'What You're Left With Is Libertarianism'

Red Eye host Greg Gutfeld on what guys like to read, what meth addicts do to toasters, and why liberals and conservatives are so annoying

Katherine Mangu-Ward from the October 2009 issue

Insomniacs who channel surf to Fox News at 3 a.m. may think they have drifted off into a dirty, hilarious febrile dream. Instead of perky anchors and partisan shouters working over the headlines of the day, a pug-faced ne’er-do-well named Greg Gutfeld leads a motley crew of comics, C-list celebrities, and occasional reason editors through a running news-of-the-weird joke fest covering (in no particular order) free markets, unicorns, drug legalization, very attractive women, and very gay sex. Airing since February 2007, Red Eye w/Greg Gutfeld is just the latest stop in Gutfeld’s checkered career.

In 1987 Gutfeld took his first journalistic job, somewhat unconventionally for a Berkeley graduate, at the conservative American Spectator, running errands for the magazine’s famously erratic editor in chief, R. Emmett Tyrell. After a failed stint as a screenwriter, Gutfeld got a job at the health-oriented lifestyle magazine Prevention, where he started drinking and drugging at a prodigious rate. Gutfeld went on to edit the lads-and-abs magazines Men’s Health (where he was fired for making fun of Girl Scouts, cat lovers, and his boss), Stuff (where he was fired for an incident involving several midgets for hire at a publishers’ conference), and finally the British edition of Maxim, where he hung his hat while writing Lessons From the Land of Pork Scratchings: A Miserable Yank Discovers the Secret of Happiness in Britain (Simon & Schuster). Gutfeld has written “traitor” columns for women’s magazines such as Cosmopolitan, Glamour, and Mademoiselle, telling women what men really think. He claims to have been rejected for a job at reason in 1988.

In 2005 Gutfeld gained a new audience by writing satirical, liberal-mocking posts at The Huffington Post (sample line: “Is Al Franken patenting the pubic hair and Elmer’s glue cure for baldness, or is he just keeping the idea to himself?”). This helped lead him to his current gig, where in addition to hosting the hour-long Red Eye, he writes the Daily Gut blog. The unifying theme throughout his career has been boobs, as in both breasts and morons. Another theme to his jobs: Gutfeld was fired or forced to resign in disgrace from virtually all of them.

Associate Editor Katherine Mangu-Ward spoke with Gutfeld on stage at Reason Weekend in Orlando, Florida, in April.

reason: Describe the evolution of your political outlook.

Greg Gutfeld: As a teenager, I was a liberal. It helped me in school. Where I went to school, if you collected signatures for the nuclear freeze, you got extra credit. I realized the more you seemed to care about something, the more the teachers cared about you and your friends. If you share the liberal assumptions, you don’t have to think too much about it.

I thought that was great because it really helped me with grades, but after a few debates in school where I actually had to think about things, I realized I was a complete fraud. I started to re-examine myself when I went to Berkeley. It was a really bad idea. It was just walking around with a target on your back.

I became a conservative by being around liberals and I became a libertarian by being around conservatives. You realize that there’s something distinctly in common between the two groups, the left and the right; the worst part of each of them is the moralizing. On the left, you have people who want to dictate your behavior under the guise of tolerance. Unless you disagree with them. Then the tolerance goes out the window. Which kind of negates the whole idea of tolerance. That’s the politically correct moralizing. Then when you become a conservative, the other kind of moralizing comes from religion. But if you remove both of those from the equation, what you’re left with is libertarianism.

From the right, you’ve got free markets. From the left, you have free minds. To me, that’s the only sensible direction. As you grow older, you kind of end up there. Especially if you drink and do a lot of drugs.

reason: Speaking of which, let’s talk about your editorship of Men’s Health.

Gutfeld: I was the only editor of any health magazine that did a feature on how smoking is good for you.

Actually, one of my primary interviewees was Jacob Sullum from reason. He turned me on to all these tobacco companies that were actually doing amazing research on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. But nobody in the media would cover it because smoking is bad. I would get all these amazing medical journals at Men’s Health, and I loved them mainly for the weird pictures that I would copy and send out to my friends, enlarged arms and weird faces. I believe I was the original Internet.

I read a lot of this passive-smoking stuff, and I realized it was just bullshit. What they’re trying to do is create science to legislate. I wanted to write about this, and I’d just become editor of Men’s Health. When you get a job like that, you’re supposed to do the right thing. I did the wrong thing.

