Colbert for a day
Columbia sociology prof. Sudhir Venkatesh, author of Gang Leader for a Day, went on Colbert last night for a silly interview in which he denied ever popping a cap in someone’s ass. ‘I’m a pacifist,’ he said. But he acknowledged he once had to have someone beaten. Columbia grad students beware.
Earlier in the show, Colbert claimed an Arab-American guest said Hindus are child molesters (he said nothing of the sort).
Meanwhile, Jon Stewart got little out of Dubya spokeswoman Dana Perino on The Daily Show. She’s Winona Ryder-esque but seemed chirpy and tense. Stewart said the progression of press secretaries — Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, Tony Snow and now Perino — resembled the ascent of man 
on Friday, March 14th, 2008, 1:00 pm in Colbert Report, Daily Show, Humor, Video clips › 
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Ha! I caught that bit. Ibish might not have explicitly said so but it reeked a little. he was trying to get under colbert’s skin - he felt colbert would be equally riled by being called a hindu or a child molester. i couldnt care less and i dont think anyone should. it’s ibish who should be embarassed. that was juvenile .
I didn’t take what Ibish said as drawing any moral equivalence. It was just an off-the-cuff list of things an O’Reilly persona would object to.
I can’t read Ibish’s mind, but many outreach groups post 9-11 were messaging that Islam’s shared heritage with Christianity/Judaism meant they were on the same page morally speaking. What do such people think of atheists/Hindus/Buddhists ?
I think Colbert was being an asshole even though his show is on comedy central and he was trying to be funny.
Stewart’s interview with Dana seemed guarded to me, I think he was very cautious and didn’t really ask her any tough questions.
au contraire umber_D, I felt colbert was pointing out the obvious. and ibish backpedaled faster than an earthworm in a salt lick.
Based on your folksy sayings, you could get elected to Congress as a Texas Republican. (No offense, earthworms :)) Make a run for the border!
Khoofia,
Maybe my sensitivity radar was on full alert, I felt towards the end Colbert did not give Ibish a chance to speak, Colbert was shouting and cut the segment before Ibish could get a word in.
Perino was obviously nervous in the whole interview. It is kind of puzzling that someone who has such a public persona feels nervous on Jon Stewart’s show. But I think it might be because the “licence-to-humiliate” that comedians usually have. Jon Stewart is preety good about using this “licence” and he does not abuse it. Colbert on the other hand was literally abusive towards Dubya, when the whitehouse had invited him as a speaker on the correspondents dinner (or some event like that).
That dinner’s supposed to be a roast. Colbert just took it seriously.
I can’t read Ibish’s mind, but many outreach groups post 9-11 were messaging that Islam’s shared heritage with Christianity/Judaism meant they were on the same page morally speaking. What do such people think of atheists/Hindus/Buddhists ?
Ibish is not Muslim. I know him and he is an atheist. He works for the Arab American community and therefore uses the more polite ‘agnostic’ instead of saying he is an atheist as some Arab Americans might not be comfortable with an atheist representing them.
I dont think Ibish was using ‘Hindu’ as a slur.
To answer louiecypher’s question, from what I have seen, most Muslims admire Buddhists. Except for desi Muslims, most Muslims know as much about Hinduism as an average American which is not much beyond the caricature.
His “abuse” was put in the shade by Dubya’s shitting on all Americans in the previous dinner when he joked about looking for WMDs in the Oval Office, mocking the
fundamental errorblatant lie that was the casus belli for an unjust war.I’m impressed. I especially liked the focus on the underground economy described earlier in the excerpt.
Actually Ibish didn’t say that Hindus were child molesters. Colbert said it as an obvious joke. But what Ibish DID do by his comment was to imply that Catholics were child molesters, Colbert being a well-known Catholic. And I have no doubt that Colbert picked up on it because he made the rare on-camera admission shortly after Ibish’s comment that he (Colbert) was Catholic.
There’s going to be more of the entertainment industry in Venky’s future, so he’d better get used to it. His book was just optioned by Paramount to be made into a feature film.
Good luck. Surviving this in one piece may be harder than anything he did with the Black Kings.