If you really want to get the full flavor of what a jerk this interviewer comes across as, watch this video without any sound. It almost looks like an SNL skit- the guy did everything but stick his tongue out and put his thumb to his nose while waving his fingers.
*** Update ***
I am trying to find some video of the Bush/Gore 2000 debate to offer a comparison. Any help?
I can’t find any clips other than the time he walked over next to Bush while Bush was responding to a question, making that really awkward moment where Bush looked at him funny.
I suppose any clip of Chris Matthews interviewing anyone would be as good an example as any.
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
Yeah, you don’t even have to play Paul Ekman and hunt for micro-expressions: it’s all so overt.
sgwhiteinfla
Unfortunately I already watched with the sound on and smug is definitely too kind a word. Especially when you realize how disengenuous he is. First he asks about the thoroughly debunked $70 an hour cannard and then when the mayor attempts to explain the legacy costs involved he dismisses it as talk of healthcare. What a dumb ass. But then again what do you expect from FoxNews.
I think a study should be done whereby one group of people is made to watch CNN (which isn’t a gold standard either by the way) and then another group is made to watch FoxNews with both groups doing this all day (just the news shows, nothing after 5 pm) for a week with no access to the internet to fact check either channel. And at the end of that time give both groups a quiz about current events. That would show just how different the world looks to a FoxNews fan. Sometimes I turn to FoxNews just to see what bizarro world looks like. It ain’t pretty, I can tell you that.
Comrade javafascist
He would’ve put his thumb to nose but it was too far up his own ass.
jenniebee
If the Soviets had described capitalists behaving like that (or like Thain, or like Bank of America), we’d call it the most outrageous propaganda. Now that the Soviets have gone, we call it Serious Political Commentary.
I miss having the Reds around. They kept us honest, in their way.
chrome agnomen
just another example of the total disconnect from reality inherent in the fox flock. the worst, or best, thing that could happen would be that they be forced into the workplace of the ‘huddled masses’. i feel sure that their conversion would be rapid and complete toward sympathy for the common working class.
barring that, though, the urge to punch these people in their smug faces is hard to suppress.
smiley
OT: Woo Hoo! High-speed rail is coming to town! I wonder if I’ll still be around to see it. Some oddities on that map though. It’s surprising that Denver ans Phoenix are left out and that Orlando and Jacksonville aren’t linked. It’s also too bad that the link from Mobile to Houston will have to end at the AL/MS border.
sgwhiteinfla
smiley
That really IS curious because with the link between orlando and Jville it would basically link Miami to the NE. Maybe there are already rail lines there or something, but it certainly doesn’t make sense to have a break in that line up the east coast.
smiley
@sgwhiteinfla: Exactly.
linda
@sgwhiteinfla:
pew has conducted a couple of studies over recent years that confirmed that fox news viewers were stupider than those who watched other cable/network outlets.
thinkprogress.org/2007/04/16/daily-show-fox-knowledge/
joe from Lowell
What you’re seeing there is condescension as a defense mechanism.
The mayor was absolutely kicking that interviewers ass, and he was trying to make the whupping look less severe than it actually was.
Napoleon
After watching that I want to make the 4 hour drive to Lansing and give Virg a big kiss, and I don’t even swing that way.
bayville
Comrade Cole I watched this with the sound down and my eyes closed and it was still offensive.
bordo
There already has been a study of the differences in world views between Fox News and CNN viewers. The results will not surprise you. Fox viewers are stone stupid. . .or, at the very least, exceptionally naive. They are ill-informed on a wide variety of subjects, domestic and international, which is hardly surprising given the steady diet of GOP propaganda the network spews out each day.
I don’t worry much about Fox News these days. Those high ratings are a lagging indicator. You’re talking about a network whose audience skews much older than the other cable news outlets and, naturally, much more white, suburban, less-educated.
