Introduction

This guy was just sitting in Nancy’s apartment, so we invited him into the studio, and by “guy,” we mean Michael Moynihan, co-host of “The Fifth Column” podcast, former Vice correspondent, and favorite big-brained raconteur. And what did Michael — did we all! — want to talk about but the attempted LA Times takedown of this week’s Bari Weiss debate, a piece so deliberately rancid, we decided to read it aloud, with commentary!

“We should be welcoming debate in all its forms,” says Michael, who referred to the Times’ piece as “the pyromaniac in the straw-man debate.”

NB: The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is one of our favorite organizations, and we support it wholeheartedly (and not only because we get to doll up and go their swank events). Of all the snark in Ali’s piece, this one really stinks.

Also:

* Sarah becomes the 85th woman to call Michael Moynihan an asshole

* Why Michael is such a keen student of history and how this relates to WWII and being very cold while walking to school

* Why we’d never recommend journalism school

* Christopher Hitchens’ rule on when to stop listening to someone

* Bill Maher and Drew Barrymore take heat for going back on-air

* A new podcast revisits the 80s New York crime wave

* The greatness of Shane Gillis