The Gutfeld Monologues

by Greg Gutfeld

  The idea that global warming is somehow a greater concern than terror might be one of the most dangerous ideas of our time, for it funnels money, time, and attention toward a problem that may or may not occur, and away from something that is happening now, and could kill hundreds of thousands now. Fact is, it might be true that temperatures are increasing [albeit insignificantly]. But we KNOW there are individuals on the planet who are seeking the means to end this planet NOW. So you can think that CO2 is evil, but we can tackle that—we have time. CO2 isn’t actively trying to find a dirty bomb to unleash over a stadium in an American city. How anyone can not see the difference in priorities is both tragic and hysterical.

  Trump saw that difference and made terror a key issue, one that got a lot of people to support him who otherwise might not have.

  Fact is, for the Obama administration to take ISIS seriously would have been to dress them up as the Duck Dynasty guys and label them “cis-gendered.”

  October 6, 2014

  So Friday, Ben Affleck became a caliphate crusader, attacking Bill Maher and the great author Sam Harris on Maher’s talk show over Islam. Maher and Harris argue that liberals are cowards when it comes to facing radical Islam’s horrible acts, out of fear of being labeled a bigot by others. Affleck proved their point by calling them bigots.

  SAM HARRIS, AUTHOR: I’m not denying that certain people are bigoted against Muslims as people. And that’s a problem.

  AFFLECK: Bigoted.

  HARRIS: But the . . .

  AFFLECK: It’s gross. It’s racist.

  MAHER: You’re not listening to what we are saying.

  HARRIS: We have to be able to criticize bad ideas.

  AFFLECK: Of course we do.

  HARRIS: But Islam is the mother lode of bad ideas.

  MAHER: It’s the only religion that acts like the mafia that will (EXPLETIVE DELETED) kill you if you say the wrong thing, draw the wrong picture, or write the wrong book.

  AFFLECK: What is your solution? Condemn Islam? We killed more Muslims than they have killed us by an awful lot. And yet somehow we’re exempt. Because it’s not really a reflection of what we believe in.

  So burdened by lack of facts, Ben relied on that emotional crowd-pleaser, cries of racism. What you see is the crisis that takes hold when liberal orthodoxy faces off with real attacks on liberal orthodoxy.

  I also think Ben had a few in the green room, but who hasn’t?

  Affleck’s tantrum proves Sam’s point. The inability to separate identification of evil from platitudes on tolerance is what enables evil to thrive. Affleck doesn’t help. Worse, he didn’t see that where his point ends . . . is where the rest of us begin.

  Yes, we get that it’s wrong to stereotype. But then we study the facts. We could all pretend the world is a Benetton ad, but that does nothing to stop genital mutilation, beheadings, slavery, or genocide.

  Behind those crimes is a sick ideology that preys upon the passivity of the West. Like the tussle over communism that fractured traditional liberals from anti-West leftists, radical Islam is repeating this dance among the modern progressives. Where Affleck is reduced to a sputtering, bitter scold, soaked in self-righteousness, in need of a script because his words ring hollow.

  And in a shock to even himself, Maher becomes the sanest man in the room. How’s that?

  When I look back at this monologue, I realize that the transcript of Maher’s show does not do it justice. I ask that you look up the Affleck/Harris back-and-forth on YouTube, just to see how angry the actor was. You could see him shaking with righteous rage [or bourbon]. I also notice that Affleck made this point: “We killed more Muslims than they have killed us by an awful lot.” I’m assuming he’s referring to the wars that followed 9/11. But he’s conveniently over looked that the primary killers of Muslims are other, more extreme Muslims. We’re just on the outside, as Westerners, hoping that this sectarian shit doesn’t get worse. My gut tells me that Affleck will never make it better. The more we deny that extremism and violence are a problem, the more their practitioners seem to demand it. It’s also refreshing to see liberals like Harris and Maher remain resolute in their often unpopular stances regarding radical Islam. Both pay a price for it. . . . I’ve heard that Harris’s life has been threatened [he’s talked about it]. And with radical Islam, having your life threatened isn’t something you take lightly. I’d tell you to ask Theo van Gogh, but he’s dead—murdered by an Islamist, on a street, for voicing an opinion.

