S20.E20: Christine Emba; Andrew Sullivan; Katie Herzog

[PrincessPurrsALot]

Quote

Bill begins this week's show by interviewing author and Washington Post columnist Christine Emba. On the panel, he is joined by political commentator Andrew Sullivan and culture writer Katie Herzog.

End of the season.  

Original air date 2022.06.24

[iMonrey]

What a colossal waste of an hour. With everything that happened this week, and especially on that day, the episode was wasted on an interview with the author of a totally irrelevant book, and a panel discussion devoted to woke-ism and transgenderism. What the hell is drag queen story hour? I had to Google it, I've never heard of it before and Bill says it's all he hears about. Where the hell does he live and where does he get his news? Talk about living in a bubble.

I'm just so over it. I'm going to have to get my political fix elsewhere if all Bill is going to do is give platforms to his dwindling circle of pundits that are still willing to debase themselves by coming on this show and bitch and moan about woke-ism every week. Biden and the Democratic party are in the thrall of AOC? I don't see it. I hear it all the time on Fox News, and apparently Bill believes it, but I don't see it. I see it as a propagandist talking point on the right and that's it. 

Andrew Sullivan appeared on The Problem with Jon Stewart and revealed himself a nakedly racist asshole. Stewart and the rest of the panel were gobsmacked. If you have Apple TV I encourage you to watch because I was so horrified I can never listen to him again. He is truly on of the most heinous people I have ever seen on TV.

[JNavarro]

That opening interview was such a dud, the interviewee didn't offer much at all and was mostly Bill going off about his random sexcapades.

However, I liked the panel a lot.  I think Andrew explained his positions a lot better in person than on Twitter (surprise!).  

As obnoxiously as Bill makes the point sometimes, Democrats keep losing elections because swing voters find them extremists and grudgingly vote for the GOP.  I don't agree with it or like it, but that's the reality.  IDK, I'd rather they got the votes of some white working class guys who didn't have the most sophisticated views on race/LGBT, but abortion for rapist zygotes were still legal.

Edited June 25, 2022 by JNavarro

[The Mighty Peanut]

On 6/25/2022 at 11:15 AM, iMonrey said:

What a colossal waste of an hour. With everything that happened this week, and especially on that day, the episode was wasted on an interview with the author of a totally irrelevant book, and a panel discussion devoted to woke-ism and transgenderism. What the hell is drag queen story hour? I had to Google it, I've never heard of it before and Bill says it's all he hears about. Where the hell does he live and where does he get his news? Talk about living in a bubble.

I'm just so over it. I'm going to have to get my political fix elsewhere if all Bill is going to do is give platforms to his dwindling circle of pundits that are still willing to debase themselves by coming on this show and bitch and moan about woke-ism every week. Biden and the Democratic party are in the thrall of AOC? I don't see it. I hear it all the time on Fox News, and apparently Bill believes it, but I don't see it. I see it as a propagandist talking point on the right and that's it. 

Andrew Sullivan appeared on The Problem with Jon Stewart and revealed himself a nakedly racist asshole. Stewart and the rest of the panel were gobsmacked. If you have Apple TV I encourage you to watch because I was so horrified I can never listen to him again. He is truly on of the most heinous people I have ever seen on TV.

Drag Queen story hour is when a drag queen goes to a library in fun colorful clothing and reads a children's book to kids. Just normal books, not "Why Little Timmy Should Cross-Dress". It's totally voluntary, non-sexual, etc. That's it. 

Did Bill really spend a lot of time on this, when they just overturned fucking Roe V Wade? I can't bear to watch. This country is not too woke, this country is ASLEEP. 

Edited June 26, 2022 by The Mighty Peanut

[Hedgehog2022]

6 hours ago, iMonrey said:

What a colossal waste of an hour. With everything that happened this week, and especially on that day, the episode was wasted on an interview with the author of a totally irrelevant book, and a panel discussion devoted to woke-ism and transgenderism. What the hell is drag queen story hour? I had to Google it, I've never heard of it before and Bill says it's all he hears about. Where the hell does he live and where does he get his news? Talk about living in a bubble.

I'm just so over it. I'm going to have to get my political fix elsewhere if all Bill is going to do is give platforms to his dwindling circle of pundits that are still willing to debase themselves by coming on this show and bitch and moan about woke-ism every week. Biden and the Democratic party are in the thrall of AOC? I don't see it. I hear it all the time on Fox News, and apparently Bill believes it, but I don't see it. I see it as a propagandist talking point on the right and that's it. 

Andrew Sullivan appeared on The Problem with Jon Stewart and revealed himself a nakedly racist asshole. Stewart and the rest of the panel were gobsmacked. If you have Apple TV I encourage you to watch because I was so horrified I can never listen to him again. He is truly on of the most heinous people I have ever seen on TV.

So who was on the panel besides the awful Andrew Sullivan? Wasn't he on just recently? I think Bill is having a hard time getting guests these days...the way he has shifted towards a more a right wing Fox Newstype view point is not helping him to fill out his panels on a weekly basis. Having said all that...I don't understand why anyone is still watching Maher...my family stopped watching him three years ago.  We haven't missed him one bit. Stewart is excellent and always was...his show is a great replacement for Maher's "rinse and repeat" rants about "wokeism", hating on Millenialls, hating on Democrats, fat shaming, misogyny and now hating on trans people. It is hard to believe that on the day that Roe was oveturned Bill decided to focus on his new favorite "rinse and repeat" topics of "wokeism" and transgenderism...yet it is not so unbelievable. Bill is a woman hater and a misogynist so it makes sense that wouldn't care about Roe. Do  yourself a favor and stop watching him...you'll see how quickly you can adjust to not tuning in on Friday night and find other things to do or watch.

