Watch a clip of John Oliver eviscerating Dr. Oz on his show. You can only view the full segment with access to HBO. (Via HBO)
The last two weeks have undoubtedly been tough on Dr. Oz. First, critics sent a letter to Columbia University questioning whether the surgeon should keep his faculty position in light of the dubious science he often promotes on his widely watched TV show. Then Oz fought back — on his show, in magazine articles, and in on-air interviews. But instead of addressing his misuses of science, Oz talked mostly about ... civil liberties.
"I know I have irritated some potential allies," he wrote in Time magazine on Thursday. "No matter our disagreements, freedom of speech is the most fundamental right we have as Americans. We will not be silenced."
Last night, HBO's John Oliver eviscerated Oz for his ad hominem arguments.
Let’s be clear: The First Amendment protects Americans against government censorship, and that’s it. It does not guarantee you the right to simultaneously hold a faculty position at a prestigious private university and make misleading claims on a TV show.
It absolutely protects you to say whatever you like on it, just as it protects my right to say what I think about you on mine, which is this: You are the worst person in scrubs who has ever been on television—and I’m including Katherine Heigl in that. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be worse than Katherine Heigl? You are also the admittedly handsome ringmaster of a middling mid-afternoon snake-oil dispensary and it says something that even when you do a show with seven fake models of human feces, the biggest piece of shit on the stage has his name in the title.
