as a business writer for the Providence Journal in Rhode Island and subsequently joined the Journal’s editorial board, where she remains a member.[5] Harrop currently resides in Providence.[1]
Harrop has been a guest on PBS, Fox News, MSNBC, NPR and many other television and radio stations. Specific appearances include the Lou Dobbs Show, The Ed Schultz Show on MSNBC and PBS’s White House Chronicles.[6]
Her column has become a regular feature on the RealClearPolitics.com website.[7]
In 2011, Harrop was the subject of a parody interview by The Daily Show, which repeatedly mocked her hypocrisy for simultaneously serving as the President of the Civility Project while having denounced the Tea Party as “terrorists” [8]
Harrop has written for such diverse publications as The New York Times, Harper’s Bazaar, and Institutional Investor.[1] Her columns have been published in several book anthologies.[1]
Harrop is the President of the National Conference of Editorial Writers.[9] One project of the NCEW is the Civility Project, aimed at restoring civility to America’s public discourse.[10] Her position was criticized by the Wall Street Journal, which noted the contrast between this role and her comparison of the Tea Party to terrorist groups such as al-Qaida.[11] In her response to the criticism, Harrop stated, “I see incivility as not letting other people speak their piece.” [12] She subsequently deleted all the comments from the post and shut down the commenting feature of her blog.[13]
Her blog subsequently addressed the decision to delete the posted comments, saying that she was unwilling to spend time monitoring the large number of comments, while noting that a website is private property and that commenters could post their opinions elsewhere.Other bloggers, she said, have shut down their forums for similar reasons.[14]
I don’t think she was in on it, for several reasons, but most notably that she did characterize Tea Partiers as “terrorists” while at the same time urging an increase in civility. That’s a staggering lack of self-insight right there.
Further, I doubt that anyone would be willing to look as stupid as she does in this video. Who wants to be a laughing stock, especially with the knowledge that no one will later believe that you were just playing along?
In her defense, the clip has doubtless been heavily edited, possibly in a fashion that fundamentally changes the import of the interview. Having said that, it’s hard to imagine an innocuous dialogue that could have led to her responses.
My guess: she fell victim to the classic ploy in social science research – namely, misleading the subject as to the actual aim of the interview, so as to elicit a more genuine response. For example, she may have been told that her interview was part of a segment directed to skewering a conservative, so that she would be unguarded.
That she was in on the gag does not pass the smell test — at all.
She penned the piece labeling Tea Partier as terrorists, etc., etc. Allowed herself to be associated with some self-congratulatory organization that ostensibly advocates for civility in journalism (I’m sure the members of the UN Commission on Human Rights is blushing watching this video) and then hasn’t the self-awareness of the incongruity of her published works and her Chairmanship?
In a word, she was pwned.
I think this woman has some serious issues.
And that name! Did her parents not love her? It sounds more like a dire and morbid clinical diagnosis than a name — “examination of the patient’s gluteus maximus revealed a distended froma harrop”
She agreed to an interview by the Daily Show.
Even if she had never seen or heard of it (doubtful), presumably she knows how to Google. She’s a journalist, after all, I find it hard to believe she had never tuned in to the most popular fake news program in the land.
Since the show has a lefty reputation she probably felt safe going along with the “spoof,” all the while thinking they were supporting her deeply insightful views.
The joke was on her. Jon Stewart and his crew are adept at skewering both sides when they feel like it, especially the media:
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/theanchoress/2012/01/13/jon-stewarts-effective-correctives-to-press/
Good for the Daily Show – she richly deserved the resulting scorn and derision from this little video excursion; labeling Tea Partiers as terrorists while insisting on civility in public discourse. Hypocrisy, thy name is Froma.
Frankly, I’d adore knowing that liberals of her ilk have to tread carefully and guard their tongues, knowing that any live appearance or recorded interview could be an artfully laid trap, calculated to make them look like a blithering fool.
Let’s not pat Stewart on the back too hard. Yeah, Harrop looked dumb, but she’s a nobody. It’s “safe” for The Daily Show to skewer her. Remember, Stewart defended Anthony Weiner until Weiner actually confessed. When the 2012 presidential campaign ramps up, Stewart will do his best to make the Republican candidate(s) look like fools while not laying a finger on Obama and Biden.
Excuse me, but wasn’t the whole interview cut and pasted? Who knows what she originally said. That said, she is still a jerk for writing nonsense about something she absolutely knows nothing about.
I had the feeling that the liberal’s penchant for feeling justified in whatever they say, no matter how intemperate, really does blind her to how idiotic she looks here. In other words, she’s appallingly smug. They call their opponents names, not because lefties are uncivil, but because they’re so righteous, you see. And, of course, they’re Never wrong.
I think Beverly’s right. And when Froma Harrop starts to get an inkling that she’s the butt of the joke she seems to give herself the option of pretending she was in on the goof all along, just to cover her bases. She can be ironic too, because she’s so postmodern! But there’s a serious lesson here about civility and blah blah blah…
effess at 5:18 pm points us to the HotAir article last summer on dear Froma. Dear Froma’s own blog attracted some comments after Dear Froma, a.k.a. Civility Incarnate, accused Tea Partiers of being terrorists.
Dear Froma did not like negative comments on HER OWN BLOG, so she shut down comments. From Dear Froma herself:
“Am I uncivil?