It is cruel to point this out, but the Fox News viewership is made up entirely of "yesterday’s people," those who have been left behind by the majority of the nation in almost every arena: education, financial, cultural, etc. This group is shrinking in number every year. And the generations following already have signaled they find conservativism as embodied by Bush, Cheney and their lotion boys in the media Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly not to their liking.
The best response to the ongoing stupidity of Fox News is laughter and mockery. Or, take my path and just tune it out. Who really cares what a couple of loons like Sean of the Dread and Bill-O think? They’re playing to a shrinking base of pissed off, older white guys.
Bootlegger
Check out this lovely bit of Faux News "analysis".
It seems that Saint Ronnie was a socialist and used it to win the Cold War.
Bootlegger
@bordo:
Fixed to add the really scary part.
Bootlegger
The link to that vid seems to be down. Anyone know where else I can find it?
sgwhiteinfla
linda and bordo
I am not talking about smart or dumb. In fact what I would want in the study is people with a college education. My point is that whether you were smart or dumb before you watched FoxNews, after doing so for a week you would be dumbER. And not just that, it would taint your view on what is actually going on in the world. Remember I am not talking about having them watch O’Reilly or Hannity. I am talking about them watching what is supposed to be their straight news shows.
kay
It’s not the host’s demeanor, although he is smug. It’s that it’s not an interview. It’s a host editorial-plus-human-prop.
The mayor’s was presented with an opinion in the form of a question, so he responded with the other side. He got angry.
He KNOWS he’s a prop, and he’s refusing to serve that role. He knows anyone (or, really, no one at all ) could be sitting in his seat, because the answer doesn’t matter. The question is the whole point.
Kevin Ray
I love how the right constantly denounces liberals as ‘elitists’, then when someone dares speak up for working people, they get this sort of treatment.
RSA
Fox News is always watched best with the sound turned off.
Paul L.
Maybe you should watch Charlie Gibson’s interview with Sarah Palin to see smug.
And in the Pot calling the Kettle black category, watch Glenn Greenwald diavlog with Megan McArdle.
The look of distaste whenever she disagrees him is priceless.
I was wondering if if it would be a replay of Lawrence O’Donnell and John O’Neill with Glenn screaming "Neocon!!!!".
bordo
SG,
I understand your point, but will simply raise this point. It is human nature to be around people with whom we share common thought. Fox News viewers are drawn there because they know their worldview will be validated, not only by Sean of the Dread, Bill-O, Greta and the other talking head clowns, but also by the so-called "straight" news. If you are not seeking to have your outdated views on everything from economic policy to gay rights validated, you will find little to draw you to Fox News.
And to the other poster who noted Fox News viewers are likely to own guns, well, you’re right. With rare exceptions –like that loon in Tennessee who killed people at a Unitarian Church simply because they were liberals– it’s not likely the aging couch potatoes who suckle daily at the breast of poison that is Fox News will take it to the streets with their guns.
Napoleon
I love that interview, it shows how the Republican party truely is the party of stupid.
I would also. McArdle is a first class moron and I still can not figure out why anyone gives her a platform.
John Cole
@Paul L.: You linked to Gibson and Obama.
At any rate, I would think virtually any interview with Chris Matthews would serve as a comparison.
Bootlegger
@Paul L.: Dead on Paul, Palin looked smug as hell while spouting the most idiotic things. How does she do it?
Bootlegger
@bordo: On the couch now, but couch potatoes can be whipped into a mashed frenzy as well (sorry, couldn’t resist torturing the metaphor).
I was flipping by Faux News the other day and heard Beck giving the tag for his next "news" segment. "Coming up, Iran launches a satellite into space, another foretold sign of Armageddon." I hung around to watch. Surely, I thought, it was a joke. No one reports the signs of the apocalypse as news except for Hagee. But damned if he didn’t have a Biblical "scholar" on the next segment explaining how this fit with prophecy because, wait for it, the name of the rocket matched some name in Revelations. Boo-yeah! Now that’s some serious feakin’ News!
