Jon Stewart and Bill O’Reilly Get Ready for DC Debate ‘Rumble’
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Brad Barket/Getty Images for Comedy Central(WASHINGTON) — Comedy Central talisman Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, and his frienemy, Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News star commentator, are set to face off in a live-streaming debate Saturday night at 8 p.m. ET that has promised to justify Al Gore’s decision to “invent the Internet.”
George Washington University will host their “Rumble in the Air-Conditioned Auditorium,” which will last 90 minutes and be available to watch online for $4.95. The in-person event sold out in less than 24 hours.
Democrats are surely keen to see Stewart confront O’Reilly on the issues President Obama, in an unusually passive display, seemed hesitant to take on during his initial debate with Republican challenger Mitt Romney Wednesday night in Denver.
The Comedy Central comedian asked O’Reilly this week, when the latter visited his Daily Show, if he should expect a “Fox News-Obama debate baby boom” in the aftermath of Romney’s resurgent display.
“Were you guys excited?” Stewart asked his guest.
“Were ‘we guys?’ Are we all the same? Is that what you’re implying here?” O’Reilly quipped back.
Stewart paused. …
“Yeah!”
O’Reilly is expected to cast the election season’s key concerns in the light of his trademark cranky conservatism.
“Mocking success! This is what you and [President Obama] have in common,” O’Reilly said during a round of jokey banter with Stewart during their pre-rumble interview.
Stewart had been teasing for O’Reilly for hawking a new book called, Killing Kennedy: The End of Camelot, a non-fiction, “populist” history of the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
For all their apparent differences, the two entertainers have quite a bit in common, too. They are heroes to their chosen demographics — The O’Reilly Factor routinely finishes as cable news’s most-watched program — and natives of suburbs outside New York City.
Both found professional success late — Stewart after years toiling as a stand-up comic and character actor in romantic comedies, and O’Reilly after passing through ABC and CBS News before finding his niche with Fox in 1996.
By late Friday, StubHub listed just six tickets available for their meeting, the cheapest pair listed at $350 apiece.
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