The Media Research Center’s Tim Graham rushed to judgment in a Nov. 10 post to portray Jon Stewart as an “enabler” of Louis C.K. after giving a noncommittal answer when asked on a podcast about allegations against the comedian last year:
Now that comedian Louis C.K. has admitted to egregious sexual harassment, like pulling out his sex organ and masturbating in front of women, it might be worth remembering that this man has some powerful fans and promoters, starting with Jon Stewart, who called him “one of my all-time favorite comedians.”
Liberal sites from Slate to the Daily Beast are revisiting Stewart’s bumbling answers last year when asked during a live podcast with former Obama campaign manager Jim Axelrod about allegations against Louis C.K.
But Stewart has since said he had no knowledge of the allegations against Louis C.K.:
“My first response was, ‘What?’ And then, joke, joke, and as he kept going, I was like, ‘Look, I know this is very serious, but I know Louis, he’s always been a gentleman to me,’ which, again, it speaks to the blindness that I think a man has, which is, like, ‘hey, he’s a good guy, what are you talking about?'” Stewart said. “Digging around in it and finding that some people had done, it was hard, but we were all assured like, no, but we took somebody’s word for it, and maybe that’s an error on our part.”
One might similarly ask if MRC bigwigs and Fox News fans/regular guests like Graham and Brent Bozell had any knowledge of the sexual harassment allegations against Roger Ailes and Bill O’Reilly before news of them became widespread public knowledge. But Graham doesn’t want to talk about that, does he?