Lee Smith
Tablet, Apr. 11, 2025
“Even the role Smith and Rogan play is an establishment category—a comic who is not just a jester, but a gimlet-eyed and idiosyncratic observer of current events celebrated for relating sardonically to his young and disaffected audience. It’s Jon Stewart, but for right-wing audiences.”
Joe Rogan’s podcast yesterday featuring Douglas Murray and Dave Smith talking about the Middle East conflict (among other topics) failed to move the needle in either direction—at least not on any of the subjects the “debate” was purportedly about.
The pro-Israel camp was unmoved by Smith’s emotional petitions on behalf of Palestinian civilians. Those sympathetic to the Palestinian cause were unconvinced by Murray’s arguments about experience-based knowledge, with many criticizing what they took to be Murray’s message that only experts should speak their minds.
Murray stumbled on a key issue regarding reporting when he upbraided Smith for not visiting Israel or Gaza. I generally agree that it’s a good idea to visit a place you write about, and the fact is that there are thousands of reporters who have spent lots of time in Gaza and Israel and have spoken to lots of people there, and who see it just like Smith. Indeed, very few journalists under the age of 50 who have covered the conflict for Western media—from the Associated Press to El Pais, the Guardian to The Washington Post—do not believe the same things about Israelis and Palestinians that Smith does.
What’s interesting here is that Smith and other podcasters who boast of ostensibly provocative takes insist that they’re unveiling dangerous truths the media doesn’t dare speak for fear of upsetting powerful forces. But the self-styled dissident podcasters’ “edgy” takes are mere repackaged establishment wisdom that they generate in consort with one another….SOURCE