Monkey boy vs. the media establishment
Jon Stewart was on Crossfire last week. Here’s a video. Here’s a transcript. I like The Daily Show and I think Jon Stewart is funny. He gets on the show and says to them:
STEWART: See, the thing is, we need your help. Right now, you’re helping the politicians and the corporations. And we’re left out there to mow our lawns.
BEGALA: By beating up on them? You just said we’re too rough on them when they make mistakes.
STEWART: No, no, no, you’re not too rough on them. You’re part of their strategies. You are partisan, what do you call it, hacks.
He also called Carlson a dick and made fun of his bow tie. And, sorry to say for any bow tie wearing readers, anyone over the age of 12 who wears a bow tie and is not in a tux deserves to be made fun of. Actually, you probably deserve to be beaten up shortly after your mom cuts the crust off your PB&J.
Stewart assailed the media for their complacence in the media/corporate/political establishment, which is a good thing. He’s done that on his show before. He also called them both partisan hacks. And he was right.
However, Stewart was tossing rocks from his glass house. A while back, Kerry got some sand in his vagina or something and stopped doing media events because he didn’t want to address his Vietnam service (this marked the first time that I know of where he didn’t want to talk about his Vietnam service). Then, Kerry appears on Stewart’s show and, instead of tossing rocks, Stewart lobbed softballs. The Crossfire folks pointed this out. Stewart relied on his standard defense that his show is a comedy show, it follows puppets making prank calls, and that if the media wants to compare itself to his show then the media has some serious issues.
Bullshit, Jon. I’ve seen you on your show ask difficult questions and I’ve seen you drill your guests. I’ve seen you drill the media. Those are good things. The fact is Stewart gives certain folks a pass and these folks tend to be liberal. It’s your show, do what you want. I’ll still watch because it’s funny. The fact remains that you make fun of the Bush administration for all sorts of things (they probably deserve it) but the only thing you make fun of Kerry for is his boring, monotonous voice.
On last night’s show, for example, Stewart showed the result of the third debate was that all the media could talk about was the reference to Cheney’s lesbian daughter. Nevermind the other issues (even though they were scripted infomercials funded on the taxpayer dime). He will attack the media and the media deserve it.
I realize you have a show to run and that you’re nice to your higher profile guests. Stewart was, for example, always nice to RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie. But, if you’re going to tour news shows and criticize them, you should toughen up and maybe practice what you preach.
May 17th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
[…] r him, he’s guilty of doing the same thing they do. I’ve covered this before, noting: Stewart assailed the media for their complacence in […]
July 27th, 2005 at 1:54 pm
[…] v. Santorum
|By SayUncle|
I’ve given Jon Stewart grief before for going easy on Kerry, Gillespie, and others. And for lying about guns. Las […]
October 20th, 2004 at 12:03 am
I disagree. The day after Kerry was on the show, RNC chair Ed Gillespe was on, and he got nothing but softballs, too. And when I have seen Stewart drill guests, it wasn’t because they were conservative or liberal, it was because the guest was either dodging his softballs, or was just parroting talking points.
The best example I saw of Stewart “drilling” a guest had more to do with the guest than with Stewart. It was when he interviewed the author of “The Connection,” and asked him obvious questions, and the guy didn’t have any answers. Stewart was trying to toss softballs (at first, anyway), and the guy was utterly unable to answer them.
October 20th, 2004 at 7:51 am
“RNC chair Ed Gillespe was on, and he got nothing but softballs”
Yeah, i said that.
October 20th, 2004 at 11:58 am
You said that at the time, but you didn’t reiterate it in this post. Why is that important? Because this post leaves the impression that Stewart only (or mostly) issues softballs to liberal guests, and only (or mostly) drills conservative guests. I simply don’t buy that, unless you can provide some examples.
Where Stewart will drill guests is if they try to use his show to parrot talking points, particularly ones that have already been discredited. That’s where Bonilla got into trouble, and that’s where the author of The Connection got in trouble.
If you have examples of liberals parroting widely-known-to-be-discredited talking points on The Daily Show and Stewart giving them a pass — or even an example of Stewart asking a conservative guest tough questions that he might not ask of a liberal guest — I’d love to see it.
October 20th, 2004 at 12:03 pm
Uhm, in this post i said:
“I realize you have a show to run and that you’re nice to your higher profile guests. Stewart was, for example, always nice to RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie.”
As for an example, stewart parroted the media matters lame rebuttal of the swift vets.
October 20th, 2004 at 3:27 pm
Mea culpa, somehow I missed that. Three times. *Bad Tom! No cookie!*
Still, the “lame rebuttal” of the Swift Boat stuff was almost completely true. The only point of disagreement had to do with Cambodia, and that’s not clear in either direction, and I don’t think Stewart mentioned that part. A big part of why you don’t hear much about the Swift Boat Vets any more is because they were, in fact, full of shit about almost everything they said. That and, of course, the public simply lost interest.
October 20th, 2004 at 3:29 pm
Also, I would agree with this statement:
…if the Daily Show were actually, you know, a news program, but it just isn’t. Although I have to admit I would like to see Stewart toss some hardball questions at Marissa Tomei.
October 20th, 2004 at 3:31 pm
The SBVs were full of it, except for two issues. Media matters was equally full of shit when they countered those issues by lying about them.
October 20th, 2004 at 4:08 pm
As previously established, we’re probably never going to agree about the SBVs. What specific Media Matters lies did Stewart parrot?