The article I wrote was called “I Smoke and I Work at Men’s Health.” We recreated a Parliament ad with me in the middle smoking. It was really cool and wonderful. I interviewed every satanic person in the tobacco industry and cited their science. It was a fantastic article, and it dropped like a stone in journalism. People just hated it. But I couldn’t help it, because this is real health journalism. Once they stop demonizing substances, they’re going to find out that these things can actually help people.

Health editors are generally very miserable people. They constantly think there’s something wrong with themselves. Meanwhile, they hate pharmaceutical companies.

Comments

Joe M|9.18.09 @ 12:06PM|#

God, Greg Gutfeld has the most annoying facial expresion in history! That crease... urge to kill, rising...

MattXIV|9.18.09 @ 12:15PM|#

why drugs really, really, really need to be legal

To make Red Eye watchable?

Hacha Cha|9.18.09 @ 12:48PM|#

can anyone find his article on smoking from Men's Health? I searched but couldn't find anything from it or about it.

Franklin Harris|9.18.09 @ 1:00PM|#

To make Red Eye watchable?

Beat me to it.

Barry Loberfeld|9.18.09 @ 1:22PM|#

What do "liberals" and "conservatives" believe?

From here:

As if ideology possessed its own laws of genetics, inconsistency has begotten only more inconsistency. Among the present generation we behold liberals who no more support free speech (e.g., Catharine MacKinnon) than their conservative peers support free trade (e.g., Patrick Buchanan). We see people who

* support affirmative action, free trade, and immigration (such as the liberal Michael Kinsley and the conservative William Bennett)
* oppose all three (such as the liberal Michael Lind and the aforementioned Buchanan)

* support affirmative action and immigration but oppose free trade (such as the liberal Jesse Jackson)
* support free trade but oppose affirmative action and immigration (such as the conservative Peter Brimelow)
* support free trade and immigration but oppose affirmative action (such as any "neoconservative" -- or "neoliberal" -- you can name).

We can have a veritable "Heinz-57" of possible positions if we consider the multitude of thinkers, activists, and voters, and the only unity that comes out of all this division is the implicit creed they share:

* Give us the tax dollars and the tax breaks, but give them the tax bill.

* Give us liberty, but get those perverts!

Gharles|9.18.09 @ 1:35PM|#

It is weird how ecstasy and cocaine are good for you yet you rarely hear people talk about it. Thanks, Greg.

|9.18.09 @ 1:56PM|#

I saw this show last week as I was out of town and the time change allowed me to watch things I never watch. The show was hilarious, it reminded me of the old National Lampoon magazine before it lost it's edge. Definitely NOT PC, very sarcastic and with the bite of truth, I actually laughed out loud.

|9.18.09 @ 3:00PM|#

One bong-hit in, the show's actually pretty good. Their guests are a combo of D-list political people, radio freaks and random Fox anchors who get drafted for duty.

What's interesting is how funny the anchor people are once they're unchained from the teleprompters.

|9.18.09 @ 3:22PM|#

Awesome.

Mike M.|9.18.09 @ 3:39PM|#

The more I learn about Gutfeld the more I like him.

And I wish Red Eye was on at a more watchable hour during the week, because it's one of the funniest shows on television for anyone who has a clue about what's going on these days. He has more comedic talent in his pinky finger than Jon Stewart has in his entire body.

David|9.18.09 @ 3:47PM|#

Jon Stewart is funny, he's just on the wrong side of things now. All the more reason to get the Republican brand of evil back in office -- so I can start watching the Daily Show again.

Red Eye is enjoyable, but yeah, I don't get the 3 AM air time. Why not midnight?

Rhywun|9.18.09 @ 5:10PM|#

[Maher's] trained seal audience of retarded nutbags will clap. And then the segment will end. So it looks like you saw two voices, but you really didn't.

Aiieeee - so true! And yet I watch the damn thing every week anyway.

Tango Mike|9.18.09 @ 5:24PM|#

"If you watch Real Time and watch what he does to those that don't *tow the left-wing line*, it's a crime. "

Half a loaf is beter than none...

moley|9.18.09 @ 5:47PM|#

1925: "It's weird how moonshine is good for you yet you rarely hear people talk about it."

