RELATED: Red Eye Panel On Dr. Keith Ablow’s Defense Of Gingrich’s Cheating: ‘Pandering Slop’

The ACLU representative on top of this story argued that “adults can be prevented from doing research or just looking at an art gallery,” a premise with which host Greg Gutfeld had a bit of a problem, but McInnes countered that he was concerned about the definition of porn. “Who is defining what porn is? I get that kids shouldn’t see it, but it’s not hard to make monitors so that only the person seeing it could see it.”

Gutfeld then turned to Coulter, joking that she was outraged about the topic in the green room “and said you would move to Canada” if porn was not available on computers. She blamed the entire issue on liberals: “anything they like must be subsidized, anything they don’t like must be banned.” She argued that “getting off isn’t speech,” but liberals will defend it and be outraged by Citizens United. “If it’s normal porn, they sue because it’s harassment, but they will defend gay porn and anti-religious porn.” Bill Schulz, as the resident liberal, had to agree with at least one point: “I will never defend normal porn.”

When the topic returned during the Halftime Report, Andy Levy chimed in on Coulter’s point attacking liberals, noting that he agreed “that liberals have no problem banning things they don’t like, but so do conservatives.” Levy ends the segment on a high note, however: “My problem with lorises is that they look like Nancy Pelosi.”

The segment via Fox News below:

RELATED: Jon Stewart Dissects Gingrich Open Marriage Scandal: Open Your Legs, America

Ablow, who has been a guest on the show, suggested that the fact that “three women have met Mr. Gingrich and been so moved by his emotional energy and intellect that they decided they wanted to spend the rest of their lives with him” was an indication that Gingrich was awesome (Ablow tellingly did not comment on the moral quality of the second two women, who were mistresses before they were wives). Panelist Matthew McCall was the only one who attempted a defense of some sort of this thesis. “What he is trying to say… he was in a marriage, wasn’t happy, found something better,” which showed a “stern ability to make a decision,” he argued. “You left out that convenient overlapping of the relationships, Greg Gutfeld noted. He then turned to Joe DeRosa, and asked what he imagined having Ablow as a psychiatrist would be like, besides him telling you that everything you do wrong is good, because “it’s proof that you’re capable of getting away with it.”

DeRosa summed it up as “asinine” and “insane,” and Remy Spencer jumped in to add that “there’s absolutely nothing to this point,” as “woman are attracted to men who are in positions of power– they don’t even have to be good-looking or that wealthy.” DeRosa later returned to call the whole thing “right-wing desperation” and insist, “I don’t think this guy believes this.” Bill Schulz, the final one to weigh in, called the whole thing “pandering slop” that made sense in the context of Gingrich’s original excuse for his horrible moral history: that he had cheated on his wives because he loved America.

The segment via Fox News below:

“Maybe Republicans (should) ask themselves why does this 70-ish weird guy have all of this support?” Carlson questioned. “What is he saying that’s resonating? And how do we address those concerns? Maybe people do care about the fed – soft money maybe they are not happy with Afghanistan. I mean, think it through a little bit!”

RELATED: Red Eye Debate Recap: ‘Ron Paul Is Like A Chocolate-Covered Piece Of Fruit’

Later, during the show’s regular Halftime Report segment, Andy Levy theorized that people liked Paul because they enjoyed “the racist newsletters.”

“They are huge,” Carlson added. “Kids love the racist newsletters.”

“It is an under served market!” Levy exclaimed.

“Look at the guy!” Carlson graciously observed. “There has never been a more poorly marketed candidate.”

Watch Levy and Carlson’s take on Ron Paul‘s plucky presidential campaign below via Fox News:

RELATED: A-Paul-calypse Now: Ron Paul Trails Newt Gingrich By 1 Point In New Iowa Poll

Tucker Carlson started off the conversation, noting that the numbers going up against the President among Republicans were indicative of a “tough primary season… these numbers indicate that they’ve been damaged.” Leslie Marshall agreed, but for a different reason– that Republicans were being incredibly indecisive, independent of how the candidates were campaigning. On the other hand, Crowley contested this argument by contrasting this field with the 2008 Democrats. That process, she noted, was “totally scorched each… they went till June until Hillary Clinton backed off.

“What you’re saying,” interjected Bill Schulz, “is that Gingrich will be Romney’s Secretary of State,” calling it a risky bet. He then gave his own assessment of the field, comparing it to the NFL season. “A lot of people sticking around late in the game,” he noted, a fair bit of prayer talk, and “even though there’s not a lot of talent there, the personal stories are wildly entertaining. Also, Newt looks like a football.”

RELATED: Report: A Third-Party Ron Paul Run Could Doom The GOP’s White House Hopes

Carlson, bringing the conversation back from the Gingrich/sports item comparisons, argued that the weakness of the Republican field would not matter if the election is a referendum on President Obama. However, “if it becomes about the personal foibles, whatever they may be, of the Republican candidate,” the President stands a chance, and so Democrats want the Republican “who is easiest to parody, who has the most complicated personal life.” Marshall put a name to this threat: Newt Gingrich.