  October 24, 2014

  They made it fake for publicity’s sake. Two video bloggers got press, after posting a video they said showed the Islamophobia of the New York City Police Department. The video starts with the guys wearing Western clothes, arguing and pushing each other, as the cop stands by and does nothing. And then the pair did the same thing, but dressed in Muslim garb, and they got a different reaction.

  In this video, an alleged police officer who ignores the men in Western clothes begins harassing the men now that they’re in Muslim garb—to show that cops are more willing to harass practitioners of Islam than Western-dressed, quarreling men. The officer demands that they “get against the wall,” put up their hands, and “open your legs.” He repeatedly shouts at the men. It’s as poorly acted and as contrived as your basic Saturday Night Live skit.

  So the video was tweeted out by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and picked up by the Huffington Post, which called it a small glimpse into the ugly world of racial profiling. Maybe so, if it was real.

  But surprise, it’s not, and yes, these cop-smearing dopes eventually came clean, admitting it was a hoax. They released a video in which they said, “We sincerely apologize to anyone that might have been misled that it is not a national event. Over the dramatization, our reenactment on what happens to us, when we film the traditional clothing on. . . . Our intention was not to make the NYPD look bad. If you feel like it was such, then we do apologize to you.”

  Wait, so your intention was to make the police look good?

  So they’re really sorry, but for what? For being caught? After all, if the stunt was indeed a dramatization, why didn’t they label it as such? They didn’t, because they assumed that they could get away with it.

  I’m thinking the NYPD should have sued these assholes.

  Even more, to justify their fakery, they claimed that profiling happens a lot to them when they film. Which is weird. I mean, why aren’t those incidents on film? And if it happens a lot, why did they have to fake one? They seem to be implying: It doesn’t matter if it didn’t happen. It’s the thought that counted.

  Again—if it happens constantly, why create a fake one? Just show the real thing. They couldn’t because they couldn’t.

  So, of course, they did this to raise awareness of racial profiling.

  Yes, the all-purpose excuse to defend deception and wrongdoing: raising awareness. It worked: They raised awareness that they’re morons.

  This is a case where I should have sworn on The Five and called them “assholes” instead of “morons.” But then I would have been sent home for a day, which isn’t so bad. Day drinking in your pajamas is pretty awesome!

  These losers thought they could get away with it based on one perception: that NO one would nail them on this ruse, even if it was an obvious one. They knew the media and the public are too worried about being labeled bigots to call them out. Luckily, their work was so amateurish—their acting was terrible—they accidentally called out themselves. They only managed to trick those who wanted it to be true—like the untrained mediocrities at the Huffington Post. Pranks like these work as idiot detectors. If you fall for this, then you are an idiot. And you should never be trusted again. As for the hoaxers, may they never work again. I would look them up to see what happened to them, but I can’t be bothered. My guess is that they are probably interning at the Huffington Post.

  February 6, 2015

  Yesterday at the prayer breakfast, President Obama brought up the Crusades, in light
of modern evil, and it was something about our high horse . . .

  BARACK OBAMA: Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique . . . to some other place. Remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.

  What’s with this relativism reflex? Even if you agree with the point—yes, we were bad once, too—how does that solve a problem exactly? How does it solve Islamic extremism? It doesn’t. It just allows you the excuse to not acknowledge present-day problems that upset your like-minded peers.

  Wow, talk about a slight!—comparing modern-day Islam to medieval atrocities. Shall we accuse Mr. Obama of Islamophobia?

  He’s right, though: the Crusades were an awful thing responding to another awful thing, an Islamic holy war. But he left out three key points.