Hibiscus|9.18.09 @ 6:05PM|#

When people call Bill Maher a libertarian it makes me cringe. He's clearly just a Berkeley liberal, albeit a pretentious one.

There are other things to dislike, too, like the fact that he's a board member of PETA. He also takes every chance he gets to promote quackery over science-based medicine and thinks that pharmaceutical companies are engaged in a global conspiracy conspiracy to keep people sick and that exercise and organic food can cure everything. Seriously, fuck Bill Maher.

|9.18.09 @ 6:22PM|#

FYI: Red Eye is on at midnight, Pacific time AND on the weekends it repeats at early evening hours, like 6 pm.

|9.18.09 @ 7:34PM|#

I watch all three shows:Redeye, Jon Stewart, and Bill Maher. RedEye is the funniest of the three, Stewart is second and Maher is only funny in his monologues.

|9.18.09 @ 9:37PM|#

A Republican who smokes pot != Libertarian.

Sorry, but there's not a Libertarian soul on Fox News.

tankrunner1123|9.18.09 @ 10:02PM|#

Sorry, but there's not a Libertarian soul on Fox News.

_______________________--

What do you call Judge Napolatano then?

|9.18.09 @ 11:57PM|#

Doesn't Greg Gutfeld have a pet tortoise he got from wandering around in the African desert?

|9.19.09 @ 1:30AM|#

Without commenting on the fact that Gutfeld couldn't cut it at an open mike in just about any comedy club and his infantile supposed "political" jabs(really just crass insults) maybe Mr Gutfeld will follow the conviction of his ideals and sign the following statement"

I, ________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:

I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.

I will complain about the destruction of my 2nd Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 2nd Amendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.

I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.

I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:

•Social Security


•Medicare/Medicaid


•State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)


•Police, Fire, and Emergency Services


•US Postal Service


•Roads and Highways


•Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)


•The US Railway System


•Public Subways and Metro Systems


•Public Bus and Lightrail Systems


•Rest Areas on Highways


•Sidewalks


•All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)


•Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)


•Public and State Universities and Colleges


•Public Primary and Secondary Schools


•Sesame Street


•Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children


•Public Museums


•Libraries


•Public Parks and Beaches


•State and National Parks


•Public Zoos


•Unemployment Insurance


•Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services


•Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)


•Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)


•Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)


•Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking


•Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies


•Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies
If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care

I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.

I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist locations, including but not limited to:

•Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History


•The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments


•The government-operated Statue of Liberty


•The Grand Canyon


•The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials


•The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery


•All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC
I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.

I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.

I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.

I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.

Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.

Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.

SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF __________ IN THE YEAR ___.

_____________ _________________________

Signed Printed Name/Town and State


He probably hasn't really thought this through. Idiots often do that.

The Libertarian Guy|9.19.09 @ 9:28AM|#

Kyle, you've just made that argument a bit more orderly... not any better, but at least more composed.

It's a tired one, though, as it implies that it's not only okay to have all that socialized stuff you mentioned - we have to have MORE of it.

Sometimes, more is not better.

|9.19.09 @ 11:32AM|#

Kyle,
Thanks for pointing out how government has infiltrated our lives to the point that it's impossible not avoid their ensnaring tentacles. Instead we must lick their boots and and pay homage to their benificence to us. Well played, serf.

|9.19.09 @ 12:19PM|#

I think Red Eye's libertarian credentials are seriously in question. It's pretty good at taking shots at the absurdities of liberals, but it's nothing but fawning toward republican and conservative nonsense. Gutfeld has a problem with religion in politics? His regular guests include Mike Huckabee and a Catholic Priest ! And how can you claim to be opposed to political hyperbole and hysteria while tolerating the presence of Ann Coulter? I don't know if this reflects his actual perspective or the limitations imposed on him by Fox, but the net effect is another person (like Glen Beck) using the rubric of libertarianism to try to redeem conventional, corrupt republicanism.

Joe C|9.19.09 @ 5:20PM|#

I am a huge Red Eye fan, but I will admit that Greg is a bit of a neo-con in his approach to foreign policy. He's a huge Cheney supporter, which is pretty contradictory to anything libertarian that I'm aware of. That being said, I think having guests like Huckabee are a direct result of a shortage of guests in general, so they fill spots with your typical Fox crowd. Bill Schulz and Andy Levy are the saving graces of that show. Also the fact that he regularly features Odeus Urungus from Gwar and Andrew W.K. Awesome.

|9.19.09 @ 5:41PM|#

"Greg is a bit of a neo-con in his approach"

Yup, just a bit. He's just as bad as the liberals if you ask me.

|9.19.09 @ 7:37PM|#

Kyle-

I'll happily forgo the things on your list if I can also abstain from paying taxes to fund them.

