Much of tonight’s late night offerings have featured discussion about the horrifying attack in Orlando, some venturing into angry territory. Stephen Colbert actually featured a mixture of both and provided a different perspective on the events in Florida, all thanks to Fox News mainstay Bill O’Reilly.
Colbert noted that the show had invited O’Reilly on months ago to promote his new book and Fox News series Legends And Lies — something he still got to promote a bit in this interview — and just happened to be the guest following this latest tragedy. It was a prime moment for Colbert to shine a bit following his apparent rough week and it worked. There were genuine moments where Colbert and O’Reilly were having a pure debate like in the old days of television.
It’s not at the level of Gore Vidal and William Buckley, but it was compelling television that sometimes managed to infuriate from time to time. O’Reilly is clearly on the side that this is a terrorist act and declaring war on all terrorist groups is the solution. All the while, you can tell Colbert doesn’t agree fully and really wants to let out his feelings by steering O’Reilly back in the interview.
It does not sit right when a guest on a late night brings up Japanese internment camps in reference to what the government should do about terrorism, though. Also no mention about this being a multi-layered issue that doesn’t have a one size fits all solution and doesn’t just cover one area of world affairs. Colbert does his best to inject that in there, which is more than you could expect from the flagship CBS late night program.
