When Jon Stewart invited Rick Santorum onto the show to debate gay marriage, they sat equally across the table and had a discussion. Rick Santorum made a complete ass of himself nonetheless, obviously being completely unwilling to have the discussion and responding to everything basically with variations 'Yeah, but gay people are bad'. The guy on Larry Wilmore, given a fair chance, obviously would have made an equal ass of himself. Instead they called him a liar for refusing to question the very premises of his convictions. Debating people who are against gay marriage and exposing them to different kinds of people is the key to changing their minds, not shaming them. Also they could have picked an anti-gay rights person who was at least capable of holding his own in a debate.
You're bothered that they followed the same format the show has followed from the start? If Jon Stewart had done one-on-one interviews throughout his run and then suddenly had a three-on-one team-up against Santorum without informing him, you could reasonably call that an "ambush," as it was a break from the usual format. Wilmore's show always has the group discussion format and always has the "Keep it 100" segment, so anyone doing the barest bit of research before going on the show should have known what to expect. Not to mention I'm quite sure the staff explained what the situation would be to him before he went on-air. He got the weak tea not for being opposed to gay marriage, but because he contradicted his own premise for being opposed to it, thus exposing that it has nothing to do with following "God's law" and everything to do with his own personal homophobia. Larry asked if God personally came down to tell him gay marriage was fine, would he reconsider his position, and he refused to engage the hypothetical situation honestly, vacillating and dodging. If your opposition to gay marriage is truly based in following the word of God and not your own personal hang-ups, it's not a hard question to answer at all. The first part of your comment is exactly what happened, and nowhere did they "shame" him. He got the same weak tea that numerous guests have gotten before, not some personal vendetta to expose him. If you have a problem with the entire premise of the "Keep it 100" segment, so be it, but it wasn't unfairly or exclusively used against this one man. This is what this guy does for a living, going around preaching against gay marriage to large audiences both on and off the air. Who would be a better advocate for the position? The fact of the matter is, there's no reasonable justification for the position, which is why even good debaters don't hold their own on the matter. There's no reasonable argument to be made when your position boils down to "Gay people are icky." They can dress it up in fancy clothing all they like, but that's the essence of the argument, and why it always gets defeated when put up against even mediocre debaters. If your argument is for freedom of religion, you have to realize that we also have freedom from religion. If your argument is about respecting personal choice, you have to explain why you're denying their personal choice. If your argument is about following Biblical tradition, you have to answer for the countless Biblical traditions you personally (and that goes for everyone) and we as a society no longer follow. If your argument is about following the word of God, then you should be able to answer a hypothetical about what you would do if God told you to change. There was no ambush or unfair treatment. It's simply an untenable position that doesn't hold up to scrutiny.
That episode came off to me like Larry Wilmore was pulling a reverse O'Reilly. Would you defend Bill O'Reilly if he did the same thing in reverse? If he invited three people who are against gay marriage to debate against a pro gay marriage person who was not particularly good at debate? Fox News likes to do things like find a guy who's taking advantage of welfare so he can freeload and use that one guy as a representative of all people who are on welfare. Would you defend Bill O'Reilly if he brought in that one guy to debate welfare against three economics professors? Is it okay only because you agree with the position? If Bill O'Reilly ran basically the exact same show only he argued for a liberal point of view, would you sing his praises? I don't think his response to that question revealed hypocrisy at all. He was put in a position where answering 'Yes' would trivialize his position as slavish devotion to text and answering 'No' would trivialize his position as having nothing to do with his religious beliefs, so he denied the premise of the question Larry gave a Keep It 100 sticker to an obese woman who claimed she wouldn't prefer to be thin and not to a man who questioned the idea that the God he believed in would suddenly reverse his position. You don't think his personal preference for the position they hold played a factor there? That episode was The Wilmore Factor.