The segment via Fox News below:

RELATED: Red Eye’s Greg Gutfeld Tells Mediaite About His CNN Guilty Pleasure…And So Much More

Gutfeld turned to the panel noting that he didn’t believe the debate “moved the needle anywhere,” which panelist Greg Proops agreed with, but only because he didn’t watch the debate. That said, he declared it a “fashion disaster” of a night, with Santorum being the aforementioned “pervy dude at the Kiwanis club,” Rep. Ron Paul looking “like he was selling used cars,” and Rep. Bachmann getting her fair share of jokes, too. Ultimately, Proops concluded, “I don’t think anybody made points last night,” but Mitt Romney would be a good “daytime game show host.”

The conversation then turned to the most memorable exchange of the night, in which Rep. Bachmann chastised Gingrich for berating her in a disrespectful way, a response panelist Anna Gilligan approved of, noting that “Newt was being very condescending and dismissive of her.” Gutfeld agreed, feeling uncomfortable about saying it, but “I think it was a woman thing.” Panelist Kevin Williamson disagreed: “I thought it was more of a tin-foil-hat, Gardasil vaccine thing.”

Switching from the Gingrich conversation, the panel turned to Rep. Paul, and Gutfeld declared he was “like a chocolate covered piece of fruit: I like chocolate, but I hate fruit.” It wasn’t until the Halftime Report with Andy Levy that he fleshed that out more, making the metaphor somewhat more concrete: “when he talks about bloated government, that’s the chocolate; when he talks about foreign policy, that’s the fruit.”

RELATED: Thursday Ratings: Fox News GOP Debate Is Highest-Rated In Cable News This Year

Levy also weighed in on some of the other absurdity going on in this clip: chiding Proops for not having watched the debate at all and weighing in on the Gingrich sexism debate, arguing that Gingrich was an “equal opportunity condescender.”

The segment via Fox News below:

RELATED: Summer Of Gutfeld? Strong Ratings For Both Red Eye And The Five

Gutfeld’s gutsy early morning talk show is a kind of anti-Daily Show, regularly featuring a motley crew of random panelists from all ideological shapes and colors (“From left libertarian to right libertarian, moderate liberals, communists…”). Sometimes controversial and often audacious, but always interesting, the program is never afraid to stick a finger in someone’s eye, like the way Gutfeld did earlier this year, when he put Maroon 5′s Adam Levine on blast for slamming Fox News. Deadpan co-host Andy Levy also famously rhetorically curb stomped Chris Brown on Twitter.

You would presume the show’s kickass ratings stem from viewers DVRing the show for later, but in fact, people really do tune in at the crack of dawn to watch.

“We know we’re an awesome show, I just want to put that out there,” Gutfeld humbly acknowledges.

When asked about CNN, the network his show trounces regularly, the cable news star says he doesn’t look at them as competition.

“Our biggest competitor is sleep; we have to convince a viewer not to go to bed and that’s [the] hardest challenge a TV show has,” he explains. “Sleep is far more enjoyable than what you’re going to see on CNN at 8 o’clock.”

“We can argue Red Eye is far superior to any kind of entertainment that you’re going get when you’re unconscious, I can safely say that.”

Despite the show’s penchant for tomfoolery, random YouTube clips and a talking newspaper puppet, Gutfeld says he doesn’t feel like his show is a comedy show.

“It just so happens that most humans when they’re communicating to each other about the most basic stories and assumptions of life tend to communicate through humor, and it takes the edge off when you’re talking about serious stuff,” he contends.

“I don’t see Red Eye as a comedy show; the choice of stories can be absolutely no different than what you’d find on the O’Reilly Factor or any show. It’s just that we’ll have comedians on [as] just regular people. On our show you’re encouraged to talk as though you’re sitting around at a bar, and that you’re saying your true feelings and it’s not about impressing people, it’s just how you’d talk after three beers, though none of us have had three beers.”

Gutfeld says you don’t have to be famous — or even conservative — to go on his show. “You just have to be interesting and, I think, likable. When we have a hard-core left winger on the show, they know the show is going to be fun and they know we listen to any kind of opinion. We don’t immediately dismiss you out of hand because of your assumptions. The one thing that sticks with me is something Penn Jilette said a couple of years ago. He looks for people that you can never predict their third opinion after hearing their first two. I’ve always taken that advice, of hanging around people who you just cant predict every opinion, because if you can predict every opinion you’ve got an incredibly boring show, or if it’s a network it would be MSNBC.”

And also, in case you didn’t know, the show actually films at 8pm — not 3 in the morning.

“We film in the evenings, not really at 3 a.m., though we try to pretend, but no, everyone knows it’s not at 3 a.m.,” Gutfeld says. “We wouldn’t be able to survive after 3 months because we’d all become raging alcoholics if we had to stay up until 3 a.m.! The caliber of guests would be drastically different, it would be anybody who’s up at 3 a.m. – strippers and bartenders!”

Many Red Eye fans might be surprised to learn that Gutfeld is an “ex-expatriate.” He lived in London from 2004 to 2007, and admits it may have played a factor in much of the dark humor laced throughout his early morning show.

“A lot of the shows that I like, that I watched in London like Nighty Night, and Big Brother’s Big Mouth, Peep Show, I’m Alan Partridge, which I think was no longer on, in repeats. These were all fairly surreal, subversive shows and I guess that probably seeped into my brain.”

“I always liked a lot of British humor,” he continues. “As a kid I loved Monty Python, I watch it now and it doesn’t make me laugh, but when I was a kid I ate it up. I hated Benny Hill. I think it might have had an effect. There is some really unbelievable writing in England.”

