Jon Stewart v. Bill OReilly: who won?

Here is the video from Part 1 of Bill O’Reilly’s two-part interview with Jon Stewart. This is all over the media today, and most commentators and pundits are acting as if this was going to be some kind of epic showdown, like Stewart’s interview (re: beat down) with CNBC’s Jim Cramer last year. Now, it’s no secret that I think Jon Stewart is absolutely lovely. Many people even agree with me – last year, Stewart was voted “America’s Most Trusted Newsman”. During the overly-hyped Daily Show “debate” between Stewart and CNBC’s Jim Cramer, Stewart pretty much killed Cramer and lifted his leg on Cramer’s corpse. So how, perchance, would Stewart perform when he was no longer on his home turf? When Stewart left The Daily Show studio and went over to Fox News for a one-on-one with Bill O’Reilly?

In truth, this wasn’t the first time Stewart and O’Reilly have tangled. They’ve been guests on each other’s shows before, to mixed results. And while I think O’Reilly is a falafel-rubbing blowhard, next to Glen Beck, even O’Reilly looks sane and reasonable, and he played nice with Stewart. I also thing this was a factor too – Stewart and O’Reilly have never tangled when there was a Democrat in the White House. O’Reilly ended up being the most quotable of the event, claiming that Jon was used to criticizing “evil Republicans” and calling The Daily Show’s viewers “stoned slackers who love Obama”. Jon played it straight for the most part, although he did fall back on his “I’m just a comedian who talks about the news” shtick.

Here’s Part 2, when Bill and Jon really start to get into it:

So who won? Gawker has a blow-by-blow of points scored, and they declare Stewart the winner with this quote of Stewart‘s: “Here’s what Fox has done, through their cyclonic perpetual emotional machine that is 24 hours a day, 7 days a week: They have taken reasonable concerns about this president and this economy and turned it into full-fledged panic attack about the next coming of Chairman Mao.” Okay, that is a good line. Bless Stewart’s heart. I love him.

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