Everyone Hush: Conan O'Brien's Pet Fool is Going to Weigh In on Media Bias

Ross Douthat wrote a column about the tedious, soul-grindingly repetitive leftist "joxesplaining" of late-night TV.

On late-night television, it was once understood that David Letterman was beloved by coastal liberals and Jay Leno more of a Middle American taste. But neither man was prone to delivering hectoring monologues in the style of the "Daily Show" alums who now dominate late night. Fallon's apolitical shtick increasingly makes him an outlier among his peers, many of whom are less comics than propagandists -- liberal "explanatory journalists" with laugh lines.

Some of them have better lines than others, and some joke more or hector less. But to flip from Stephen Colbert's winsome liberalism to Seth Meyers's class-clown liberalism to Bee's bluestocking feminism to John Oliver's and Trevor Noah's lectures on American benightedness is to enter an echo chamber from which the imagination struggles to escape.

It is'’t just late-night TV. Cultural arenas and institutions that were always liberal are being prodded or dragged further to the left. Awards shows are being pushed to shed their genteel limousine liberalism and embrace the race-gender-sexual identity agenda in full. Colleges and universities are increasingly acting as indoctrinators for that same agenda, shifting their already-lefty consensus under activist pressure.
Meanwhile, institutions that were seen as outside or sideways to political debate have been enlisted in the culture war. The tabloid industry gave us the apotheosis of Caitlyn Jenner, and ESPN gave her its Arthur Ashe Award. The N.B.A., N.C.A.A. and the A.C.C. -- nobody's idea of progressive forces, usually -- are acting as enforcers on behalf of gay and transgender rights. Jock culture remains relatively reactionary, but even the N.F.L. is having its Black Lives Matters moment, thanks to Colin Kaepernick.

Hit the link for the rest; he says this is a problem, counterintuitively, for Democrats, as the hegemonic domination of the New Televangelistic Culture (of Leftist Religious Dogma) misleads leftists into thinking they have a stronger sway in the broader culture than they do, which leads them to make increasingly absurd demands of their politicians, which is going to cause them to come to grief.

And now on to Andy Richter, who makes his living as an Obsequious Toady to a Second Rate Village Idiot on basic cable, a charisma-free presence remarkable chiefly from his lack of presence, an idiot who tried to give his Second Banana to a Second Rater act some dignity by doing it as a parody of Ed McMahon's laugh-laugh-agree-agree schtick, but having done that now for what, 25 years, with his attempts at breaking into something else all having failed, now finds himself to no longer be a parody of Ed McMahon, but simply a less respected and less well-paid Ed McMahon.

At least Ed McMahon had the dignity (relative, I mean) of being a co-host of "TV's Wildest Bloopers and Practical Jokes."

Andy Richter's other show is his twitter feed.

His tweets below the fold, as I think tweets slow down the site for some users.

Apparently, at one point, this fat sack of anti-charisma objected that it's just not true that leftists constantly portrayed Romney as racist too. Leading to this:

Look, this is all very interesting, but attacking Andy Richter for his girlishly emotional and clubby-provincial political views dishonestly ignores the fact that he's a zero in comedy as well.

posted by Ace at 02:30 PM

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