I'll get to those "$16 muffins" shortly, but first... in tonight's Rewrite, Lawrence took you - blow by blow - through Jon Stewart's bout with Bill O'Reilly. The interview came in two parts: the first which aired on The Daily Show's television broadcast and the second portion which was a Daily Show web exclusive.
To watch the first 17 minutes of The O'Reilly Factor tonight (something I don't recommend doing), you'd think Bill O'Reilly was the winner of this debate (that made Lawrence chuckle when I told him that during one of our show's commercial breaks, tonight). O'Reilly showed his FOX News viewers several clips from his interview with Jon Stewart adding commentary painting evil all "progressives" with a very broad brush. O'Reilly also omitted portions of the interview where Stewart agreed that some spending cuts are necessary to balance America's books.
But as Lawrence noted in tonight's Rewrite, O'Reilly would not say that the Republican Presidential candidates' blanket refusal to agree to a ten-to-one deal on spending cuts and revenue increases (watch that now infamous moment here) in a recent FOX News debate was "pinheaded."
Watching the full clips of the O'Reilly/Stewart interview (included after the jump), you'll find that O'Reilly repeated lectured Jon Stewart about government waste. Again, this is an issue where Stewart and O'Reilly found some common ground. And I think we can all agree that government waste is bad. But instead of talking about real instances where the federal government could do a better job with our tax dollars, O'Reilly cited the Solyndra ordeal and the so-called "Muffin Gate" while pointing his finger exclusively at the Obama administration.
Stewart did a good job of giving balance to O'Reilly's repeated attempts to hang the problems with Solyndra around the President's neck (read more on the mixed bag facts about Solyndra here).
No matter what FOX News tells you, DOJ did not pay $16 each for muffins
But when it came to "Muffin Gate," Stewart had no idea what O'Reilly was talking about. If you don't either, I'll explain. The Department of Justice's Inspector General recently released a report stating that at a 2009 conference the DOJ paid a Hilton hotel $16.80 a piece for 250 muffins. That would be $4,200 for 250 muffins. Were that true, it would be an exceedingly ridiculous waste of taxpayer money. O'Reilly's been talking about this since last week (and he again repeated this bogus claim on his show tonight).
This simply isn't true. But how do I know that? How do I know that the Department of Justice didn't pay $4,200 for 250 muffins? Simple. I read multiple reports that included statements from both the hotel and a DOJ spokesperson which clarified that much more was obtained by the DOJ for each muffin charge. I then politely asked the very same DOJ official, Public Affairs Deputy Director Gina Talamona, to email me an official version of this statement. I received that email with a document attached. The document included the DOJ seal on the top of the page, and it read in part:
Dept. of Justice statement to The Last Word
This is called research. It's a pretty big part of journalism. What's more, Bill O'Reilly would know the government didn't pay $4,000 for 250 muffins if he read his own network's website.
You can see all of Jon Stewart's interview with Bill O'Reilly after the jump.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Exclusive - Bill O'Reilly Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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Jon Stewart is the best. Just does his job - tells the truth - no ego
O'Reiley needs to read the piece on cannabis. A mind is a terrible thing to waste.
Jon should have known about the muffin deal also. It was everywhere. Now people that watch Jon's show that apparently don't read think it's true all over again. Jon should correct this.
I find Bill O'Reiley terribly annoying! Whenever I glance at his show during channel changes, the thought of Bill O'Really comes to mind due to his over generalizations/bragging/non factor facts! If you want to "Shock and Awe" a Democrat, show him/her a picture of O'Really! Perhaps we should use him as part of our military arsenal! I could see our enemies with their mouths open "Shocked and Awed"? QUICO!
I appreciate knowing about government waste. I appreciate publicly denouncing brutal police everywhere. From the sound of things, the machine is allowing some freedom for the slaves. Hopefully, the machine will grant enough freedom to show the world what Obama did to children with Asthma. Millions of children who don't fit into the welfare group, and have parents who can already barely survive, now have to take their kids to a doctor they can't afford so they can get a prescription for an inhaler, to save their children's life. Why? Because our pinhead president declared the OTC inhalers a pollutant. That muffin, properly priced would have allowed for enough money to give anyone that life saving inhaler. I could give a rat's ass about a muffin. Tell me how to get inhalers back on the shelves for people who need to keep their kids alive?
It seems as if O'Donnell talks about O'Reilly every night. Is that all idiot O'Donnell can talk about , no wonder O'Reilly ratings are far better than O'Donnell, he advertises him all the time. Maybe he is jealous. I saw the Stewart clip with O'Reilly and thought it was funny. Idiot O'Donnell makes a big thing about it, who gives a rats ass what the muffins cost, the skit was funny. It's like O'Donnell never told a lie, as he says...bull s@#*t
TLW-
You all are doing such a great job with the show, congratulations on making a strong transition from your late night spot. Would you consider putting up an audio podcast a la TRMS ? Sometimes I can't watch, but would like to listen while I'm doing other stuff.
So, an audio podcast please?
When they are honest about their principles, they lose. When we follow our principles, we win.
