The nightly Fox-bashers at Comedy Central unsurprisingly booked liberal author Gabriel Sherman for a five-minute interview to discuss his Roger Ailes book “The Loudest Voice in the Room” at the very end of “The Colbert Report” on Wednesday night.
Displaying the usual hypocrisy of media liberals, completely satirical conservative Colbert lectured Sherman that he really shouldn’t have spent so much time on his research, since he should have learned from Fox News that you decide what your story is and "only talk to the people who support it." How many thousands of liberal media reports have we witnessed where the only people cited are liberals, and they don't even have the honesty to call themselves liberals? (Video below)
It sounded a little prickly when stupid-on-purpose Colbert asked how much Sherman liked Ailes in face-to-face encounters. “He did not want to participate in this book,” admitted Sherman, so Colbert played Fox News defender briefly:
COLBERT: Then how do you know what he's like? You don't know, this is all just conjecture and hearsay you know nothing about my friend Roger. [Laughter]
SHERMAN: I went out and I spent three years interviewing more than 600 people to get a nuanced and full portrait of his life, you know –
COLBERT: But why did you do that? Didn't you learn anything from Fox News? You decide what you want the story to be, and just only talk to the people who support it. (Cheers and applause)
He also set up Sherman to boast “I had a team of two fact checkers spend more than 2,000 hours vetting this book before publication. Last time I checked, I didn't think a lot of the right-wing websites have fact checkers.” (Oh, but Sherman’s not a Fox-hating liberal. He's just another writer employing the "Gee, I'm just a media reporter" schtick.)
COLBERT: Well, they don't need to. They don't need to. Sir, let me explain something, you do not have to check your facts if you start with the truth.
SHERMAN: It's all about what you believe, right here. [Points to heart]
COLBERT: Jesus said that.
Colbert wrapped up with his dead-serious face and the classic self-congratulatory liberal attack. Roger Ailes can’t actually believe this conservative crap, can he? "Do you think that Roger Ailes actually believes the things that Fox News is promoting or do you think he mostly believes in creating really good television shows for people to watch?”
Sherman said the “big reveal” of his book is Ailes really believes it. “Everything is real,” and Ailes reportedly holds fascinating morning meetings where he says “Obama hates capitalism, Obama is destroying America, no one died from nuclear power but 15 people have been chopped up by those damn windmills.”