  • They happened like seven or eight hundred years ago.

  • It stopped.

  • This is 2015 . . . so you should stop, too, or else.

  The fact is President Obama spoke the truth. When it comes to religion, Islamism is the slowest runner in a millennium marathon.

  We’re here, they’re still back there—and some of them want to stay there and take us back with them. Now, maybe during the Holocaust, some academics said these horrors happened throughout history. But how is that any comfort? When you compare something happening now to a time before indoor plumbing, it reminds you where the president’s head is—in the sand—and why he sees Islamophobia in his sleep.

  The Crusades were brought up to remove our victim’s status and make us the aggressor, which works for an academic . . . that we are the bad guy. The president indeed condemns terror, but relativism leads to ruminations that waste precious time needed to fight terror. Instead of leading, he’s educating us on our own transgressions, as though his presidency is a college course.

  I just hope we don’t get graded for it. I dozed off after the second year.

  It’s either an amazing example of naïveté or stupidity—I can’t tell!—to downgrade radical Islam by saying that Christianity was nuts five hundred years ago. This “whataboutism” argument actually does more damage to your own position, for unconsciously, you are comparing what you’re trying to defend [Islam] to something barbaric that occurred centuries ago. I mean, yeah, I’ll give you that, Obama: The Inquisition and the Crusades sucked! They were absolutely horrible. I learned that from Monty Python. But how does that help us now, when dealing with radical Islam? How does it help their current victims to remind them that other religions were awful, too! Right then and there, Obama became a clumsy apologist.

  Meanwhile, somewhere on the globe, a few hundred or thousand people are butchered because they aren’t as lucky as you to sit in a free Christian country, engaging in such pretentious babble, protected by the law enforcement you hold so much disdain for.

  February 16, 2015

  A trend that refused to die, as innocent people did: Even when terror announces exactly what it is, and what it intends to do, we choose other ways to explain it.

  A gunman shouts “Allahu Akbar” on a rampage through Copenhagen, killing two. The root cause?

  Obviously, a criminal gang.

  Check out this clip from the news:

  UNIDENTIFIED MALE: New details emerge about the twenty-two-year-old gang member who killed two civilians and injured several police officers in a frightening attack over the weekend.

  Yes, you see, he’s a gang member! And here we have the latest installment of NIDNI. “Nope, it’s definitely not Islam.”

  I love acronyms even if they waste even more time trying to explain what they mean.

  It’s the reoccurring game show where a paralyzing case of Islamophobia dictates no linking Islam to terror. Yes, whether it’s beheading Christians, or murders at a synagogue, there’s never a thread—not unless you count climate change, which creates a brutal heat that drives men to murder. If we hadn’t been driving all those SUVs, those folks might have lived. So never mind the shouts of “Allahu Akbar,” or a killer targeting the Muhammad-drawing cartoonist, the synagogue is totally random. He thought it was the Best Western!

  Because for the media and our president, Islam is that scary neighbor who plays music too loud and we’re all too petrified to tell him to turn it down.

  So, we’re a country more worried about our reaction to evil than about evil itself, which leads to one question. Who guards you from the maniacs we cannot name? The answer won’t be found on CNN—but maybe at the golf course, where you’ll find Obama’s head still buried in the sand trap.

  Yeah, he golfed a lot. So does Trump. But I’ll forgive Trump’s golfing habit, as long as he keeps killing terrorists by the buttload. It’s the philosophy that helped Trump win: You forgive the little stuff if he delivers on the big. But let me be clear: I HATE GOLF. Here’s why: How much land should a sport require? It’s why I favor Rock, Paper, Scissors. You can play that anywhere.

  But maybe if the Syrians and Iraqis had put a few putting greens up amidst all that desert, they might have gotten Obama’s attention.