Hugs and Kisses,
MG

qwerty|9.20.09 @ 10:47PM|#

OK Kyle, I've got time to kill, so I'll catagorize your list into three catagories:

1--A legitimate government function
2--A legitimate function of private individuals/companies/nonprofit orgs.
3--Something nobody should be doing

•Social Security--2


•Medicare/Medicaid--2


•State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)--2


•Police, Fire, and Emergency Services--1


•US Postal Service--2


•Roads and Highways--2


•Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)--2


•The US Railway System--2


•Public Subways and Metro Systems--2


•Public Bus and Lightrail Systems--2


•Rest Areas on Highways--2


•Sidewalks--1


•All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009 federal senate appropriations)--2


•Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)--2


•Public and State Universities and Colleges--2


•Public Primary and Secondary Schools--2


•Sesame Street--2


•Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children--2


•Public Museums--2


•Libraries--2


•Public Parks and Beaches--2


•State and National Parks--2


•Public Zoos--2


•Unemployment Insurance--2


•Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services--2


•Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, State or Federal Government (pretty much all of them)--2


•Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)--2


•Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)--2


•Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking--2


•Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies--2


•Government Subsidies--3

VA benefits and medical care--1

government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.--1


•Smithsonian Museums such as the Air and Space Museum or Museum of American History--2


•The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments--1


•The government-operated Statue of Liberty--2


•The Grand Canyon--2


•The World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials--1


•Arlington National Cemetery--1


Well, that wasn't so hard.

Tim|9.21.09 @ 1:30PM|#

@Kyle,

It seems like everyone who isn't an anarchist must be a socialist; ok. I stopped reading your post around police and fire services, roads and the FAA. Since one of the most important functions of government is to protect property via the police, fires if left out of control threaten more than just the property owner on many occasions, and crashing planes can impose harms on people on the ground. The FAA requires pilots to pass a medical exam for example so they don't conk out and fall onto someone's house.

Your comment is foolish, and a thread killer due to it's length.

|9.21.09 @ 2:35PM|#

Greg says: Liberals aren't very tolerant because when you poke them repeatedly with a stick as if they were road kill they respond with nasty comments in internet threads.

|9.21.09 @ 5:10PM|#

Mmmm, I love me some tasty Gutfeld

CH|9.21.09 @ 5:22PM|#

There always seems to be a debate over what the word "Libertarian" means, and that's why the party never performs well in elections. I think if the name was changed to the "Anti-Authoritarian Party" a lot more people would get behind that. Anyway, just my rantings.

I'm sure everyone here could talk for days about their definition of "Libertarian," but I'll just provide the link for the one group that really nailed my own personal definition of it.

http://www.maybelogic.com/gunsanddopeparty/

monkeys|9.22.09 @ 10:45PM|#

Yes that is the REAL Libertarian Party.
More importantly, there's a great Little Tony Joke.


http://www.maybelogic.com/gunsanddopeparty/

Tostitos|9.23.09 @ 3:57PM|#

Glenn Beck is not a libertarian, although I suppose he recently took up some anti-drug war positions which is good. Maher isn't one either, but at the very least the more people who think he is the more people will stop associating libertarianism with the far right, which is an absurd notion.

|10.5.09 @ 9:11AM|#

I'd been under the impression that Reason took a serious view of libertarianism, and tried not to give exposure to garden-variety ranters. But this guy -- unfamiliar to me until now -- is a sorry joke. What a fatuous windbag! So he's learned he can make a living by taking swipes at global-warming research ... I'm super-impressed by his mastery of the data. Plus he feeds into an anti-"left" paranoia that's as simpleminded, and as distasteful, as any other vendetta built upon simplifying a very complex reality. I take it this clown has a TV show ... that must be why you're wasting pixels on him. Wake me up when he's over...

|10.6.09 @ 12:25AM|#

Jonathon is obviously paranoid... imagining mobs of angry robotic Right Wingers seeking to prevent Jonathon from imposing a Collectivist tyranny on the country.

OH THE HORRORS.;. MAKE THE BIG BAD RIGHT WINGERS STOP.

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