Admittedly, Gutfeld will sometimes watch rival network CNN, like when he tuned in for Dinner with the Kings, a special in which former CNN host Larry King invited Shaq, Russell Brand, Tyra Banks and Conan O’Brien (among others) to dinner for a chat.

During the show, Gutfeld was most impressed with O’Brien’s opinions on entitlements.

“It was very refreshing to hear him condemn entitlements, I had never heard that from Conan O’Brien — him make a political or moral statement. He condemned the entitlement character — a person who feels like they deserve something without actually working for it and I really felt like it was a subtle but specific jab at the Occupy Wall Street protests.”

To stay on top of the news, Gutfeld reads the “Drudges of the world.” “I read Aces’ blog which is pretty good, and I’ll look at the Huffington Post, because I used to work there; I go there and just get a little wistful. I go to Fark. I think Fark is a good place to find unusual stories; they get almost everything. I look at a lot of the stuff in England as well, the Daily Mail. I look at a lot of music blogs, I like PopMatters and Stereogum.”

A self-professed music junkie, Gutfeld says he uses his show to meet people he likes, such as members of The Clash. His musical tastes are pretty varied. “From Generation X all the way up to to present day bands, I like The Melvins, Torch, Black Moth Super Rainbow, F*cked Up — I love having Dick Valentine, Electric Six, I try to get people that I’m interested in.”

But Gutfeld’s most memorable Red Eye guest has been, far and away, Sex Pistol’s lead singer Johnny Rotten. “I will always have to go back to Johnny Rotten, just for me. As a teenager, I had posters of the Sex Pistols on my wall when I was 14 or 15.”

Some would argue that Gutfeld’s status as a ratings draw would make him a perfect match for prime-time, but Gutfeld stresses he is thankful for what he’s got.

“I’m happy to have a job. I usually don’t look too far into the future. I’m doing two shows on Fox News channel. Five years ago, I had nothing on TV! I was writing a book on England, living in London. To be able to do two programs is pretty awesome! I’m just pleased as punch,” Gutfeld exclaims. “I can’t believe I just said, ‘pleased as punch.’”

Greg Gutfeld can be regularly seen on Fox News’s Red Eye and The Five. Follow him on Twitter at @greggutfeld.

RELATED: Andy Levy Congratulates GOP On Trump Debate: ‘Moderated By A Crazy Birther’

Soder explained that it was as if he had prepared thoroughly to moderate his debate and found no one wanted him around, something host Greg Gutfeld admitted elicited some sympathy within him. Plus, Gutfeld added, “I used to think it was a circus, but now I think it’s more of a sideshow.” Panelist Chris Cotter was not as positive on the matter, however, lamenting that “it’s all a side show, the entire thing… everything is a joke and The Donald, just when he gets out of it, he jumps right back in.”

Trump found some defense from Patti Ann Browne, however, who noted that the economy was, indeed, horrible, and “yet the Republicans could conceivably lose to Obama… you can’t blame the guy for noticing,” she argued, that voters aren’t satisfied with the menu before them. Gutfeld agreed, while Bill Schulz had another gripe entirely: “why is this a thing? This C-list celebrity who leans Republican is demanding that you dance for him,” he argued, and that was enough for a headline. “It’s as if Chuck Norris was like, ‘come to my house right now, I’ve got questions for you,’” he concluded.

During the Halftime Report, Andy Levy began by expressing his shock that there hadn’t been any primary elections yet at all, and adding that he did have one possible route the election could go he would like to see: “I’m starting to hope Donald Trump, Gary Johnson, Ron Paul, a bunch of other people run as independents. Let’s spice things up! Why not?”

The panel via Fox News below:

RELATED: Donald Trump: ‘Very Surprised’ That Mitt Romney Turned Down Debate Invitation

Host Greg Gutfeld thought that the candidates who acted the swiftest in deciding whether to attend Trump’s debate or not demonstrated who were the true leaders in the race. “You learn I think who the real leaders were by the people who first accepted and first rejected,” Gutfeld observed. “The first person who jumped in was Newt Gingrich, the first person who said no was Huntsman and then you saw Perry and Bachmann wait.”

Watch Breitbart’s condemnation of the candidates who refused but still go on MSNBC below via Fox News:

RELATED: Tucker Carlson: The Tea Party Has Destroyed The Republican Establishment

Greg Gutfeld earlier surmised that the Democrats were setting up Republicans in being sympathetic towards Gingrich so that they nominated Romney instead, who would ultimately be more beatable. Carlson disagreed with Gutfeld’s assertion.

Comedian Sherrod Small thought Gingrich had a lot of great qualities as a candidate. “I like Newt. He spices things up a little bit. He is a smart dude…He is not a flip-flopper. Nobody can call him that. So I think it is good Romney and him go against each other.”

“Newt has been able to brand himself as a tea party candidate,” added Newsmax columnist Jedediah Bila, and remarked how unusual it was that the “most established candidate” became the “outsider candidate.” “The year of the tea party and everybody wants a fresh face, maybe a governor we didn’t know about. No, it is Newt Gingrich who has been there as long as anyone!”

