Quick! Anybody got a link to the Miller/Alterman interview?

[MirrorAshes]

Anyone know where I can find a clip of the disgraceful Dennis Miller interview of Eric Alterman from a few months back?

I just need to shove this in the face of a friend of mine whos defending Miller and actually calling him "outrageously funny" and telling me I am just not smart enough to get his humor. My response of course is that apparently nobody in his paid audience gets his humor either since he bombs nightly, but I'd love to show him this gem.

[aden_nak]

1. Dennis Miller sold out.

And I don't like tossing around the phrase "sold out" all that much, but Dennis sure as hell did. He was never a dyed-in-the-wool liberal. In fact, for most of his career I would have branded him as a moderate, swinging in either direction on most issues, but generally taking a progressive view of the world.

For a man that made his name whipping Reagan on Saturday nights, he sure is spending a lot of time sucking off Bush lately.

The shift happened during his first major comedy special after 9/11. I was looking forward to it. . . The Raw Feed, I believe it was called. But it was just so much pandering and baseline "American is the rulingest nation on the planet so everyone else should go die!" bullshit I was shocked.

And I was an avid Miller fan, I really was. I would even go so far as to say that he was one of my primary influences when learning about humor and humorous writing. But somewhere around 2001 I think he decided that he was getting too old, that he wasn't going to be able to connect with the young crowd anymore. And if he wanted to keep making money, he'd have to latch himself onto the most reliable cash cow that our target-market universe has to offer. Reactionary, right-wing assclowns.

He did a rant on his HBO show many years ago where he was talking about accountability and how people are beholden to whoever cuts their check. He basically said that since he's in show biz, he's really just a flapping head for hire, willing to turn his ire wherever it will pay the most. If HBO's producers wanted him to change his tone, he would because that's his job.

At the time, I smiled, because even though that's the ugly truth, he'd usually been able to get away with keeping a consistant opinion and stage character. That of a generally progressive social commentator that was beholden to just enough "core values" to appeal to the entire political spectrum.

Maybe he's just acting like a right wing prick to continue making money. Maybe he's always been a reactionary spunknut and no one noticed because he covered it up. Who knows. But ANY comedian or social comentator that can look at George W. Bush and say, "I like the guy, I'm giving him a pass," has obviously forgotten what his job is. Maybe they should call his next special The Filtered Feed.