Jon Stewart’s interview with Hillary Clinton? It left famous media critic Howie Kurtz underwhelmed.
Kurtz and his trusty sidekick Lauren Ashburn appeared on the “O’Reilly Factor” on Wednesday night to weigh-in on the former secretary of state’s recent Q&A with Stewart.
Bill O’Reilly, who believes he made “journalistic history” during his Super Bowl Sunday interview with President Obama, wanted to know how to characterize Clinton’s “Daily Show” interview.
“Was it instructive? Was it informative?” O’Reilly asked. “What was it?”
Ashburn said although Stewart posed “a lot of softball questions,” that was ultimately OK “because he says himself he’s only a comedian.”
Typical story, scoffed Kurtz.
“This is the same dodge that Jon Stewart pulls,” Kurtz complained. “He is an acerbic social critic when he has conservative guests on he manages to skewer them with humor. When he has somebody like Hillary Clinton on, it is a kissy-face moment.”
Kurtz bemoaned that “dodge” last year, and last month he suggested that Obama’s presidency has removed both Stewart and Stephen Colbert from the “zeitgeist.” It’s certainly a far cry from 2010, when Kurtz penned an entire column based around the fact that Stewart mentioned him on-air.
O’Reilly, who was stunned when a guest told him earlier this year that he’s harder on Democrats than Republicans, agreed that Stewart is tougher on conservatives that liberals.
And Kurtz, who joined Fox News in 2013 after an error-filled tenure at the Daily Beast, joked that Clinton should send Stewart “chocolates or pick out an ambassadorship for him.”