Watch Red Eye’s panelists try to explain the sudden success of Newt Gingrich below via Fox News:

RELATED: Heartwarming? Newt Gingrich Gets Donald Trump To Apprentice “Very Poor” NY School Children

Baldwin was commenting on Gingrich remarks about poor children not wanting to work. “Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works,” Gingrich said recently during a campaign stop in Iowa. “So they literally have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of ‘I do this and you give me cash,’ unless it’s illegal.”

Greg Gutfeld rushed to the former Speaker of the House’s defense. “I take exception to the racist part,” Gutfeld said. “I think what he was talking about that there was high unemployment, he was talking about sad realities of cities like Detroit.”

Watch Baldwin’s criticism of Gingrich’s remarks below via Fox News:

RELATED: Wait, What? Donald Trump To Moderate Newsmax Sponsored GOP Presidential Debate

The panel initially had a bit of trouble staying on topic, as Dana Vachon narrowed down the important television programs of the modern era down to Lost, American Idol, and The Apprentice, arguing that Trump was, in some ways, “a symbol of the great American success story” (the panel then went into the source of the energy on the island in Lost for a bit.”

Panelist Tom Shillue got the panel on track by lamenting the fact that people care what happens in debates at all. “It doesn’t matter how good a debater you are, it’s getting ridiculous,” he argued, to which Gutfeld responded that debates are helping Newt Gingrich. “Making my point!” he replied, “Newt Gingrich stinks!” Vachon interrupted to stick up for debates for exposing “gaping intellectual deficiencies” in people like Rick Perry, which Shillue defended as more likely to beat Obama than Gingrich.

The crew then shifted gears back to Trump, and how he would get along with other candidates. “I’m interested to see Trump put Newt’s ego in check,” Michelle Fields noted, to which Gutfeld agreed. Bill Schulz added that, no matter what happens, the debate promised to be the “classiest” debate in history, with free pinky rings and helicopter rides.

RELATED: Republican Candidates Of Substance Should Sit Out Trump Moderated GOP Debate

The panel discussion on the topic via Fox News below:

When the Halftime Report rolled along, Andy Levy arrived with little patience for Trump, asking the panel to “give it up to Jon Huntsman for refusing to participate in this farce. I am absolutely serious.” He added a congratulations to the Republican party for “having a debate moderated by a crazy birther.” Then there were a few minutes of perfunctory Lost debate, and Shillue, upon being challenged for his claim that Perry is more electable than Gingrich, emphasizing that, yes, “Newt Gingrich will lose.” Levy also took the opportunity to correct Gutfeld on the name of the debate– which is not, in fact, officially titled “Donald Trump’s Classy Debate.”

The Halftime Report via Fox News below:

RELATED: Red Eye Disobeys Adam Levine’s Request Not To Play Maroon 5 On Their ‘F*cking Evil Channel’

Gutfeld’s profile is mostly a look at his career up to now– from from men’s magazine editor to Fox News host, and the excitement of being on a network that defies the “terrible sameless” he considered prevalent elsewhere in cable news. He calls those who “whine about Fox News” “hypocrites”: “they say they’re totally tolerant, but when they run into someone who doesn’t share their assumptions, they say, “Fox News is evil, and it must be stopped.”

Which brings us to Levine, whose courage in the face of adversity was an inspiration to Gutfeld:

You had quite a cyber tiff last month with Adam Levine, when he tweeted that he wanted Fox News to stop playing his music.

I have to say that Adam Levine is truly a daring young man to go on Twitter to bash Fox News. He’s so rebellious, so subversive. I mean, for a musician, seriously, could you find a more predictable stance than that? He’s as edgy as a hacky sack, which also describes his music. So I went on there basically to lower the bar of discourse. If he’s going to rag on Fox News, I’m going to make stupid jokes about him.

RELATED: The Five’s Greg Gutfeld: Rick Perry’s Speech Was Like When I Take Ambien On A Plane And Have A Scotch

Levine didn’t respond to the initial barb, but with enough prodding, this feud could easily reach Chris Brown proportions. But it is clearly an incidental diversion to Gutfeld, who also went on to describe his duties over at The Five, a show he called “the greatest job.” The interview also goes on to discuss his online beginnings at the Huffington Post and why he rarely has “celebrities” on Red Eye (the short answer: he doesn’t want them). The full interview in the LA Times here.

Unlike some others, no one on the Red Eye panel was defending the fans. However, after stand up Joe DeRosa let fly with some jokes at the expense of NASCAR and its fans, Levy used his “Final Word” to defend the sport.

“We get to hear all the time about how the people at Occupy Wall Street who are defecating on cop cars and who are doing stuff like that, ‘Oh, they aren’t representative of the movement and they’re infiltrators,’ but, the minute something like this happens, I see liberals saying nothing but, ‘This is all NASCAR fans. All NASCAR fans are racist. All NASCAR fans are this.’ And it pisses me off.”

Levy makes a good point. With every group from OWS to the Tea Party to racing fans, people need to get better at discerning individuals from the group. The jerks on Sunday are not representative of people who like NASCAR. No one thing could be representative of that large a group besides maybe “likes fast cars.”

That being said, if anything’s coloring people’s views of NASCAR as a sport, it shouldn’t be the fans but the leaders of the field.*

*Sorry, Andy, for some of the things I said in that post. No hard feelings! I fully endorse your right to call something where everyone sits the whole time a “sport.”