I see incivility as not letting other people speak their piece……
Comments are closed.” >/b>
The Hot Air article links to screenshots of Dear Froma’s blog before she deleted the comments, so judge for yourself.
http://hotair.com/archives/2011/08/05/hypocrisy-irony-and-the-new-civility/ (from effess’s post)
“Am I uncivil?
I see incivility as not letting other people speak their piece……
Comments are closed.”
Goodness, but she has a dry sense of humor.
There’s also a discussion of this going on over at Althouse. I thought I’d repeat the point I made there, since I haven’t seen anyone make quite the same point here, yet, though in some ways Beverly’s comments come close.
I think she is playing along–because to today’s typical postmodern leftist, charges of hypocrisy are meaningless except as a tool for bludgeoning one’s political opponents.
Bob’s right, I think. Aggressive editing, and I suspect the questions shot from behind her head were all staged after the real interview.
Remember, Stewart is *comedy* that only pretends to be *news*.
No publicity is bad publicity. The Left will embrace her on the substance of her remarks while still claiming to be on the high moral ground when it comes to civility. Because having the right Leftist views is inherently civil- they’re progressive. Progressive means a better civil society. Calling people who oppose a better civilization names is simply speaking truth.
I agree with your 4:58 post Neo.
I’ve been in debate’s with liberals over 100 times in the past two decades where the logic totally escapes them.
Conservatives/Republicans don’t have a corner on the logic department, you can see conservative and Republicans in comments sections and journalists making extremely flawed arguments constantly.
But in logic tests I excel and I cannot find a logical argument made by liberals in most instances.
It is clear that liberals “care” and have a “heart”. It is also clear to me that we can tell a liberal a million times that the results of said “policy” on “x” issue will be more harm and you can follow it through infinity times for them and their response will be, “I don’t care”.
I don’t care is what they say.
At that point we conservatives are left to conclude that – hmmm – they probably don’t care about the people they say they “care” about.
But yet they do.
Parents who enable their children with various enabling issues do the same thing out of love for their children.
This is why we have Dr. Phil talking plainly to parents over and over. It takes big moments to turn a liberal and/or an enabling parent.
Big moments.
It didn’t take such a big moment for me. But my brain was logically oriented anyway. It only took hearing an alternative point of view in 1991 and then visiting the library 3 tims a week for a year to study more issues.
Nobody will invest that kind of time. I did.
And can I comment real quick on the “economic cliff argument”.
This seems to be an argument made by big government economic illiterate types for the last 4 years. Including John McCain himself. John admitted several times that he is not an economic expert and proceeded to say that he had to act and that the government had to act.
From Susan Collins to Obama – they all say they had to act.
Then the latest government shutdown nonsense was a an “economic cliff” also.
It is 100% lie to say there was a cliff.
Even Greece has been declining as a nation for over a millenium.
Here is what happens:
1) People become more dependent
2) The nation’s debt grows
3) The private sector does not flourish
4) The private sector shifts to other nations
5) The squelching tax rates punish businesses and individuals causing them to make poor choices financially
6) The nation continues to not flourish economically ( there may be some good years but those good years are not as good as they could be – See CA’s woes)
7) Creditors charge higher and higher interest rates for the debt.
8) Politicians continue to seek more and more ways to “do good” yet this leads to more spending and more punishment on the private sector
9) As the interest rates for the nation climb and the government continues to make poor choices – those who decide to stay in the nation buckle down and do the best they can do. Hording goes on by upper class families. Charity declines
10) The numbers of lower class people swell
That’s how it’s done people! Liberals go back and read the above to see what your policies do. It’s the result of your policies !
Where was the cliff for Greece.
For the U.S. it’s a tough analogy only because of the size of this nation really is a global economic event when a bubble bursts, etc.
But do any of you doubt that the U.S will do whatever it takes not to fall off the cliff and then in between the PRESENTATION of cliffs the politicians will continue to MANAGE the decline of the nation in the name of “doing good” and “caring”.
I do not have any doubts – we are being managed in our decline (unknowingly by most do gooders)
All we can do as conservatives is to preach the good argument and hope for a turnaround and an economic awakening.
But what can we do?
1) Work hard
2) Save
3) Diversify – even if you have a “state or federal retirement” you need 2 or 3 retirements I believe.
4) Teach your children well
5) Have a good life as best as you can. Enjoy.
6) This is the most important but I put it 6th. Do not let a liberal minded (illogical) person destroy you – be strong. Learn how to get to the top of Maslow’s pyramid and be a force for good for many people. Your strength is in having a team of good people all around. Family, teamates at work, and friends)
7) Treat everyone with respect. This does not mean you have to do business with a liberal. It just means you treat them with respect and love them.
Two yahoo news items: I read and then skimmed the comments and was delighted. One was on Obama and the other on Michelle. The amount of pure disgust articulated against both, well, it gave me good cause for a smile. Upped my day. All those fancy vacations and Czar appointments are not going unnoticed. I really don’t know the true breakdown in our country, but every now and then, I begin to suspect, the idiots aren’t near as appreciated as they think.
I just have to mention her behavior during the interview. Like so many libs I’ve met, throughout the interview she looked down her nose with that typical elitist, condescending, closed-minded sneer that you see in so many others in the news media, Hollywood and academia. The “I’m right about everything, and if you disagree then there’s something wrong with YOU” persona.
The true test will be if she’s a little less harsh on those who disagree with her in the future. I don’t read her work, so I’ll probably never know. My guess is there’ll be no change.
You’re right, this is funny. The Left does have certain standards, but their propaganda can be used on anyone.