To the extent that anyone wants to evaluate the political leanings of late night talk show hosts, sex scandal jokes about Bill Clinton are political jokes. It wasn't just Dave, but he definitely made a huge meal out of that. But Dave always had a kind of antipathy towards Clinton that went beyond Lewinsky. I remember an early comment by him, I think soon after Clinton was elected, in which he mentioned that Clinton was the first person elected president from his generation, and he reminded him of the kind of kiss ass kid in high school he never trusted or respected.
If Howie Kurtz really thinks that Johnny Carson was a Leftist then he is even stupider than I think he is (which, actually, is not possible). I always thought Leno was more liberal than Dave, but he did get Arnie elected Governor of California. I don't watch Kimmell enough to have any take on how political he gets on his show - a tearful plea that poor parents not have to watch their children die from the kind of congenital heart defect his own infant son is fighting could only be interepreted as Leftist in the post-Trump apocolypse. The main talk show hosts that have clearly been liberal are those from TDS (Stewart, Oliver, Colbert). Even Stewart (who also feasted on Clinton for as long as he had him) was more of a centrist libertarian than a real liberal. Stephen Colbert, dating back to his correspondent days on TDS, has long been the most explicitly (and brilliantly) liberal figure in American television this side of Democracy Now! On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 5:18 PM Steve Timko <[email protected]> wrote: > Dave's Clinton jokes were sex related, not political. > > Not sent from an iPhone. > On May 8, 2017, at 4:17 PM, Mark Jeffries <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> It's almost like the right conveniently forgets all of Dave's Bill >> Clinton jokes, which he continued to do right until the end. >> >> Mark Jeffries >> Saints Spotlight Editor >> [email protected] >> >> On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 4:50 PM, Tom Wolper <[email protected]> wrote: >> >>> On Mon, May 8, 2017 at 3:51 PM, Steve Timko <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> When were late night talk shows not left leaning? Steve Allen? Jack >>>> Paar was left leaning. >>>> Kurtz says Hollywood won't let Fallon air at the cool kids table. >>>> >>>> >>>> http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/08/its-not-only-colbert-why-most-late-night-comics-are-skewering-trump.html >>>> >>> >>> I have a DVD set of some of Paar's prime time shows after he left the >>> Tonight Show. On his first one Richard Nixon was his first guest and Paar >>> told an anecdote from when their families were vacationing together in the >>> Caribbean. Paar might have become known in later years as favoring the >>> Kennedys and the last show in the DVD set was Bobby Kennedy talking about >>> Jackie and the family were coping a couple of months after JFK's >>> assassination. In another episode he had Cassius Clay on and Paar referred >>> to him as a "boy." I'm not prepared to call him left-leaning. >>> >>> The GOP has been in a hard rightward swing for the past two decades and >>> part of that is calling what used to be the political center the "left." As >>> has been documented ad nauseum, the origin of the Affordable Care Act was >>> with the conservatives. As soon as Obama put a bill into Congress it became >>> communist. So what is happening is that the great audience that has been >>> traditionally centrist is becoming left-leaning as the right becomes more >>> radical. >>> >>> In previous decades politics was left to politicians and the journalists >>> who covered them. Think tanks existed but their output went to academic >>> journals. Newspapers had op-ed writers but they did not appear too often on >>> TV. Then there was an explosion of pundits - mostly due to the need of 24 >>> hour news channels to have talking heads. And the think tanks started to >>> feed the news channels with their output dumbed down for general audiences. >>> And the next thing you know everything was political and everything had to >>> be aligned on one side or the other, not just traditional politics, but pop >>> culture, music, sports, etc. Decades ago talk show hosts could steer clear >>> of politics in their monologues. Johnny Carson's shows from his NY years >>> have been erased. It would be interesting to see if he mentioned the Tet >>> Offensive or the 1968 Democratic Convention and how he covered them. I >>> assume he steered clear and that's just not possible today. >>> >>> In his new Letterman biography Jason Zinoman said that a new era in late >>> night talk began when Jon Stewart took over the Daily Show. Stewart did not >>> steer clear of politics and did not pretend to be neutral and thrived >>> because of it. Dave became known as left-leaning but I think he was more >>> part of the abandoned center when the GOP shifted right. Then an innocuous >>> joke about Sarah Palin's daughter stoked manufactured outrage from people >>> who worship her and I think that affected him. >>> >>> Donald is a bull in a china shop. Some of that is by design and that is >>> what GOP voters decided they want to run the federal government. The party >>> has lost the institutional power to stop him in the name of preserving >>> norms (and dignity) and the country has to live with the consequences and >>> wait until all the damage has been done to repair things. He and his inner >>> circle crave attention and they generate tons more news content than a less >>> radical and more low-key administration would. >>> >>> It's folly for pundits like Kurtz to compare today to past >>> administrations and wistfully wish for the days of yore when hosts were >>> neutral and made jokes about other things going on in life. And when >>> attacking Trump or the GOP leadership they are not specifically advocating >>> for Democratic alternatives as representing the values of their audience: >>> respect for all people, respect for science, working toward a more peaceful >>> world, etc. >>> >>> -- >>> -- >>> TV or Not TV .... 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