Media Research Center columnist Christian Toto — the film critic who thinks he’s a right-wing pundit — is apparently also a junior deputy under late-night comedy cop Alex Christy. For a Feb. 3 column, Toto served up his own spin on the right-wing narrative complaining about Jon Stewart’s return to “The Daily Show,” echoing the right-wing narrative that late-night hosts tell too many jokes about conservatives:
What’s missing from the conversation? Late-night’s extreme lurch to the Left.
Yes, Stewart was never a conservative, but he wasn’t as cartoonishly biased as his modern-day successors. Late-night comics won’t lay a glove on President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris or the so-called Squad.
Their jokes lean relentlessly to GOP targets, even as the current Commander in Chief slurs his speeches and looks confused when it’s time to leave the stage.
[…]Stewart famously held the “Rally to Restore Sanity” in 2010 on the National Mall, a time in which he decried perpetual outrage, a lack of discourse and calling opponents “racist” without having the facts to back up the claim.
Has he met today’s Left?
“It feels like politics is so strident [today], the sanity Jon Stewart was clamoring for, there’s not much of a market for that,” Hamby said. “I think it will be hard for Comedy Central to pull in Gen Z viewers … that generation has a much more strident and earnest view of politics that doesn’t tolerate satire.”
In fact, if Stewart attempts to mock President Biden or the Left’s woke revolution, he could lose his hardcore fans in a hurry.
By contrast, Toto is not demanding that Greg Gutfeld tell fewer jokes about liberals; in a 2022 column, he slobbered all over Gutfeld for supposedly delivering “satirical smart bombs.” And he’s never going to admit that Gutfeld’s right-wing hate is “cartoonishly biased.”
Toto spent his Feb. 17 column whining that not enough jokes were told about President Biden’s “gaffe-tastic” performance in a press conference after the release of Robert Hur’s report about classified documents, adding his fervent hope that ” Colbert and co., AKA Team Late Night, may still turn on Biden if the media and the Democrats decide the Commander in Chief can’t win come Election Day due to his age and the party will force him off the presidential ticket.”
Toto’s April 13 column was devoted to complaining that late-night hosts were offering election tips to Biden:
Let’s start with Stephen Colbert, who literally joined a Biden fundraiser late last month fearing a second Trump term. The far-Left host is trying to drag President Biden over the finish line one more time.
To do so, he’s demanding Israel stop fighting back against the ghouls who tortured, raped and killed more than a thousand innocent Israeli citizens on Oct. 7. That plays into Biden’s hands, of course. The Democrat is losing his base for supporting Israel six months into the current war.
Remember, Colbert hosts a comedy talk show. He’s not a pundit or an advisor to Team Biden. He just looks and sounds like one, routinely abandoning any pretense of comedy in the process.
His fellow late-night Leftist Seth Meyers is even worse on that front.
The “SNL” alum is all but melting down over Biden’s tepid poll numbers. He, too, blames Biden’s management of the Israeli/Hamas war.
“[Voters] are understandably upset Biden keeps claiming he’s frustrated with Netanyahu’s handling of the war, while simultaneously sending more weapons to support that war against the wishes of a majority of Americans.
Meyers chastised Biden for not pushing harder for a Middle East ceasefire, which Biden promised during his propaganda-style interview with the leader.
[…]Late-night comedians aren’t political activists by trade. Their gigs are meant to nudge viewers to bed with a smile.
Instead, they’ve become an extension of MSNBC. You’d think they’d be giddy at the chance to roast President Trump for another four years.
Instead, they’re panicked that they just might.
By contrast, Toto has never complained that Fox News is an extension of the Trump campaign and the Republican Party.
Toto served up more complaints about Colbert in his April 27 column, this time whining that he will be broadcasting from the Democratic National Convention:
“The Late Show” could get an energy boost from being in the belly of the political beast.
Except this year isn’t going to be a typical DNC event.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have been harassing Democrats for weeks in public over the Israel/Hamas war. The far-Left contingent has no qualms attacking mainstream Democrats and disrupting events. Some dubbed the Commander in Chief “Genocide Joe” for his quasi-support for the state of Israel.
We’re seeing violent protests across cities and campuses nationwide, and the movement seeks as much media attention as possible. And it’s getting louder.
[…]Will President Biden, diminished by age and sagging in the polls, be swapped out before the convention begins?
More importantly for pop culture watchers, can Colbert look away as the city he temporarily calls home is roiled in chaos?
Early projections expect north of 30,000 protesters to greet Team DNC.
Will he or his audience be in the mood for garden-variety “clapter” if chaos envelops the nearby convention?
What will Colbert say about the far-Left protesters, a group that will never vote for President Donald Trump or his fellow Republicans? Can he cover his ears while protesters chant, “Genocide Joe has got to go?”
Toto is ironically fretting over something that hasn’t happened yet and may not happen — though it is something he’s desperately rooting for in the hope that it will make Biden look bad. He very much wants a repeat of the 1968 Democratic convention, which like this year’s convention was held in Chicago.
And that, of course, is the problem — Toto is so dedicated to spouting right-wing narratives and has so firmly chosen a side in politics — the one that pays him well — that he has been filled with that he can’t be taken seriously anymore as a media critic (if, indeed, he ever was taken seriously). Ironically, that’s the same complaint the MRC pays him to make about non-Gutfeld late-night hosts.