It's safe to say no American will ever seriously utter the words "President O.J. Simpson," but comedian Harry Shearer thinks the country would come pretty close if we end up sending Donald Trump to the White House.
Shearer and his wife, singer-songwriter Judith Owen, stopped by HuffPost Live on Tuesday to chat about their holiday show "Christmas Without Tears," and Shearer used Simpson's notorious trial to illustrate the way Americans have come to confuse celebrity with newsworthy importance, as he says has happened with Trump.
"I would cite as the most apposite historical example -- what was that trial that went on for eight months that was so boring, that had half the country mesmerized ... because the defendant was a celebrity?" he said. "Trump is the O.J. of politics."
So who's to blame for putting Trump on that pedestal? Shearer pointed the finger at New York City journalists who projected their interest in the real estate mogul on the rest of the U.S.
"I do think that the New York media owe the country an apology because for 20 years, they were putting their local loudmouth on the cover of national magazines because he was the local loudmouth and it happened to be in the most important city in the world, and now this is what we've got," Shearer said.
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