Guest Blog: Stewart V. O'Reilly

I asked for bloggers and now I have to own up to it. At least once a week I'll try and post a guest blog on top of my two. This week's blog comes from Frank, the future POTUS. And please for once, click on the links I give you. Any comments I make are in italics.

-Don Woods

When I saw the opportunity to be a guest writer for “First Sign of Trouble” I thought I would give it a shot. I was hesitant at first because I do not claim to be an expert on anything and do not think I am an Andy Rooney type of person. I thought about writing on a political issue since I am a political science major. I did not, however, want to write about a political issue like, healthcare, securing the border or anything like that. I hate being put through talks like that so I would never do it to complete strangers. For me it would be talking about the funnier side of politics. The fascinating news stories like Trump and his presidential run, Biden being Biden or anything that Glen Beck says (that’s a little unfair he probably is not crazy all the time) were all ideas that ran through my mind but nothing stuck out. That was until I heard that Jon Stewart was going to be on the O’Reilly Factor on May 7. That news was music to my politically geeky ears.
Now I should start out by telling you that I am a huge fan of Stewart and his show, The Daily Show. He and Stephen Colbert, to me, are some of the funniest and most brilliant people alive (I will so regret this later if either one has a terrible scandal they could never come back from). So, talking about Stewart in a debate/discussion with one of the kings of Fox News may be a little bias. To ease the bias I will come out and say that even though I am not a big fan a Fox News and their hosts, I have nothing but respect for O’Reilly. I do see him as mightier than all bully who treats people with opposite view point’s like they are lesser beings. But, the man is a legend. He has one of the most successful shows in cable news history, if not the most successful (I did not fact check this, but it is pretty much the tagline of his show so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt). He is a strong opinionated host who asks great questions, brings on different viewpoints and debates his opponents with the ferocity of an animal going after their unprepared pray (Bear comes to mind but that may be because of Colbert). He is a political fixture and when he and Stewart come together it is, in my opinion, amazing.

Two opposites combining, kind of like peanut butter and jelly.

The topic that brought them together was a controversy about Common, a rapper [by the way misspelled rapper originally by forgetting the second p (or, if you choose, the first p) which makes the sentence completely different] was invited to a poetry reading at the White House. Fox News did a lot of segments on the controversy saying he was not the type of person who should be invited to the White House. O’Reilly himself was unhappy about it because Common wrote lyrics about two convicted cop killers. Stewart and the folks at the Daily Show decided that all the attention on this issue was ridicules and did what they do best. If you haven’t seen the two segments you should.

I think they should of gotten Busta to do it.

Now probably hundreds of people wrote on this subject and my approach is probably not that original. I thought that I would take this opportunity to bring up how impressive these two men were in the debate. Stewart and O’Reilly possesses an amazing wit during this or any of their other debates. This is because, in my opinion, they respect the hell out of each other. They come from different backgrounds and different views, which would make them complete enemies. Yet, these two understand why the other is so successful and admires each other for different reasons. O’Reilly admires Stewart because he does not just sit behind his Comedy Central desk and make fun and judge from afar. He will go anywhere and defend what he said or believes (Crossfire and Tucker Carlson learned that the hard way when his appearance helped hammer the nail in the coffin of its cancellation). Stewart seems to respect O’Reilly because of his success and same attitude. I do not know either of these two men but I am pretty sure that any type of respect they have do not go to many other people with different viewpoints. O’Reilly does not have respect for Colbert or Keith Olberman, and Stewart does not have respect for people like Beck and Sean Hannity. It is the respect factor that makes this a good debate and fun to watch in my opinion. You can check it out for yourself here.

-Frank Mahoney