[Pete Martell]

3 hours ago, Hedgehog2022 said:

So who was on the panel besides the awful Andrew Sullivan? Wasn't he on just recently? I think Bill is having a hard time getting guests these days...the way he has shifted towards a more a right wing Fox Newstype view point is not helping him to fill out his panels on a weekly basis.

Katie Herzog, who hits a lot of the same beats as Andrew on the main issue (beyond cancel culture of course) that Bill cares about at present (transgenderism, transgender kids). 

@iMonrey Andrew Sullivan is a mess and has been for a long time but that's nothing on topic for this thread so I will just leave your response as the right way to put it across.

[Tiggertoo]

The opening interview was indeed a dud.  She was not engaged at all.  I think she was expecting a more straight forward q&a.  I didn’t even get a sense of what the book was about.

[iMonrey]

Quote

As obnoxiously as Bill makes the point sometimes, Democrats keep losing elections because swing voters find them extremists and grudgingly vote for the GOP. 

While that may be true it is only a small part of a much larger equation. Moreover, it is not what I expected them to be talking about on such an historic day. Bill is so obsessed with this he's like a broken record. An asteroid could be heading straight for the earth and all Bill would say is that Democrats are too woke. I've had enough. 

[tessaray]

The monologue did discuss the last week's big news. He scolded the audience for not keeping up with the news after not reacting to his Jan 6 hearing comment. And he probably isn't wrong for blasting people who couldn't hold their nose and vote for HC, considering how we've seen the lasting influence of the 45th President on display this week. 

The interview was weird. 

[WendyM]

3 hours ago, tessaray said:

The monologue did discuss the last week's big news. He scolded the audience for not keeping up with the news after not reacting to his Jan 6 hearing comment. And he probably isn't wrong for blasting people who couldn't hold their nose and vote for HC, considering how we've seen the lasting influence of the 45th President on display this week. 

The interview was weird. 

Yeah, I think I said this in last week's thread: if I were in that audience, I would be afraid to react to anything he says. He scolds them if they don't laugh, if they laugh in the wrong places, if they applaud in the wrong places, if they do nothing...I wonder if he has a warm-up person and if so, what do they say? Laugh at your own risk?

[DXD526]

If it weren't for this show, I would never see either Andrew Sullivan or Cornel West, and that would be FINE with me. 

[ApocalypseThen]

On 6/26/2022 at 10:16 AM, Tiggertoo said:

The opening interview was indeed a dud.  She was not engaged at all.  I think she was expecting a more straight forward q&a.  I didn’t even get a sense of what the book was about.

Exactly. I don’t think Emba stated the main thesis of the book at any point. I’m not sure if it was because Bill didn’t let her talk for long enough or because Emba herself is a bad communicator. Bill made a point he’s made in the past regarding how porn has gottten a lot “rapier” over the last couple of decades and Emba agreed by using an anecdote from her book. Then she moved on to something completely different that was somewhat contradictory. The interview had a really strange flow. 
 

[ApocalypseThen]

I’m not sure if the two are directly connected, but I think these drag queen interactions with kids have gotten bad press lately due to drag queens doing stripper dances and catwalk shows in front of young kids. I saw some posts about that on Twitter and there was a lot of “internet outrage”. They didn’t really explain what the outrage was properly on the show.

Regarding the trans/woke issues, I really wish Bill would bring someone on who could argue the opposing side. What’s the point of having both Sullivan and Herzog if they’re both going to say the exact same thing? And guess what? So is Bill! 

While Crossfire style discussions can be unbearable if both sides argue in bad faith, this is the type of wedge issue (like CRT) where Bill would really benefit from having opposing views in the panel to make the discussion more interesting.
 

[sugarbaker design]

17 hours ago, ApocalypseThen said:

What’s the point of having both Sullivan and Herzog if they’re both going to say the exact same thing? And guess what? So is Bill! 

Bill loves an echo chamber of the side he's on.  On Sunday 6/19 the NY Times Magazine cover story was an excellent piece on the current debate on gender therapy for trans kids by Emily Bazelon.  It was far too fastidiously researched, complex and nuanced for Bill.

[heatherchandler]

30 minutes ago, sugarbaker design said:

Bill loves an echo chamber of the side he's on.  On Sunday 6/19 the NY Times Magazine cover story was an excellent piece on the current debate on gender therapy for trans kids by Emily Bazelon.  It was far too fastidiously researched, complex and nuanced for Bill.

Many points in that story were said by both Andrew Sullivan and Katie Herzog.  Katie did a great job of talking about this.

[sugarbaker design]

1 minute ago, heatherchandler said:

Many points in that story were said by both Andrew Sullivan and Katie Herzog. 

That's right, many points were said by AS and KH, many points on only one side of the issue.  The point of my original post was the article clearly showed all sides of the issue, not just one.