Nathan Gervais

Via Herc from AICN.
Saturday, June 7, 2003
Al Franken versus Bill O’Reilly!! Sunday!! CSPAN-2!!
I am – Hercules!!

Herc's being a registered Republican doesn’t seem to keep him from regarding noted liberal Al Franken as one of the smartest and funniest comedians on the planet. Nor does it make conservative talk show host Bill O’Reilly in my perception any less an aging, slow-witted TV pretty-boy puppet-head.
Since hearing about it, I’ve very much looked forward to seeing the the big Franken-O’Reilly dust-up.
When the two traded barbs at a BookExpo America panel last Saturday, CSPAN-2 carried it live, but few were watching. The channel finally repeats it tomorrow.
Does ACNielson keep track of CSPAN's audience? Something tells me the repeat may garner a larger tune-in.
2:30 p.m. PT/5:30 p.m. ET Sunday. CSPAN-2.

movieking

I saw some of this on ET I think (or maybe CNN). Not much of a dustup, but anything to sell their new books.

Sessa17

It's really not worth seeing. All it is is Al Franken doing his Michael Moore impersonation, making an a$$ out of himselfm he never actually argues any facts with O'Reilly, he just babbles on & on about what we already know about him. I'm no O'Reilly fan either, rather than make Franken look like the idiot that he is instead acted like an angry old man (that's nothing new) & started yelling back at Franken.

mwj

This was pathetic and absolutely no fun. Franken and O'Reilly should both be ashamed for being so unentertaining.

Numanoid

You can view the entire show online here...look for "Book & Author Luncheon
Watch 1 hr. 29 mins." Skip ahead to 41 minutes or so for the fun.

Norm de Plume

O'Reilly may be a narcissistic mental midget, but Franken did himself a disservice by making a mountain out of a molehill; he harped on the fact that O'Reilly had lied (or, more likely, was innocently mistaken) in his "memoirs" about the tabloid show Inside Edition winning a Peabody Award, when in fact it won a Polk.

dolphinboy

I found it pretty entertaining. Without control O'Reilly was ko'd by Franken. Bill looked flustered and out of his league. If someone goes at you like that, even if you don't agree, you could smile, be a bit more composed and simply advance the debate. O'Reilly couldn't do that, I guess because he was more concerned with the personal attacks on him (the peabody-polk controversy) than the issues they didn't agree on. I've never watched one of these shows before, so I don't know what the rules are supposed to be, but I was a bit uncomfortable with how much Franken did make it personal and mocked O'Reilly (even though I agree with him). I think it's great to fight for what you believe in and I think there should be more serious debates where it feels uncomfortable to watch/listen, but if I'm speaking about my book at a lunch and one of the other authors goes after me, maybe that wasn't something I'm expecting to happen. I especially thought it was funny that O'Reilly tried to make fun of the title of Franken's book, inferring that the title alone somehow was indicative of how serious or not serious the information in it might be. It was as if O'Reilly has no sense of humor at all to drawn upon himself.

dolphinboy

Couldn't agree with you more, but don't you think he was making his point about the Peabody-Polk issue to illustrate what he believed O'Reilly and his kind do all the time? That one issue alone seemed trivial, but I don't think Franken did a good enough job defining that it was something that goes on all the time and that these "little" lies/spins add up to be huge whoppers and really misinform the public who believes most of what they hear. Instead, it came off more like an attack over something not particularly important.

I also found it kind of funny how O'Reilly kept talking about Molly Ivins like he thought they were on the same mission. "I'll read Molly's book, and "Molly and I do the same thing for a living." Ms. Ivins didn't seem too happy with the the tone of the discourse between O'Reilly and Franken, but she seemed even less happy about having O'Reilly keep comparing what he does for a living to what she does.

Oh, Numanoid, thanks for the link. My wife and I wouldn't have seen it if it had not been for you.

Numanoid

It did win a Polk...AFTER O'Reilly had left the show!


Glad to help!