Michael
the only reason Fox News still has high ratings is because the last 8 years taught most smart people that there almost no good news coverage on TV (or newspapers for that matter). News on the web (even though the sources are the same) is kept honest by being continuously examined and commented on by a horde of fact checkers, so exposing lies and distortions is never relegated to the end of a broadcast or a tiny correction on page 25.
Damned at Random
Funny how when Virg doesn’t answer the question in the way the interviewer expects, he is condescended to, but when Palin didn’t opt to answer debate questions, the right considered her heroic. Pot (R ) is not treated like kettle (D) on Faux News. Who’d a thunk it.
I’m glad the mayor took advantage of the platform to let the Fox viewers hear an alternative point of view. Maybe it will disturb a few enough to do some independent research.
Blue Raven
On the "own guns" point, a lot of readers of this blog do as well. I am so tired of "gun owner" being synonymous with "redneck."
smiley
@Bootlegger:
I catch snippets of Beck’s radio show sometimes when I’m in the car. He is nuts. Limbaugh and Hannity are hyper partisans who occasionally engage in partisan fear mongering. Beck, on the other, hand is pure fear monger. I think he’s actually dangerous.
Bootlegger
@Blue Raven: Sorry Blue, it wasn’t my point at all. I’m simply saying that as a percentage of the population, conservatives own more guns than liberals. In a civil war they would thus have the initial advantage.
Bootlegger
@smiley: I agree. When he’s reporting as "news" the End of the World, its not a small step to the point of marching with the Lord’s Army.
Objective Scrutator
I, for one, thought that the mayor of Lansing was very rude to the nice Fox journalist. I can stand rudeness on television; the Fox journalist was righteously rude back to Bernero, and rudeness does help facilitate political discussion.
What angered me, however, was that Bernero was so passionate about defending auto worker standards. We all know the reason for this, of course; the man lives in an area where a bunch of smelly union quacks control the government, and the man just so happens to be the descendant of one of those smelly union quacks. Passion does not actually contribute to argument, however. We should admire the Fox journalist’s attempt to shut that passionate lunatic up, as he was simply becoming too annoying for the American people.
I just think that the American people should try sticking up for those who earn their money, and get insufficiently nice offices as a result, rather than lazy auto workers who are just given super fancy seats. Stand up, you communists! (Yes, I realize that the video is by Honda, not by the Big Three. I’m pretty certain that the Big Three have chairs like that, however.)
MobiusKlein
Since the interview was conducted over webcam, the interviewer did have to look down a lot, rather than at the TV camera. The mayor was using what appeared to be a webcam built into the computer, which lets him look at the interviewer and the camera simultaneously.
Additionally, it would have been better if we saw the view the Mayor saw, so we could judge the face to face interaction.
Decal
The best part was when Mr. Smug tells the Mayor "that wasn’t my question but now that you bring it up" and then up on the screen immediately pops up that "$70 benefit excerpt" from the NY Post editorial Mr. Smug then uses as ammo against the Mayor. Good thing the FOX crew was so foresighted to realize what the Mayor might so fortuitously want to discuss because it never would have come up otherwise.
new day rising
Your cat has the strangest tail.
TenguPhule
Not really.
As Iraq taught us, IEDs are the real decision makers.
TenguPhule
Corrected.
jenniebee
@Bootlegger:
But we have the gangland demographic, and the most chemistry and physics majors.
Bring it, Bubba.
Susan
Watching it with the sound off might be the Best. Idea. Ever. I already knew Fox doesn’t own any real journalists, but I never realized how many of their fake ones have memorized the Bill O’Reilly superscilious facial tic handbook. Thanks!
Gravenstone
@jenniebee:
As a gun owning chemist, I heartily endorse this statement.
KT
Hey.
Here’s the Bush/Gore debates from 2000 on C-SPAN.
Mason
The FOX host has a passing resemblance to a grown-up version of the kid from the "Fat Kid Slaps His Mom" video.
The Oracle
Hmmm, I wonder if the Fox news actor gets health care coverage at Fox News (or News Corp) through some full or co-pay health care plan?
Just curious.