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

Levy’s panel for the night didn’t seem particularly enthused about the chances anyone left really had; Dana Vachon tried to note that he thought “Jon Huntsman would be better than Romney,” but realizing the futility of that sort of mumbled it away. John DeVore seemed excited about having to talk about Gingrich– “he shows up, he leans on the podium, he’s sassy like Bea Arthur,” he praised– but in addressing the mess that is Rick Perry seemed less optimistic about the fact that Perry “hired the worst people to ill-adivse him and ill-prepare him for a run he thought would be easy.”

RELATED: Wall Street Journal: Newt Gingrich Can Win GOP Nomination

For his part Andrew WK seemed a little more out of the loop on Cain than the rest of the panel, admitting, “I had never heard of Cain until the accusations.” This, coupled with a rise in fundraising, gave him the impression that it was all “reverse psychology publicity,” adding, “this guy and all these other candidates to me are as colorful and crazy as a Godfather’s supreme pizza.” So of all these candidates, who could surge in the aftermath of the debate, asked Levy. Vachon suggested Ron Paul for his “grandfatherly” reaction to the Rick Perry memory loss moment and his “claw of governmental dismemberment.”

The segment via Fox News below:

Coulter (like Rush Limbaugh) has been quick to allege that the entire scandal is nothing but a racially motivated smear attack from dirty, racist liberals. How quick was she? Well, she was already pushing that idea as hard as she could the very moment the story broke. Her statements have made a miniature scandal of their own after she said on Hannity last night that “our blacks are so much better than their blacks.” Shockingly, many people weren’t thrilled to see a white woman go on TV to rate the quality of “blacks.”

RELATED: Ann Coulter On Herman Cain: Our Blacks Are Better Than Their Blacks

What’s interesting is that, just a few hours before her Hannity appearance, she espoused the same views elsewhere in the Fox News studios and was called out for them. While Red Eye airs hours after Hannity, it tapes earlier so Levy had already given Coulter a small taste of the reaction that much of America was giving her last night.

During his “Halftime Report” segment, Levy pointedly said to Coulter that it was “amazing” to him “that there are Conservatives now who have no problem playing the race card” after they “rightly” accused liberals of doing the same for years. Coulter was not about to take that, arguing that she would complain about racism when it was “true.”

The two went back and forth for a minute until Levy asked her if she believed Politico would have published the Cain story had he been white. When Coulter responded no, Levy said that that was “just the most ludicrous thing [he'd] ever heard in [his] life.”

It’s a pretty striking clip and one entirely worth watching twice; Once for the debate and a second time to see the moment when the zombie in the background starts getting uncomfortable. “Um…they’re fighting now. Should I still be doing this?”

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

“If you go to iTunes and search under the category called crap, that comes up!” Gutfeld added. “I do know that Chris Martin once emailed Levine and thanked him for making Coldplay seem edgy,” snarked Levy.

“Well it certainly did, and you know what else, I know this jackass!” Gutfeld sniped. “He always wears a cap! I gotta wear a cap because I’m insecure! Shut up!”

“Because he’s balding!” Andrea Tantaros piled on. “Don’t forget, he’s also a game show host too! One of those talent shows.”

“He hosts Survivor!” interjected Bill Schultz.

Watch the Red Eye crew take down Levine below, via Fox News:

Horowitz, who laughingly summed up his experience succinctly by saying “the level of indignity I’m willing to suffer for you people knows no bounds,” opened his footage with a clip of a Marilyn Manson lookalike who couldn’t stop twitching. However, that might give the audience the wrong idea about the protesters so Horowitz compassionately reminds the viewer, in his narration, that “Ok, they weren’t all like that.” He then cuts to a girl in a nose ring and an interview with someone who appears to be on drugs.

Look, this is just the latest in the long line of videos from Conservative media figures who are just trying to make the protesters look bad. Do you think Andrew Breitbart or the Red Eye guys are really giving us an unbiased depiction? Of course not. They’re just looking for the silliest dressed people to film. Obviously there are professional looking folks there. Like, for instance, all the Liberal media figures who are down there filming footage to make the protests look heroic! I mean, look how nicely Dylan Ratigan is dressed. Why can’t they interview him?

Basically, there’s a clear lesson to take away from this. If you really want an unbiased view of what’s going on at these protests, you’re probably going to need to go down to one yourself.

That being said, it’s a good thing Beck sent someone to go in his stead. He and New York crowds don’t mix well and no one wants any more wine getting wasted.

Watch the clip from GBTV below:

As host Greg Gutfeld explained, the reason the ban even came up to begin with was the fact that some “customers were using their medical marijuana cards as identification” in gun stores, which led the states to ask what to do about the dilemma. The idea of separating gun owners from their constitutionally protected right to own their weapons sounded like a “ridiculous, serious Second Amendment issue” to panelist Kayleigh McEnany, who thought it outrageous. Panelist Jason Counter agreed: “I think we should get drunk and shoot things like the Founding Fathers intended.” The comment made Gutfeld note that it is true that “drunks are more likely to shoot people, drunks are generally more likely to be violent… potheads generally forget they even have a gun.”

There seemed to be unanimity on this issue across the board, as John DeVore used it as a launchpad for his presidential campaign: “I want an American where two men can brunch and oil their AR-15s baked.” Replied Schulz, “I would like to run your campaign.” He further noted that he found this yet another example of President Obama being far more conservative that he promied to be, and breaking an “unspoken deal” between him and his voters. “I’m not usually angry at Obama, but I’m angry, ” he concluded.

