Big Blotchy Bully

As has been widely reported, Bill "Never Let the Truth Stand in the Way of a Good Story" O'Reilly tapped his his fathomless reserves of warmth and hospitality to start his interview with John Stewart thusly:

JON STEWART, "THE DAILY SHOW": How are you, sir?

O'REILLY: OK. You know what's really frightening?

STEWART: Uh oh.

O'REILLY: You know what's really frightening?

STEWART: You've been reading my diary.

O'REILLY: You actually have an influence on this presidential election. That is scary.

STEWART: If that were so, that would be quite frightening.

O'REILLY: But it is. It's true. I mean, you've got stoned slackers watching your dopey show every night, OK, and they can vote.

STEWART: Yeah.

O'REILLY: You can't stop them.

STEWART: Yeah, I just don't know how motivated they would be, these stoned slackers.

O'REILLY: Yeah, it just depends if they have to go out that day.

STEWART: What am I, a Cheech and Chong movie? Stoned slackers?

O'REILLY: Come on, you do the research, you know the research on your program.

STEWART: No, we don't.

O'REILLY: Eighty-seven percent are intoxicated when they watch it. You didn't see that?

(You can read most of the interview at Fox News -- also be sure to check out Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism, no surprises but nice synthesis nonetheless. If you're really jonesing (who says that anyway?) for S&D re: Fox's lies and distortions, check out http://www.newshounds.us/.)

Anywho, as also widely reported, Comedy Central was a tad irritated with O'Reilly's characterization of The Daily Show's advertiser-bait audience as comprised of stoned slackers, so they issued a release on the matter citing two studies showing the greater education, political knowledge and affluence of the Daily Show audience versus Fox viewers and/or average Americans. The release itself was interesting and had quite a few little factoids. All the pertinent info including links to the original source material can be found in the release.