Don't have the clout to get "The Daily Show's" Jon Stewart on your primetime program like Fox News Channel's Bill O'Reilly? You can always opt for Lizz Winstead.
Appearing on HLN's Feb. 4 "The Joy Behar Show," Winstead - co-creator Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," host of a show for the now-defunct Air America radio network and former executive producer for MSNBC's "Weekends with Maury and Connie" - took a critical shot at Fox News host Glenn Beck.
"He should be institutionalized," Winstead said. "First of all Glenn Beck, why is he even on television? I think it's somehow abusive to have Glenn Beck on TV because he seems mentally unstable."
The segment was about Stewart's Feb. 3 appearance on "The O'Reilly Factor," in which Stewart also offered a critical view of Beck. O'Reilly defended Beck as being "every man," or "just a guy." But Behar and panelists Winstead and comic Pete Dominick rejected that idea.
BEHAR: Ok, that's interesting that O'Reilly ...
WINSTEAD: Every man? Every man ...
BEHAR: Yes.
WINSTEAD: He's every man I would have a restraining order against. He's not every man. Every man I said you wouldn't touch me and avoid you to a prison sentence - that is what Glenn Beck is.
BEHAR: Well, you know, it's very - much a dis from O'Reilly because we looked up the definition of "spout." Listen to what - to talk about something tediously at great length usually with no regard for the listener's interest. That's what "spout" means and that's what he said about his colleague, Glenn Beck.
Dominick credited O'Reilly for having "opposing points of view," but dismissed O'Reilly's defense because he said he believes Beck is putting on a conspiracy shtick to draw ratings.
"Well, I like O'Reilly for the fact that he brings on opposing points of view, I think that's important but I don't like O'Reilly when he's phony, when he's fake," Dominick said. "He's not being real when he says, number one, that O'Reilly [he meant Beck] is every man. O'Reilly doesn't believe that. Glenn Beck's house is for sale for $30 million right now and every man by the way doesn't think the eye on the dollar bill is talking to him. He's a conspiracy guy. That's not every man."
And no critique of Glenn Beck would be complete without the obligatory jab at conservatives, the Republican Party and the tea party movement.
DOMINICK: And number two, O'Reilly doesn't believe that Glenn Beck doesn't shell for the Republican Party. He does he shills for conservatives, he shills for a movement that you know...
WINSTEAD: I don't think he shills for the Republican Party, he shills for the crazy baggers of tea - that's who he shills for.
DOMINICK: Well, the Republican Party of today, which has become pretty crazy ...
BEHAR: They don't put the clamps on them ...
DOMINICK: Yes, you're right.
BEHAR: You know, they encourage it.
Dominick then oversimplified a statement of Beck's to the point of distorting it.
"And it seems like, and by the way Fox News and O'Reilly is the thin man at fat camp and Glenn Beck is the Olympia Snowe of the Republican Party perhaps," Dominick said. "But the other thing is - he said progressives are Nazis. That's what Glenn Beck said, so yes, he's a shill for the right, for sure."