  Said before: 2016 wasn’t about politics, but priorities. The Dems offered an inverse pyramid, with the least important issues up top, and the real scary stuff at the bottom, in a tiny space marked “other.” All Trump really did during his campaign was invert that pyramid—putting it commonsense right side up. Then he dropped it on the Democrats’ politically correct head.

  February 26, 2015

  Jihadi John, the ghoul from the ISIS videos, was from a well-to-do family and graduated with a computer degree. Mohammed Emwazi, clearly an Irish Scientologist, had a breezy upbringing before cutting off the heads of captives.

  It’s funny. Every time I make a joke like that—“clearly an Irish scientologist,” viewers—either Irish or Scientologist—will write in to complain that I demeaned them. I realize when you’re part of a group it’s hard to take a joke even when it’s meant to be complimentary to said group. Obviously he is not Irish, or a Scientologist. The compliment being that he is NOT Irish or a Scientologist.

  Now, remember when a White House spokesperson said that if there were more jobs, we’d have less terror?

  It’s so true! I mean, a degree in computers? It’s not like that expertise is in demand these days!

  So, when the normal turned evil, what’s the “why?”

  You could think religion, which provides one with purpose, but come on, there is no Catholic ISIS.

  Let’s be honest, ISIS offers thrills. You, charging across a desert, gun in hand, full of zeal and certainty, facing infidels, plundering homes. When death is a step to nirvana, what’s the downside?

  I probably should have said heaven, not nirvana. Nirvana is a different religion. Oops.

  So, the issue is our counteroffer. It’s hard to champion a free society when our own leaders in media find it gross.

  Heartfelt patriotism, the belief that this place is worth dying for, is now seen as something silly, an option for the ignorant. Our military now fights propaganda from the cynical country that it defends! So when a leader explains the roots of terror, remember, it’s what we no longer root for, the root cause is our absent will—when fighting is viewed with ridicule.

  Be all that you can be, that used to be a rallying cry for the army; now it’s the rallying cry for American Idol.

  This monologue touches on a key theme: We could say we’re great, but that would be rude and ignore our ugly past. Which fuels the decline in patriotism, at least among the media, celebrities, and academia. It used to be that they expressed their distaste for love of country amongst themselves, but now they are telling the rest of America to feel the same way. In the fight against ISIS, offering a compelling alternative to the excitement of mass murder would be propaganda. The rejection of assimilation in favor of multiculturalism, coupled with the cynical mockery of patriotism, got us here—which likely explains why a simple phrase like “make America great again” resonated for so many across the count
ry—except in the teachers’ lounges. Consider: Why do so many on the left find that simple phrase offensive? Why did the media laugh at something so clearly positive?

  The inability of our leaders to happily offer a persuasive defense of this country gave us 2016. Within our own borders, we have the left telling us that America is the real oppressor; beyond our borders, we are told that we are the infidels. It’s no wonder ISIS thought it had the U.S. on the run.

  March 9, 2015

  How do you portray evil? When it’s so evil?

  Alex Gansa, producer of Homeland, said ISIS will appear on the show soon.

  After all, Homeland for the past four seasons has tried so hard to portray our adversaries and try to humanize them, right?

  ALEX GANSA, PRODUCER OF HOMELAND: Homeland, for the past four seasons, has tried so hard to portray our adversaries and to humanize them. That is very hard to do with ISIL. What they are doing on the ground feels so medieval and feels so horrible that to give them a platform on television, I’m a little wary of. To try to make what they are talking about understandable or relatable is very difficult. So yeah, we are struggling with that. . . . It may be that we don’t understand them well enough. It may be that they are just too evil to dramatize on television.

  So if you can’t humanize the bad guy, then you can’t show the bad guy? No wonder Hitler is in no movies! This is an industry that has no problem with evil if it matches its politics. There’s no ambiguity when it comes to evil cops or a greedy oilman. Hell—the TV show Scandal just did its version of Ferguson—and had the cop arrested because that is their happy ending. Yet here, actual reality offers you the worst villain ever and you say, sorry, he is too villainy.