The panel then watched a short clip of Bill Schulz wearing lederhosen.

The segment via Fox News below:

Host-for-the-night Andy Levy introduced the show’s “smelliest correspondent,” who was unable to get several topless women to show off on camera, but did manage to get some understanding of what brought them there: “wealth disparities,” monetary inflation, and, well, topless ladies. He managed to deftly avoid being asked where he was from (“We’re on F–, er, Red Eye with Greg Gutfeld… it’s a voice of protest in a sea of infomercials”), until finally being recognized as a “piece of trash” from “Faux News.” The native inhabitants of Wall Street– clearly identifiable by their button-downs and haircuts– were much more hospitable to Schulz, however.

Schulz narrowed down the experience to “the smell of patchouli, body odor, and urine,” which the rest of the panel didn’t seem to put into question. While panelist Dana Vachon gave them the benefit of the doubt by noting that “if I graduated $100,000 in debt and a sociology degree… I’d feel like I’d been screwed, too,” the sympathy for the protesters more or less ended there.

The segment via Fox News below:

In case you forgot (or don’t watch the show, in which case, for shame), the episode opened with the fictional C.K. appearing on Red Eye to debate the merits of masturbation with a devout Christian (think a 90s-era Christine O’Donnell). While on camera, C.K. says some rather harsh things to the woman. Feeling bad, he apologizes to her afterwards and the two strike up a friendship in which he surprised to see some merit to her “no carnality before marriage” way of life.

It was a great episode and the discussion of its creation is pretty fascinating. Apparently the story was originally going to be just about C.K. saying something on cable TV that gets him in trouble (perhaps taking inspiration from the whole drunk Sarah Palin tweet ordeal?). However, C.K. the writer had learned during the production of the instantly-famous Dane Cook episode that, when you do a story that really gets inside of an opinion you disagree with, amazing things can happen. So he wrote the episode as is.

From the A.V. Club:

LCK: Then we went down the road of who’s gonna play—I think I asked Joy Behar to play the host at one point, and we went out to Anderson Cooper about it. But it actually made it more compelling to me to do it at Fox News. I actually asked our Fox friends to ask Sean Hannity to do it, or Shep Smith was the guy I wanted. But we were told no one was willing to even ask them. The guy at Fox News that was our go-between guy, he said, “You should try this Red Eye guy, because that show is already a little rebellious. They do a lot of goofy stuff and they have lot of comedians on.” I didn’t really want to do it, ’cause I had seen his show and he usually just wears a T-shirt and a jacket and he goes on rants and he’s a bit of a comic. But he had the script, and I called him and said, “Listen, I’m interested in doing this with you because you’re on Fox News, but I have a concern,” and he interrupted me and said, “You don’t want me to be who I am on my show: You want a Fox News guy like Hannity. You want me to play a guy like that.” And I said, “Yes” and he said, “Of course I will. I’d love to do it.”

He was really motivated to be in it and was excited about it. So he put on a suit and tie. He does that sometimes, he fills in for the Fox News shows. So he fucking showed up and did a great, great job. We shot it in the belly of the beast, though. It was really funny to go there, and they were worried about us wandering into the wrong shows. We had a liaison who was really watching us. It was interesting to be there, because Obama was making a speech that day, and he had just finished the speech, and we watched the Fox News machine crank up and respond. They had talking heads—’cause I was watching the feeds and stuff, ’cause I’m fascinated by broadcast television—and I saw feeds of people standing with earpieces waiting to be interviewed. Like a guy standing there in front of whatever in Washington, and they were ready with their response before the speech was finished. And I realized how fast it was, and from being there, if you’re in a place where you have empathy, I thought, “They have a demand.” They don’t have any meaning to the public if they can’t start talking the second he’s done, so they have to throw together their fucking opinions, and then the other side does the same thing. And if anyone would just fucking take four minutes and drink a glass of water, it would tone down the rhetoric, like 60 percent, if they just took five minutes.

AVC: But that would be the end of Fox if they toned down the rhetoric.

LCK: Right—and everybody else, and Rachel Maddow and these people, although she’s pretty damn reasonable. That’s ’cause I agree with her. [Laughs.] But it was intense. But anyway, Greg was great, [actress Liz Holtan] was great.

The whole interview (as well as the ones for Harmon and Schur) is extremely interesting for any fan of television in general and television comedy particularly. Highly, highly recommended. Here’s the first part of four.

And, below, watch a short clip from the scene in question:

Host Greg Gutfeld started the discussion by attributing the comments to the way Bloomberg operates– “nothing like the alarmist approach to bring people together!” Panelist Penn Jillette agreed that he saw the threat as slight, though found more offensive the power that politicians have to say such threatening things, asking “can you imagine if a hip-hop artist had made the exact comment that he made?”

Gutfeld agreed, but argued that the approach hinged on Bloomberg himself. “He has such low expectations for humanity,” he half-joked, citing the time Bloomberg suggested the Times Square bomber could have been someone unhappy with their health care. Jillette added it was not only his pessimism that blinded him, but the fact that he did not know the conditions that led people in Cairo to revolt. “I have been to Cairo,” he noted, “it’s a terrible, terrible place.” The worst thing about Cairo to Jillette was the fact that “they force the women to dress like Batman,” but the high levels of pollution didn’t help, either. “I was on the edge of rioting,” he joked, “and I’m not a rioting kind of guy.” To Bill Schulz, however, it wasn’t just the culture in Cairo that made the different– it’s New York. “I just think we’re too lazy for this kind of thing,” he argued, citing the lower crime rates and the fact that “we have couches that don’t have mice in them.”

