Well, actually reading about it on sites such as Hot Air and Newsbusters, since like 99.5 percent of America I’ve never actually watched it (except for possibly a few minutes while trapped in an airport). But still, the good work and ingratiating tone of this breakthrough in television programming is getting out, even through osmosis:
From guest Donny Deutsch, a lesson in racial tolerance: “You almost need that blank piece of paper. That’s the new model. Like, you know, this coconut Rubio down in Florida.”
From guest Eve Ensler, author of the Vagina Monologues who evidently moonlights at the University of East Anglia, I learned that global warming causes earthquakes and tsunamis:
ENSLER: Well, I just think the idea that she doesn’t believe in global warming is bizarre.
BEHAR: Every scientist at every note believes in it but Sarah Palin doesn’t believe in it.
ENSLER: And I think we just kind of have to walk around the world at this point and look at what is happening to nature and earthquakes and tsunamis.
BEHAR: Right.
From Joy herself, during her day job, back in November: “Isn’t it a little racist to call it Black Friday?”
From fellow Time-Warner stablemate George Lopez, the importance of tolerating diversity in the American family model:
After introducing Lopez on her CNN Headline News program last night, Behar played a clip of Lopez’s HBO special in which he said, “There are a lot of politicians that would be Latinos and a lot now who are Latino. Sarah Palin, Latina. Believe me. She’s got all the signs. She works and her husband don’t.” [sic — Ed] Later in the segment, after commenting about Palin’s lack of experience, Lopez stated, “I mean, the concept of Todd Palin being a stay-at-home dad-listen Joy, when I was a kid, those guys were called bums.”
“Uh-huh. They’re still called bums,” agreed Behar.
Finally, from early guest Ted Danson, who never met a customer he didn’t like as Sam Malone: “Ted Danson: Rush Limbaugh, Religious Right ‘Really Piss Me Off’.”
Back in 2008, Frank Rich of the New York Times wrote, with presumably unintended camp irony, “In our news culture, Behar, a stand-up comic by profession, looms as the new Edward R. Murrow.”
Two years later, we can easily say that Behar has delivered on that promise precisely as well as this generation’s other new Edward R. Murrow.
Update: This just in! Joy on the importance of providing medical care to everyone in America:
You know, Bill, Dick Cheney is having, he`s had his fifth heart attack today. And it`s a funny thing — it`s a funny thing about him. I mean, the most reasonable people are like, really? They don`t even care. Or I just find it interesting that he doesn’t get any sympathy from people around — around me any way.
Glad to see that Joy’s cocoon of friends, family and coworkers at CNN/Headline News and ABC are as tolerant and compassionate as the aptly named Joy herself.
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