If O'Reilly was doing the exact same type of show he always does without any tricks and someone mischaracterized it as an "ambush"? Absolutely. The onus is on the guest to be prepared for the show. If you have a bad appearance not because of any trickery but just because you're not prepared to handle what they do every episode, that's you're fault. No one is being held at gunpoint and being forced to go on these shows. That being said, a lack of preparedness was not the problem here. How about you quit making excuses for he guy? The problem isn't that he's not a good debater, it's that the anti-gay marriage debate isn't good. There's no leg to stand on there. Rev. Michel Faulkner has a B.A. in communications and a Master's in education & career counseling from Virginia Tech. He played football for Virginia Tech and the NY Jets, and went on to become an assistant dean of students and then vice president of Liberty University, so he's been acquainted with dealing with the press for years. He's been a pastor in NYC speaking before hundreds of people since 1988. He's a published author. He's been part of multiple NYC government task forces relating to community relations, HIV/AIDS, and charter schools. He's started his own non-profit. He was the 2010 Republican nominee for New York's 15th congressional district. http://www.institute4leadership.com/rev-michel-faulkner.html His job is literally public speaking, debating, composing speeches to support his beliefs, and dealing with the media. He's not some bumpkin they pulled in off the street to blindside. Except that has no relation to what actually happened. Faulkner is among the best representatives of his particular viewpoint in terms of skill and knowledge, not the worst. He's got no personal issues to exploit as a "gotcha," and nothing like that happened in the show. He was also the most qualified and educated debater on the panel with the possible exception of the reporter, who might be his equal, but didn't get much time to speak. Or are you saying the comedian and the boy band singer were the "economics professors" to his "welfare recipient" in that scenario? The fallacy you keep pushing is that there actually is a good argument in favor of opposing same-sex marriage if only they'd find the right person to represent the argument. But there's not, because it always comes down to an irrational personal bias rather than any kind of sound legal standing or reasoned philosophical stance, as I laid out in the previous post. By all means, present the reasonable defense of opposing same-sex marriage that relies on scriptural tradition without acknowledging that we all break with scriptural tradition every day in hundreds, if not thousands of ways. Present the argument that relies on freedom of religion without acknowledging the equal protection from religion. Present the argument for the sanctity of marriage without acknowledging how this affects anyone else's marriage or how we treat marriage as sanctified given the divorce rate. Already answered up top. This isn't a left/right issue, because it's not a debate about same-sex marriage. It's a debate whether Wilmore's handling of the panel was fair or whether it was an "ambush" against an ill-prepared target. Despite repeating your point ad nauseam, you've offered nothing in support of your argument. - The format was the same as all prior Nightly Show episodes, so no surprise or ambush. - The debater was more than qualified to handle himself, so not a weak panelist. - The numerical breakdown of the panel was representative of the percentages of states (and the national populace) where same-sex marriage is legal. Asking "if God personally told you he was fine with gay marriage, would you change your position" trivializes his position? His stance is literally based on following the alleged word of God, and yet when presented with a hypothetical scenario where the word of God tells him it's okay, he would still find a way to oppose same-sex marriage based on prior scripture. That's the definition of hypocrisy. The question wasn't do you think it's plausible that God might change his position, the question was what would you do if he did. It's not a difficult or confusing question. If you believe you're adhering to the word of God and the word of God tells you to change your stance, there's no shame in changing your stance, and by the rules of your religion you are obligated to do so. He was essentially saying he would be a heretic if God's commandment superseded his own personal feelings about same-sex marriage. Larry wasn't even expecting him to come out with the whole truth and flat out say that his stance is only about his personal distaste with gay marriage rather than scripture. That would have been unfair. The question he asked was rather easy by comparison, and takes nothing away from his stance by answering honestly.
I think Wednesday's episode proves that the show should focus on the panel aspect and dump the news review section entirely. Very interesting discussion on black fatherhood.
Gotta say, on Monday's episode about obesity, it showed again that the panel part is too short. Especially in this case, where Lavell Crawford kept hogging speaking time to tell rather pointless anecdotes. Morgan Spurlock barely got to say one sentence. Tuesday's episode was great, but again, the panel time is too short. Haven't seen Wednesday's episode yet.
Bill Maher discusses vaccines with his panel this week which I found to be a much more thoughtful and fair discussion on the issue by comparison (and the panel all favor vaccination). I think it's a more productive approach if one wants to convert others rather than preach to the choir.
This. Spurlock literally only got one sentence at the beginning and one at the end. Four points of view in under 10 minutes just doesen't work, ditch the first half and concentrate on the panel!
Yeah, those last two episodes with the panel going the whole episode long were a huge improvement. I hope they'll do this for the remainder of the show.