I remember this scene very well
Spencer Tracy on Letterman Vs. O'Reilly
LIBERTAS
I watched that old chestnut Inherit The Wind a few weeks ago that stars Frederic March, Spencer Tracy and Gene Kelly. It's an excellent film based loosely on the Scopes monkey trial where a teacher (Dick York) was put on trial for teaching Darwin. The film's terribly unkind to Christians, making them all look fanatical and hypocritical. But it's still a great film with superb performances and writing. And if the writing and performances are superb I tend to overlook prejudices.
There was a moment near the end that stuck with me, and it wasn't until I watched Letterman's disgraceful and un-Johnny Carson-like treatment of Bill O'Reilly Friday that I made the connection.
Bill Maher, Jon Stewart, and David Letterman are cut from the same cloth. Not liberal cloth. Gutless cloth. Because they refuse to come down from the ether of irony where nothing touches them and nothing matters and isn't it all just a joke?. Isn't everything a joke to them? Well, at least until they tear into someone or something they don't like. But ask them to defend that mean streak, that pessimism, that smug assuredness and it's quip time. Insult time. Peanut gallery laughing and saving them time. So smug. So smart. So unserious. And yet these smirkers are taken seriously. They're quoted and desired guests on news shows (even O'Reilly).
For some reason… They matter.
In Inherit The Wind, Tracy plays a supposed atheist defending the school teacher from Frederic March's holy rolling prosecutor. Gene Kelly plays a reporter; he plays Jon Stewart, Maher, and Letterman. He plays a smug cynical above-it-all smirker eager to destroy anyone with ideas though he has none of his own; but that's what makes him better than them — he's no sucker – he believes in nothing.
At the end of the film it's just Tracy and Kelly left in the courtroom. Tracy's won. March is dead and disgraced. But Kelly wants more blood and is ready to print it when Tracy and he have this exchange:
Tracy: My God, don't you understand the meaning of what happened here today?
Kelly: What happened here today has no meaning.
Tracy: You have no meaning. You're like a ghost pointing an empty sleeve and smirking at everything that people feel or want or struggle for. I pity you.
Kelly: You pity me?
Tracy: Isn't there anything… What touches you? What warms you? Every man has a dream. What do you dream about? What do you need…?
No answer.
Tracy: You don't need anything do you? People. Love. An idea just to cling to. You poor slob. You're all alone. When you go to your grave there won't be anyone to pull the grass up over your head. Nobody to mourn you. Nobody to give a damn. You're all alone.
That exchange could be about anything serious that the ironists get ahold of; the war in Iraq, terrorism, culture, religion… It's Spencer Tracy's character saying to all the Kelly-types: "You're even worse than those who are wrong, because you are cowards who stand for nothing other than your own sense of superiority."
And Maher and Stewart and Letterman are all alone. They believe in nothing but tearing down and mocking and insulting. And they are all alone by choice. They choose no country, no loyalties, no faith, no hope, no optimism, and no boundaries. And like Tracy, I pity them. Because after the joke writers go home and the lights dim and the audience dwindles, they will find they mean nothing and contributed even less. They will look back on a wasted life and be alone left only with their ironic little smirks.
I'm not a big Bill O'Reilly fan, but I respect him for his daily entrance into the arena of ideas and his readiness to take all comers.
Letterman, Stewart, and Maher are just gutless hecklers in the stands.
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