Schadenfreude

[ceebeegee]

My friend dje2004 posted this a few days ago and since YouTube is blocked at work I'd forgotten about it. I just now got around to watching it.

OH. MY. SHIT.

Kevin James, a right-wing radio host, is on Hardball being interviewed by Chris Matthews. Mark Green is also on. James is one of the most annoying, needlessly loud interview subjects I've ever seen--he just comes off as desperate, like he's not even listening to the conversation. But it really gets going around 4 minutes into the clip when (James had been making references to Neville Chamberlain and Obama) Matthews asks him "what exactly did Neville Chamberlain do?" The guy bluffs and blusters and stalls for several minutes, bleating buzz words like "energized and legitimized," "appeasement" over and over--and Matthews does not let him off the hook. He asked him at least 6-7 times "what did Chamberlain do?" And the guy never answered. Finally Matthews called him out for it--"you don't know what you're talking about." Oh, it is AWESOME. And yet terribly embarrassing as well--I literally watched through my fingers. Several points I wanted to point to him like Captain Stillman to Ox in Stripes and say "You. Shut up."

This is the natural outcome when you value rhetoric and yelling and name-calling over actual productive dialogue.

What a loser.

Comments

[dje2004.livejournal.com]

I think he asks him more like a dozen times, at a minimum.

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

According to James's Wikipedia talk page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Kevin_James_%28broadcaster%29#28_times) (someone actually counted) Matthews asked him 28 times.

"Kevin, you're in a hole. Stop digging."

[carasol.livejournal.com]

Oh, that was beautiful. And the best part is, you don't even need to know all that much history to understand Chamberlain's mistake. All he had to say was, "He negotiated with Hitler rather than putting his foot down and blocking Germany's conquest of Europe." That would have been enough. But he didn't even know that much detail, only that Chamberlain was an "appeaser."
Wow.

Re: "Kevin, you're in a hole. Stop digging."

[ceebeegee.livejournal.com]

And that he "energized and legitimized." Sing it with me!

The thing is, he couldn't even do a quick Google via Blackberry because the camera was on him THE ENTIRE TIME. Oh man. Had that been me, my face would've turned a bright crimson--I absolutely cannot bear that kind of mortification.