Frank Rich: Joy Behar "The New Edward R. Murrow" Following McCain Interview

New York Times:

You know the press is impotent at unmasking this truthiness when the hardest-hitting interrogation McCain has yet faced on television came on "The View." Barbara Walters and Joy Behar called him on several falsehoods, including his endlessly repeated fantasy that Palin opposed earmarks for Alaska. Behar used the word "lies" to his face. The McCains are so used to deference from "the filter" that Cindy McCain later complained that "The View" picked "our bones clean." In our news culture, Behar, a stand-up comic by profession, looms as the new Edward R. Murrow.

Network news, with its dwindling handful of investigative reporters, has barely mentioned, let alone advanced, major new print revelations about Cindy McCain's drug-addiction history (in The Washington Post) and the rampant cronyism and secrecy in Palin's governance of Alaska (in last Sunday's New York Times). At least the networks repeatedly fact-check the low-hanging fruit among the countless Palin lies, but John McCain's past usually remains off limits.

Read the whole story: New York Times

Comments

[Eric8869]

06:27 PM on 09/23/2008

It's sad when the comedians are the ones asking the tough questions. What happened to our Journalists? They have betrayed the American people the last 8 years.

American Journalism is dead.

[Jinxykb]

04:08 PM on 09/23/2008

What a great article! I totally bought that 'Mother Teresa' boloney! Of course it wasn't true! I feel so gullible.

[pupbayer]

02:44 PM on 09/23/2008

What a joke! LOL!!!

[FaceYourFears]

02:39 PM on 09/23/2008

I have to give it to Joy.....she's been spectaculor!

[arachne646]

12:38 PM on 09/23/2008

U.S. television interviewers are extremely easy to lead off-target if you don't want to answer their question. Just start talking about your topic that is one or two degrees off to the side, and the "conversation" will turn to that. Try watching someone interviewed by BBC World try that. There's a reason why BBC is blocked from the web in China all the time and individual American networks are blocked as needed.

[likeicare]

08:01 AM on 09/23/2008

Thank you, Frank Rich -- and thank you, Joy -- at least SOMEBODY is doing the fourth estate's REAL job: reporting reality!

That's what Karl Rove's Ministry of Propaganda fears most -- that the media will finally awaken from its self-induced 8-year coma, and actually ask questions that require something more than a well-rehearsed regurgitation of some hack's talking points.

Rove once famously said, that in order for his "vision" of what he wanted America to look like to succeed, it was necessary for him to create his own "reality" -- a kind of political alternate universe. Once that is destroyed -- or revealed for what it really is: all smoke and mirrors -- so too, is Rove's power.

[Bulbul]

07:57 AM on 09/23/2008

How scary and rresponsible the news media is ?
We are so disgusted with their spin, now get straight talk from Mahr, Stewart, Colbert and all the ladies in the view !

[PurplePhase]

11:10 PM on 09/22/2008

I like Joy Behar, she is a poignant straight shooter with a sense of humor.

But what was Frank Rich inhaling when he compared Joy to Edward Murrow?

[Yermammy]

05:44 PM on 09/22/2008

Joy and Jon. Our last good reporters are comedians. Is Nero cued up to start playing the violin yet?

[foxfan]

04:17 PM on 09/22/2008

If Joy Behar is the new Edward R Murrow, then Sarah Palin may be the new FDR.

[Yermammy]

05:40 PM on 09/22/2008

Yeah, as in Frikkin' Demonic Rethug.

[shockedNawed]

01:18 PM on 09/23/2008

Thank you.

[foxfan]

06:06 PM on 09/23/2008

It's sad that you think that's clever.

[Eric8869]

06:25 PM on 09/23/2008

if you mean Freaky Devil Republican - you're about right.

FDR saved the nation from a depression where an egotistical Republican did nothing. (Hoover)

FDR put people back to work - yes with liberal minded work programs (community activisim?). The Republicans just kept the rich rich and the poor in poverty.

Nothing has changed - just that the Republicans are better now at fooling people into voting for them over wedge issues and not the reality of their actions.

[newdreams]

03:05 PM on 09/22/2008

Joy Behar should be give Larry King's position, if and when he EVER retires. Their personalities are very similar in many ways, but I think that Joy has a lot more going for her. She goes after the truth. But unlike Larry King, Behar can interchange bluntness with sensitivity when the situation calls for it. AND she is funny. The only time I laugh during King's show is when he does something that shows how completely out of touch he is with this century.

Behar earned the nation's respect with her interview with McCain. She's one gutsy lady.

[Ironquill]

03:52 PM on 09/22/2008

Larry King has been a disappointment, as has CNN in general. They keep carrying Palin's water while she keeps stonewalling them. Do you suppose Wolf Blitzer is a secret neocon?

[chroipahtz]

04:09 PM on 09/22/2008

Define "secret".

[UncleJimbo]

08:35 PM on 09/22/2008

Define "Blitzer"?

[PKSSK]

04:24 PM on 09/22/2008

Joy really does need her own show. She is intelligent, articulate and has the uncanny ability to ask hard questions with integrity to get at the truth. Joy at the helm of any show would be must see TV.

[jukesgrrl]

02:49 PM on 09/22/2008

Joy did a great service for her fellow Americans by asking the question that so-called reporters have failed to ask. When the media refuses to do their job, it's up to We the People to take over. I guess Joy is one of us who have had ENOUGH.

I got a great laugh this morning listening to Joe Scarborough sputter and whine about Rich's comment and try to make excuses about why it isn't his job to ask "rude" questions of people who are "nice enough" to come on his show. I guess it was really rude of Joy to stand up take over the job he's failed to do.

[PKSSK]

04:18 PM on 09/22/2008

Great comment pertaining to Scarborough, which confirms he does not get it.

[watchingfromCanada]

02:17 PM on 09/22/2008

Joy is asking the right questions, and it's amazing that journalists of every network/cable aren't already doing so themselves. Shame on them. I believe Joy would also ask pointed questions to Obama, given similar slanted commercials and remarkable inconsistencies that the McCain camp shovel to the public. Americans should be insulted by being treated as stupid as the McCain political machine does, and smart republicans should demand better from their politico. It's beneath what US citizens deserve.

[happycat]

12:52 PM on 09/22/2008

I only watch the "View" these days because of Joy. She says what I and alot of liberals are thinking. She simply asked McCain a question and he lied when answering it. The problem is that most reporters would have let McCain get away with it. The beauty of Joy is that she is a tough cookie and called him out on it.

[littlepuffycloud]

12:21 PM on 09/22/2008

I'm so depressed...