If the MSNBC reporting is indeed correct on this issue, that the Government got a 450 seat ballroom and a dozen breakout rooms, with staff service and beverages to go along with the 250 muffins for the price of $4,000, then they truly got a good deal and everyone owes them an apology. In fact- in case I need to set up a conference, could someone give me the name of the establishment where this deal is possible. I would look brilliant to my leadership team to get all of that for $4K.
Or- is your reporting on here as suspect as usual... I have my doubts as to the veracity of your claims. So will anyone else who has ever arrange an event like this.
its your choice . . . do you trust Fox or MSNBC
Dem- Well, I'm on MSNBC and using information provided by them. Info that is being touted on Lawrence's show. So the question isn't which I trust. It is, do I trust MSNBC information?
Rusty, a bit more came out on this on Friday. DOJ isn't saying the whole package cost $4,000. what they're saying is that on the receipt for the whole package, $4,200 went to "muffins" (each "muffin" is actually listed as $16.80 each, not $16 even). but each "muffin" was actually much more than a muffin and included a lot of different food & beverages much like if you got a receipt from a restaurant that read "burger" but was actually a burger, salad, fries & shake.
And I believe there were some $8 coffees thrown in for good measure.
I just wish that when something like this comes up, that people would be aghast and the offending agency would take amends to see that it didn't happen again. Instead, whichever side is at fault goes into explanation mode and gets a few friendly commentators to help explain away the irrational.
The company I work for, back in 2008 when the crisis really hit, ceased paying for food at conferences, lunch meetings, etc. It was long overdue. Many companies have done this. The Government can as well. If they have a conference and a DOJ employee wants a cup of coffee, let her buy one. Muffin- ditto. ps- I'm waiting for some lefty to start claiming that it is stimuli.
So, are you ever so well-informed that you are alleging that $16 per muffin is a reasonable figure as opposed to your un-researched off-the-cuff "analysis"? Am I misunderstanding the intended underlying message of your comment?
NO! Your disparaging bias is evident when you use the term "lefty". Lib bashers like you are so adroit at distortions and lies that it is a mystery what your real intentions and motives are. That is not a compliment on any supposed virtues. If you don't care to hear the truth, and if you instead adhere to more lies and distortions in public discussions, there is no virtue you can claim. Unless you think that your sleaze is virtuous, which it is not.
What is it that you hope to stimulate? Certainly not truth or justice, which are basic foundations for a healthy democracy. If not an advocate for healthy democracy, or truth or justice, what is it that you are advocating? What is served by you sowing more confusion and distrust about what is the truth?
Jamesn- let's start at the beginning. A conference was held and muffins were billed at $16 each and coffee @ $8 each. The group holding the taxpayer funded event was called on it. Instead of saying- "oops- my bad. sorry, we will watch over tax payer monies better in the future"- an entire strategy was developed to defend the expenditure. They have a tough time defending things like that when the defenders claim to be the party of the middle and lower class.
So- my underlying message- when you find something rotten in government, fess up and come up with a set of controls to prevent it from recurring. Don't try to explain it away and pretend it is nothing.
So- the Obama administration has released letters to their partner, MSNBC, and the talking heads of MSNBC have made the attempt to convince middle class and poor people that this was really reasonable, and included much more than muffins, etc.
I find it interesting that in reality, providing food and snacks to DOJ representatives isn't viewed as a tax break for the rich. I sincerely doubt that many of the people who attended the conference were in the $50,000 per year range. I suspect they were for the most part well paid employees.
I also suspect that if this event had been unearthed during a Republican administration, that you, and others on this blog, might have been outraged and Lawrence would have dedicated part of his show speaking to the way the Republicans are wasting money providing $16 muffins to rich people while letting poor people starve. By the way, if this would have been discovered under that circumstance, I would have also been ticked off.
I'm glad to know the DOJ didn't pay $16 for a muffin. Otherwise, the better have been pretty damn good.
I'm glad to hear that the DOJ didn't pay $16 for a muffin. If they were paying that much, all I can say is that they better have been pretty damn good. Then again, you shouldn't believe anything that you hear from Fox News.
Dem- this is funny. If you read the defense of this expenditure- it included the wait staff for the muffins, the dishwashers- etc. So they are explaining it away in that manner. They are assuming that people like you and I would see a steak on the menu at a price of $90 and that we would order it because the steak really isn't $90, but it includes the waiter, bartender, dishwasher, busboy and cook. I say- the steak is $90, perhaps I'll get something else or go somewhere else.
Sooooo . . . when Bill O'Reilly gives up his UNION job that pays out the wazooo money because he is being asked to pay FAIR taxes . . . he could start his own alternative wind energy company . . . ' Wind Bags R Us ' . . .
he has to much pride to do that, that being if the definition of pride is stupid
LOL . . . you have a good point there DemPa . . . pride . . . ego . . .same thing ! But he could still start a side business as a wind energy company . . .
There are a lot of things to take issue w/ in this article, that Daily Show interview & Lawrence's embarrassing display of ignorance, but for now I want to address the most salient thing in all of this: that hypothetical 10-to-1 deficit deal. That was a really stupid question. Here's why:
Apparently, I can't post a link on this message board. No problem. Just click here.