If you thought, after watching the two segments of Jon Stewart's interview with Bill O'Reilly this week, that Stewart landed some telling observations, but he seemed to pull his punches a bit -- or at least they seemed to have been pulled for him -- you were right.
If you also noticed, as I did while making the clip, that the segments were pretty hamhandedly edited -- the continuity, especially in terms of Stewart's demeanor, was jarring -- it turns out you were also right.
Fox actually put the entire, unedited version of the interview up on its site, and the difference is jaw-dropping.
John Cook at Gawker (with the help of a couple of interns) got ahold of the full interview first, and provides a nice dissection that you should read (and watch) in full.
We've clipped some of the highlights for our own video, above.
If nothing else, the unedited video will be long remembered for the following quip:
I know what this is. I come from Jersey—it's the same thing: "I'm not saying your mother's a whore. I'm just saying she has sex for money. With people." [F]ox News used to be all about, you don't criticize a president during wartime. It's unacceptable, it's treasonous, it gives aid and comfort to the enemy. All of a sudden, for some reason you can run out there and say, "Barack Obama is destroying the fabric of this country."
Though I also thought this exchange was perhaps the most telling:
Stewart: But let's go into this. Because all I hear on your network is, this guy is -- it's tyranny, and socialism.
O'Reilly: That's what he believes.
Stewart: So, how is Barack Obama a socialist? As far as I can see, the majority of the billions of dollars he's given, he's given to banks. So if he is a socialist, he's dyslexic! Because when you redistribute the wealth, it's supposed to be going to --
O'Reilly: But he does believe in redistribution of income.
Stewart: Well, he's redistributed it to the banks.
O'Reilly: And that is a socialist tenet -- no, he's redistributing it --
Stewart: He's going up. He's dyslexic! It's supposed to be coming down!
O'Reilly: He -- Look. If you don't know that the Obama administration is redistributing income, then I'm gonna have to haul your program away from you. Get you off the air.
Stewart: Let me ask you: What is different about his redistribution of income and all other presidents -- he wants to raise the marginal tax rate back to where it was during the Clinton era. Was Clinton a socialist?
O'Reilly: He has promoted a variety of programs, OK, that --
Stewart: We already have Medicare, right? We have Medicaid. We have Social Security. Are we a socialist country? Do you want to get rid of those three?
O'Reilly: No.
Stewart: So are we a socialist country?
O'Reilly: But I want to moderate them so we don't go bankrupt.
Stewart: OK, but that's different. Now you're talking about fiscal responsibility.
O'Reilly: In a socialist country, the government pays for all of these entitlements -- the Obama administration is down that path.
Stewart: Who pays for Medicare? Who pays for Medicaid?
O'Reilly: The government pays for it.
Stewart: So now we're socialist.
O'Reilly: But now we're on Medicaid and Medicare with steroids, with the new health care bill. That's steroids!
Stewart: Once again, this is like the old joke. "Would you sleep with me for ten dollars?" "No." "Would you sleep with me for a million?" "OK." So now we know what you are, you're just negotiating price. For you guys to stand up --
O'Reilly: Of course, that's the degree of anybody when you describe socialism. There are little socialistic programs and giant socialist programs. OK? And some people believe that Obama is on the huge government creation -- the government dominance. And you yourself said it! You yourself said it! He wants more regulation, he wants to create things, he wants big government.
Stewart: But he's given back so much executive power!
O'Reilly: What?
Stewart: Executive power!
O'Reilly: He hasn't given back anything. He just hasn't handled the Congress. He doesn't know how to handle them yet. That's inexperience. Now --
Stewart: So he's not a tyrant. Because if he's a tyrant, then he's pretty lame for a tyrant.
O'Reilly: I don't object --
Stewart: How many tyrants do you know that really suffer because they can't get cloture? Very few.
OK, OK. So it wasn't a literal evisceration. Stewart did not unzip O'Reilly from scrote to sternum and empty out his intestines. We understand that he's a tad sensitive about how his takedowns are described these days.
Still, you can sure see why O'Reilly's producers edited this stuff out. Lord knows the regular septuagenarian Bold/Fresh audience would have fainted dead away.
