Fox News commentator Bernie Goldberg acknowledged Monday night on "The O'Reilly Factor" that Jon Stewart was right in his critique of Fox News.
"Does Stewart have a point here?" Bill O'Reilly asked. "Are we being hypocritical by generalizing about some people?"
"I'll just speak about me. He does. I am pleading guilty. And that's a sincere plea of guilty," Goldberg said. "I said that liberals think people who live in the middle of the country are a bunch of jerks, and obviously all liberals don't think that. But I will tell you what, an awful lot of liberal elites think that. I worked with these liberal elites for 28 years at CBS News, and they were always throwing around the term white trash, by which they meant poor southerners who didn't go to Harvard. I'm not sure why that makes them trash. As far as the middle of the country is concerned, you know, this was flyover country where people flew the flag on the Fourth of July and went bowling and ate at Red Lobster. You know, they were a bunch of hicks. But even all liberal elites don't think that. So I am saying I was wrong, Jon Stewart is right." (transcript via)
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Goldberg did not stop there, however, going on to criticize Stewart for what he said was his own hypocrisy. Specifically, Goldberg claimed Stewart allows liberals like Frank Rich to generalize without going after them.
"Jon, if you have an ounce of introspection, you may want to take this seriously," Goldberg said. "If you just want to be a funny man, who talks to an audience that will laugh at anything you say, that's okay with me, no problem. But if clearly you want to be a social commentator, more than just a comedian and if you want to be a good one, you better find some guts because even though you criticize liberals as well as conservatives, congratulations on that, when you had Frank Rich on your show, who generalizes all the time about conservatives and Republicans being bigots, you didn't ask him a single tough question. You gave him a lap dance. You practically had your tongue down his throat."
Goldberg warned Stewart that if he doesn't go after the left to the same degree that he goes after the right, "you are not nearly as edgy as you think you are. You are just a safe Jay Leno with a much smaller audience."