The segment via Fox News below:

The last time we left this feud, Brown tweeted something incoherent about blacklights and sexual activity detection with the command, “Be nice!!!” But he has had bigger fish to try than that, like the 117 parking violations he has received for parking in a handicapped spot, 95 of which have been dropped. Gutfeld quickly cut to the pressing questions: to get permission to park in a handicapped spot requires a handicap– “given that hes a violent moron, does that qualify?”

Levy seemed confused. “I thought he caused other people to have to park in handicapped spaces.”

The segment continued with some comical hearsay from Anna Gilligan about Brown’s troubled Good Morning America appearance that ed guest Mike Baker to add, “I wasn’t there in the compound in Abbottabad, but I heard they picked up some documentation on Chris Brown.” Gilligan later made the point that Brown seems to have great karma– “he gets out of everything without any real punishment!”

What’s more, beside the destructive elements to him, the panel seemed unconvinced he deserved his status as acknowledged “talented” person of some sort. Asked Gutfeld: “Should an artist have a long, successful career before being an abusive jerk?” Levy joked that, sure, Roman Polanski may be off the hook, with Bill Schulz rounding it off with the reminder that “Mel Gibson waited until he got an Oscar before allegedly hitting women.”

The segment via Fox News below:

For one, Red Eye had its second highest delivery ever (following September 2009) for P2+ and adults age 25 to 54. The 3 a.m. show is also up 43 percent in viewers age 25 – 54 and 40 percent in total viewers compared to this time last year, beating out several daytime programs on rival networks. Here are some of the bigger shows that Gutfeld/Red Eye beats: CNN’s John King USA and American Morning and MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan and Andrea Mitchell.

Gutfeld’s The Five is also faring well. While the show did experience a 28 percent drop in P2+ and a 29 percent decline in viewers between 25 and 54 compared to how the 5 p.m. slot fared this time last year, the show is nonetheless going strong, beating out both CNN and MSNBC combined in that time slot and remaining a top 10 cable news program. Plus? The show has held onto over two thirds of its audience throughout its rotating lineup of various hosts. Viewers are evidently also sticking around to watch Bret Baier at 6 p.m., making him #3 in cable news shows.

The show is also a hit with advertisers, drawing in more for the time slot than Glenn Beck‘s former 5 p.m. show.

And sure, fine, maybe it’s not because of Gutfeld. At least ten percent of The Five‘s success is directly attributable to Bob Beckel and his tendency to be… somewhat provocative.

The poll showed President Obama leading Rep. Paul 47% to 45% among all possible voters, which put him closer to defeating the president than Rep. Michele Bachmann or Mitt Romney in some cases. Host Greg Gutfeld opened the discussion with these facts, noting that Rep. Paul was also facing an uphill battle on media coverage (which he did by accusing co-host Bill Schulz of not including Rep. Paul in most of his “coverage”). Schulz agreed the polls were good for the Congressman, with the caveat that “the important thing to remember here is that polls suck.” He continued this argument later in the segment, and received some agreement from the panel, when he noted the fact that “the people who answer poll questions are people who answer polls,” which makes them automatically less useful than they are in theory (that argument was buffered on the panel by the suggesting that people who answer phone calls for polls are people who land lines, who are too old to tell whether they are talking to pollsters).

Panelist Matthew McCall thought there may be something to the polls, however, arguing that “the fact that the independents are sticking up for Paul shows that he’s got a bit of a chance.” He did seem to enjoy Rep. Paul’s disposition of being “always mad” in debates, though ended up being somewhat alone in his belief that Rep. Paul had a serious chance based on these numbers. Panelist LeeAnn Tweeden didn’t think he had a chance at all, while Paul Mercurio thought the speculation was premature, “like picking a baby name on the first date.”

During the Halftime Report, ombudsman Andy Levy weighed in on Rep. Paul’s chances– “zero chance”– but warned everyone that the polls were meaningless, as “George Pataki has yet to bring his energy and charisma officially into the race.” He also condemned Schulz for ignoring Rep. Paul in his serious campaign coverage– “you have a platform, sir, use it appropriately.”

The segment via Fox News below:

O’Donnell, of course, argued that she left the program because Morgan “would not stop talking about sex” and that she was not comfortable talking about topics she did not want to talk about. She later went on to call it “borderline sexual harassment,” which made Morgan borderline litigious.

The story provided for a fair number of wonderful punchlines– from Patti Ann Browne suggesting that “once the masturbation stuff came up, she just knew there wasn’t going to be a happy ending” to ombudsman for the night Mike Baker talking about programs on which O’Donnell came out in favor of socially conservative causes (with strategically placed rhetorical pauses).

As to the reasoning behind her walking out, however, panelist Adam Mansbach provided a fairly strong theory: “the fundamental misunderstanding that she is laboring under is that she is being asked to be on a show as some kind of serious political candidate,” though her attacks on the media (what Levy called “the Sarah Palin card”) had in the past proven to be effective. Meanwhile, panelist Dan Soder gave her the benefit of the doubt– “what they did edit out was his creepy bottom lip bit after every question.” The group also speculated as to Piers Morgan’s real origins– is he really British? Soder posited he is “some actor from Iowa”– a theory happily entertained by the panel.

