I expressed admiration last week for a recent Jon Stewart piece on racism. Then I found out a little later about his confrontation with Andrew "Bell Curve" Sullivan, possibly on the same episode:
This is a beautiful piece of work. My only quibble is that Stewart let Sullivan off without getting him to admit what he really believes.
Stewart did push back on Sullivan's standard right-wing talking point, that the reason Black people are worse-off economically, as a group, is because of "black culture."
But although Sullivan has been stepping back a little from his long-time support for Charles Murray and The Bell Curve, I think it's very likely Sullivan still thinks the ultimate problem with "black culture" is inferior black genetics.
Sullivan must have been as shocked as Steven Pinker was, when someone from the Guardian asked Pinker about his friendly relationship with racist extremist Steve Sailer. It would be great if Stewart could get Pinker on his show, but if Pinker saw the firm, if relatively gentle way Stewart handled Sullivan, Pinker might decide against it. Pinker is even more accustomed to deference from the media than Andrew Sullivan.
But since Sullivan is not normally confronted on his race beliefs, on video yet, he was extremely aggrieved by this conversation, and whined about it like a whiny biznatch.
According to The Wrap:
Jon Stewart is firing back at conservative political commentator Andrew Sullivan’s claims that he was “ambushed” by the comedian on Apple TV+’s “The Problem with Jon Stewart” last week.In a lengthy Substack post on Friday, Sullivan accused Stewart and the other guests on the show of “unprofessionally” making him appear racist during their conversation, which he chalked up to them pushing “woke” narratives.However, Stewart wasn’t having it. He swiftly issued a response on Twitter, writing: “Nonsense @sullydish. Our booker handled this last minute ask impeccably. Mr Sullivan was told, texted and emailed a detailed account of who was on the program, the content and intent of the discussion.”
Bari Weiss, or to be more exact, her girlfriend Nellie Bowles, defended Sullivan.
Stewart had a few words for her too, which gave me a chance to provide a link to the video. At this rate even the usually clueless mainstream media will eventually become fully aware of Sullivan's support for race pseudoscience.
But will Sullivan's other pals, like members of the IDW or his fellow members of the board of advisors of FAIR (which includes former Fox News star Megyn Kelly) come to Sullivan's defense?
Stay tuned!
