Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly have frequently been on opposing sides of political arguments, yet the two have similar takes on the Brian Williams scandal.
Williams is currently taking a break from the NBC Nightly News after it was revealed he “misremembered”; an oft-told story about being in a helicopter that drew enemy fire in Iraq, with the helicopter pilot disputing that the plane had been fired at.
On last night’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart addressed the situation by paying homage to Dr. Seuss: “Bri,”; he lamented. “Why? Why, Bri? Why Bri lie? … Sigh.”;
Stewart blamed Williams’ propensity to exaggerate on “infotainment confusion syndrome,”; intimating that the anchor’s desire to be a celebrity and entertaining talk-show guest doesn’t jibe with journalistic ethics. “Self-love can be a bad habit,”; quipped Stewart. “You probably shouldn’t do it at your work desk.”;
Later, on The Nightly Show, host Larry Wilmore joked about Williams’ Tonight Show bit in which he slow-jams the news with Jimmy Fallon. “A lot of people have accused him of lying,”; said Wilmore of Williams. “I’m not going to go that far, but it does appear as if somebody has been slow-jamming the truth.”;
Meanwhile, Bill O’Reilly appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live and came to Williams’ defense.
“Anybody who is enjoying the destruction of this man — you got to look at yourself,”; the O’Reilly Factor host told Jimmy Kimmel. “And there’s a lot of people… happy his career is going down the drain. That disturbs me.”
Added O’Reilly: “He made a mistake. Is it a character flaw? I don’t know. If it is, he’s going to lose his job. If another one comes out, that he exaggerated a story that he reported, he’s going to lose his job.”;
O’Reilly did, however, agree with Stewart that the pressure to be an entertaining talk-show guest was probably a factor. “When you come on a late night show…you don’t want to be a dweeb. You want to have something interesting to say,” O’Reilly said. “What happens is, a journalist will say ‘I was there’ and then a story, to make it more dramatic and interesting, will emerge. He embellished the story.”;