The segment via Fox News below:

Really, it’s pretty hard not to come out on top if you’re arguing with Brown and, y’know, this picture exists. Still, Levy’s “apology” was pretty hilarious. We don’t want to spoil anything, but our favorite line might be when he thanks Brown’s fans for their tweets that showed him the true possibilities of “spelling, grammar, and syntax.”

Making fun of a convicted woman-beater and a bunch of teenaged Twitter users may be like shooting ducks in a barrel, but, after this brilliant take down, it seems like the Red Eye gang will be feasting on delicious foie gras tonight.

Watch the clip from Fox News below:

The offending Tweet came late last night as a retweet, in a style Levy had commonly employed before, though previously undetected by Brown himself:

The tweet apparently rankled Brown enough to cause him to block Levy, but not before replying with a message of his own, which Brown’s fans were quick to spot:

That a late-night Fox News personality somehow got into a Twitter spat with an infamous R&B celebrity would have already been newsworthy, but it is really the fans that make this a true comedy. Here is @AndyLevy’s Twitter stream.

While most of the tweets in the stream involved barely-thought-out grammatical nightmares like “your dumb” or “grow up already how old r u,” there are a few stand-out themes: that Levy was on To Catch a Predator (because he’s “too old” to be on Twitter), that he is gay, that his dislike of Chris Brown is symptomatic of being an employee at Fox News. And then there are Chris Brown fans calling for someone to “punch [Levy] in the face” and warning that he may “get robbed,” which sort of go to prove his point. A notable side feud also erupted in the feed of Red Eye pal Anthony Cumia, who vented his frustration out at Brown fans far more vocally (and profanely) than Levy did.

For the sort of incorrigible media junkie that reads our website on a routine basis, it may be difficult to realize that there is a part of the American populace that neither knows who Andy Levy is nor have ever seen Red Eye and also see in Chris Brown a role model and talented individual worth fighting someone like Levy over. Conversely, for the sort of passionate millennial hip-hop fan that would go to war over an “old man” picking on a voice of your generation with the charisma of Chris Brown, it may be difficult to understand Andy Levy’s trade and why, despite being a “grown-up with a TV show,” the idea of routinely checking in on Chris Brown to remind him he is an embarrassment would be appealing. Surely, this is the stuff John Edwards “two Americas” speeches are made of.

Unlike, say, the routine Bill O’Reilly-[insert rapper here] feuds we all know and love, this one wasn’t pursued on television, prompted by some sort of perceived indecency in earnest (not that domestic violence is decent, but Levy is certainly not the social conservative type to lecture on morals), nor was it so… democratic. In 24 hours, the story became much more about comical tweets from unknown fans than anything Levy or Brown have said, and it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere as of press time. But the real moral of the story? There are so many people on Twitter in 2011 that it’s possible to use the social network with full ignorance of the existence of an entire population on it. Unfortunately for these two social spheres– but fortunately for us– their ignorance of each other, thanks to one tweet, cannot be repaired.

The panel was particularly lively this time around as it welcomed ombudsman Andy Levy to the panel (it was his birthday), who had many questions about the answers to Thursday’s debate– but especially, what was going on between Rep. Bachmann and Tim Pawlenty? “I sort of want to know what happened afterwards,” he commented, calling it a “good Moonlighting vibe.” He also expressed some outrage that only Mitt Romney refused to “eat Obama’s dog food,” thereby leaving the possibility open that they may.

Panelist Anna Gilligan seemed more irritated with the confusing answers than outraged, however, noting that she didn’t see how Rep. Ron Paul could reconcile believing marriage is between a man and a woman and also a states’ rights issue, or how Rick Santorum “talks anti-gay stuff all the time but then he says he’s worried about the gays in Iran.” British panelist Kevin Godlington was just amused. “I love the fact that you have so many people to choose from!” he exclaimed, though took a stab Byron York‘s question to Rep. Bachmann on submission, which the panel mostly believed in the context of previous statements was fair.

There was also plenty more commentary on Herman Cain‘s Pokemon love, Rep. Bachmann’s relative tardiness and Newt Gingrich‘s strident anti-media rhetoric during the debate.

The video via Fox News below:

Fantastic! Looks like I’m hitting up happy hour a little early tonight, guys.

So what’s the happy occasion? Well, Gutfeld is going to be cameoing on tonight’s episode. Not only that, the plot has C.K.’s character of “Louis C.K. but not entirely like the Louis C.K. from real life but mostly like him only apparently less successful because he doesn’t have his own TV show that everyone who watches it loves” appearing on Red Eye. While most of the world was probably more eager to see last week’s confrontation between “Louis C.K. but not entirely like the Louis C.K. from real life but mostly like him only apparently less successful because he doesn’t have his own TV show that everyone who watches it loves” and Dane Cook, I don’t think I can think of any plotline that could be more perfectly suited for Mediaite readers than tonight’s.

Maybe C.K. refereeing a boxing match between Glenn Beck and Bill Maher? I don’t know. Cross your fingers for season three.

Anyway, here’s a preview clip from Entertainment Weekly: