Thoughts About Douglas Murray, Dave Smith, entertainers and expertise (Daled Amos)

In a segment for 60 Minutes in 1979, Mike Wallace interviewed Today Show host Johnny Carson. He asked Carson for his response to those who criticized him for not tackling "serious controversies" on his show:

Wallace: Do you get sensitive about the fact that people say "he'll never take a serious controversy?"

Carson: Well, I have an answer to that. I said, "Tell me the last time that Jack Benny, Red Skelton...any comedian used his show to do serious issues". That's not what I'm there for. Can't they see that? Why do they think that just because you have a Tonight Show that you must deal in serious issues. That's a danger, a real danger. Once you start that, you start to get that self-important feeling, that what you say has great import. And you know, strangely enough, you could use that show as a forum. You could sway people, and I don't think you should as an entertainer.

 


Carson did not address whether a comedian should be knowledgeable enough to speak intelligently about the issue. Nor was he concerned about the comedian's ability to talk about a controversial issue objectively and fairly. His first concern was the influence that an entertainer could have on the public.

Just a year earlier, in 1978, the Supreme Court had similar concerns when it ruled that the FCC had the power to determine the language guidelines for broadcast media because of the media's "uniquely pervasive presence in the lives of all Americans."

Nearly half a century later, broadcast media has exploded way beyond television, and is now in the hands of anyone with access to the Internet and social media. Done correctly, broadcasting on social media has the potential to be very lucrative, and if you have your hand on the pulse of what the public wants to hear, you will be successful. Just ask Stephen Colbert, whose turnaround of The Late Show's ratings in 2017 is credited to his sharp attacks on Trump.

These days, if there is anything that ignites people's attention more than Trump, it might be Israel and the war in Gaza. And the great thing is that you don't even have to know what you are talking about to satisfy your audience.

Take comedian Dave Smith, for example. Here is a video of him on the Jake Shields podcast. The YouTube excerpt is entitled, Dave Smith EXPOSES "Greater Israel" Plan:

Smith: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think it was, uh, I don't remember when, uh, when Netanyahu went to the U.N a few weeks before October 7th last year, and he had the map of Greater Israel right there.

Shields: I don't know how the states, but it was huge. It was multiple countries involved and that, yeah, they want to take all that land. It's not a secret if Netanyahu's wearing it.

 

Smith and Shields egg each other on how Netanyahu appeared before the UN General Assembly and revealed a plan that would be open and available on social media.

Actually, Netanyahu's map showed the peace established between Israel and its Arab neighbors and the potential that peace made possible:

Let me show you a map of the Middle East, in 1948, the year Israel was established. Here's Israel. In 1948, it's a tiny country isolated, surrounded by a hostile Arab world.

In our first seven years, we made peace with Egypt and Jordan. And then, in 2020, we made the Abraham Accords peace with another four Arab states. Now, look at what happens when we make peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel. The whole Middle East changes. We tear down the walls of enmity. We bring the possibility of prosperity and peace to this entire region. But we do something else.

You know, a few years ago, I stood here with a red marker to show the curse, a great curse. The curse of a nuclear Iran. But today, I bring this marker to show a great blessing, the blessing of a new Middle East between Israel, Saudi Arabia, and our other neighbors. We will not only bring down barriers between Israel and our neighbors. We'll build a new corridor of peace and prosperity that connects Asia through the UA, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel to Europe. This is an extraordinary change, a monumental change. Another pivot of History.

 

The disparity between the careless conspiracy theories of Smith and Shields and the clear intent of what Netanyahu actually said at the UN is more than a little unsettling. Smith is making the rounds on social media, spreading claims like this.

A few weeks ago, Douglas Murray appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast with Smith. Murray is a British political commentator, cultural critic, and journalist. One of the discussions that drew the most attention was the issue of being an "expert."

Murray has written about this point he made on the podcast:

From the COVID lab leak to the Hunter Biden laptop, we have lived through years after which distrust of experts has become inevitable.

Yet that doesn’t mean that expertise does not exist.

It does not mean that a comedian can simply hold himself out as a Middle East expert and should be listened to as if he has any body of work.

On the contrary:

 [M]any people seem to think that what I mean is that they are not allowed to have an opinion.

That is wrong.

I think they are.

It’s just that there should be a price to pay for spreading bulls–t.

And one price is that you should be called out.

But that will not happen--at least not as long as these guests are entertaining.

Smith is no expert, and no one listens to him to get the facts. They listen to him for the satisfaction of having their own prejudices reinforced and justified.

So those who believe you should know what you are talking about and should have some kind of expertise, will side with Murray. But those who want to be entertained have no interest in legal definitions of genocide or how Hamas terrorists falsify statistics--and they will cheerfully defend Smith's saying whatever he wants to in order to amuse and please his audience.

So Smith talks as if he has knowledge.
But his audience does not care that he doesn't.

They have forgotten the point Daniel Patrick Moynihan made years ago:

Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.

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Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon! "He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)