Ben Shapiro has made a profitable career for himself as a conservative commentator. He’s had glossy NYTimes profiles written about him and he’s often presented as an intellectual. He’s succeeded at this because much of what passes for journalism on American television isn’t really. News anchors don’t want to scare off guests by gaining a reputation for being tough.
The environment is tailor-made for a lightweight like Ben Shapiro to exploit.
Here’s what happens when someone like him is actually pinned down by a person who doesn’t know him from Adam, does a bit of research and won’t be cowed. Shapiro got so frightened by the interview that he cut it short.
Shapiro took the interview to promote his new book which laments the decline of public discourse in America. Andrew Neil who interviewed him, asked Shapiro the obvious question, whether his incendiary statements had a role to play in any such decline.
Neil specifically asked about Shapiro’s columns where he referred to Obama’s 2012 SOTU address as “philosophically fascist” and said Jewish people who voted for Obama were “Jews in Name Only”:
President Obama's State of the Union address was the greatest American rhetorical embrace of fascist trope since the days of Woodrow Wilson. I am not suggesting Obama is a Nazi; he isn't. I am not suggesting that he is a jackbooted thug; he isn't (even if we could be forgiven for mistaking Rahm Emanuel for one).
President Obama is, however, a man who embodies all the personal characteristics of a fascist leader, right down to the arrogant chin-up head tilt he utilizes when waiting for applause. — townhall.com/...
The answer is deceptively simple: the Jews who vote for Obama are, by and large, Jews In Name Only (JINOs). They eat bagels and lox; they watch "Schindler's List"; they visit temple on Yom Kippur -- sometimes. — townhall.com/…
American Jews, I have one request of you: please pull your heads out of your posteriors.
I mean that in all sincerity. Your continued support for Democrats and an administration that is openly anti-Semitic is a disgrace. — townhall.com/...
The whole thing is worth watching, but you can start around 9:00 in to get a taste.
For what it’s worth, the interviewer, Adam Neil is a conservative journalist. He worked for Rupert Murdoch as editor of The Sunday Times and then later at Daily Mail.
The interview aired on the BBC-2 show Politics Live. There’s a panel discussion following the Shapiro interview which is very interesting too, but the only clip I can find of that is this very distracting version (start at 10:30).
One of the co-anchors ends the panel by saying:
He’s [Shapiro] is not half as smart as he pretends to be. He hadn’t done the most basic research on who he was up against. If he had bothered to look up who Andrew Neil was and what he does, he wouldn’t have screwed that interview up so badly.
— @subirgrewal