# Jon Stewart 9/6/05 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 7, 2005, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476 "2005-09-07T05:03:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![HPL](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3da27b/32.png) [@HPL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HPL)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/41 "2005-09-07T23:11:56Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > I thought for a minute I was watching the Colbert Report. [Steven Colbert] It’s French, Bitch! [/Steven Colbert] ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/42 "2005-09-07T23:13:02Z")
An example of Jon citing his argument on last night’s show was when he showed the clip of GWB saying that no one predicted the levee would break, aftere which JS rattled off a list of all the governmental and news organizations which had predicted just that. He capped it by showing a clip of a levee worker in New Orleans from before the hurricane saying that even a moderate storm would cause the levee to break and deluge the city. Also, some of what he was doing really didn’t require cites. Clips of Bush chuckling about how he used to get wasted in New Orleans or expressing his optimism about Trent Lott building a new house pretty much speak for themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/43 "2005-09-07T23:13:14Z")
> [@HPL](#): > > [Steven Colbert] > It’s French, Bitch! > [/Steven Colbert] Yes. Colbert _Réport_, please. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/44 "2005-09-07T23:15:12Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Yes. Colbert _Réport_, please. \ it would be _Le rapport Colbert_ in proper French. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/45 "2005-09-07T23:15:24Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > It was convincing that Bush did a poor job of appearing presidential in the days leading up to and following Katrina. What it did NOT do is convince me that anything he did actually mattered. What we needed was something like: > “Here is Bush sitting around on his ranch doing nothing on Sunday as the hurricane bears down on New Orleans… _and here is a warehouse full of FEMA supplies sitting in Alabama waiting to be mobilized and shipped out, which it can be on 12 hour notice, but no one gave that notice, and the FEMA director reports directly to President Bush_” or something like that. But that underestimates the role of president as figurehead, to “appear presidential,” which is the whole point. When the Bush Administration has the president make an appearance in New Orleans and has the news organizations cover it, is he actually pulling evacuees out of the wreckage and taking them home via Air Force One? No, he’s making an appearance, to _show_ people that the administration is aware of the crisis and is doing something about it. Even the Administration would acknowledge that the visit is a symbolic one, not a practical one. So it’s perfectly valid to judge it on the basis of its symbolic value instead of its practical value. And it failed, miserably. I appreciate what you’re saying about objectivity even in fake news, but I think you’re off-base with this criticism. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/46 "2005-09-07T23:34:43Z")
> [@AuntiePam](#): > > This is true. But the difference between TDS and the politicians (and others) that TDS goes after is that TDS doesn’t **cause** the problems and situations they’re making fun of. > > Stewart can back off and plead comedy because nobody gets hurt. When the government lies and obfuscates and makes excuses, it has an effect. > > Did anyone see Ted Koppel try to get an answer from that bureaucrat in Gretna, about evacuees being turned back at gunpoint? Ted must have asked him three times about what really happened, and the man talked and talked but didn’t even get close to responding. > > I thought for a minute I was watching the Colbert Report. I certainly wasn’t trying to imply that when TDS does it it’s worse (or even on the same level) as when politicians do it. I was just saying that I think if Jon expects to hold his guests to some standard, he shouldn’t take the easy way out when his guests (or his audience, in the other segments) try to hold him to that standard as well. I searched for it, because I don’t think I could make the point quite as well as what I read did. It was **Sam Stone** in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=331921): > [@Sam Stone](#): > > Stewart can be one of the best interviewers out there, but if he has a fault it’s that he uses the ‘it’s just a comedy show!’ angle too much to give him an unfair advantage. It goes like this: John makes a deadly serious point, maybe even raising his voice and attacking his guest. Sometimes at considerable length (there was a point in the Hitchens interview where John must have lectured for about 30 seconds straight - an eternity in a five minute interview). Then he asks the guest to respond to the point he’s making, and when the guest starts to speak John interrupts with a funny line, everyone laughs, and the guest’s point is derailed. Or if the guest comes back with a heated point of his own, he’ll get the, “WHOA? We’re just a little comedy show here!” schtick. ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/47 "2005-09-07T23:35:34Z")
> [@Garfield226](#): > > Someone mentioned it in another Daily Show thread a while back: Jon can hit pretty hard with his questions and seems to like making some guests squirm (deservedly). However, if a guest hits back, Jon backs off and makes a quick joke to derail the point. Whoever it was said it a lot more eloquently than I just did, but Jon does, sometimes (and unfairly, IMO) hide behind the “fake news” aspect…when it’s convenient. But it’s not as self-serving as you make it sound. I think if anything, the cries for “cite!” underscores why it’s important to keep reminding people it’s the “fake news” – it’s not to cover their own asses, it’s to remind the _viewers_ that they’re not a real news organization and shouldn’t be treated as such. They read papers and watch news channels the same as the rest of us, and then they make comedy out of it. You have to always be aware of where they’re getting their information from, their bias towards it, and what they’re going to do with it, or else you’ll start to treat them as the real thing. It’s not just that they don’t have an obligation to present themselves as a real news source, _we_ have the obligation to remember that it’s a comedy show. So they keep reminding us. Now, in the case of “The Daily Show,” the basis for most of their comedy is that it is based in truth – they can and do put their own spin on it and get absurd with it, but if they just started making stuff up, then the comedy just wouldn’t work. As a result, I don’t feel that out of the loop when I consider that I get almost all my news from them; I can predict their spin and the kind of stuff they’re going to cover, and can separate the “real” facts from their fiction. But I have to always remember that they’re comedians, not reporters. And they do a good job of always reminding us of that. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/48 "2005-09-07T23:42:15Z")
Can anyone cite an example of Jon Stewart getting called on something that was factually untrue and then using the “fake news” line to shrug it off? ---
**Author:** ![SolGrundy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@SolGrundy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SolGrundy)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/49 "2005-09-07T23:47:53Z")
> [@Larry Mudd](#): > > Probably because that one’s so obvious and overriding that it’s safe to let it remain unstated. Um… apparently it’s not obvious and overriding enough. What are you thinking is the obvious “G?” ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [September 7, 2005, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/50 "2005-09-07T23:56:13Z")
“GWB elected to office,” natch. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/51 "2005-09-08T00:02:35Z")
> [@detop](#): > > \ it would be _Le rapport Colbert_ in proper French. 😃 Colbert’s name is French, not the show’s. 😉 \ ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/52 "2005-09-08T00:10:42Z")
> [@SolGrundy](#): > > But that underestimates the role of president as figurehead, to “appear presidential,” which is the whole point. When the Bush Administration has the president make an appearance in New Orleans and has the news organizations cover it, is he actually pulling evacuees out of the wreckage and taking them home via Air Force One? No, he’s making an appearance, to _show_ people that the administration is aware of the crisis and is doing something about it. Even the Administration would acknowledge that the visit is a symbolic one, not a practical one. So it’s perfectly valid to judge it on the basis of its symbolic value instead of its practical value. And it failed, miserably. > > I appreciate what you’re saying about objectivity even in fake news, but I think you’re off-base with this criticism. As I see it, the president has to play two roles in a crisis like this: (1) Be a reassuring figurehead, father figure, I-feel-your-pain-guy, etc. (2) Actually do meaningful things TDS did a good job of convincing me that Bush has failed miserably at (1). However, it didn’t really address (2) at all… so it could be the case that: (a) there were lots of meaningful things he could have done, and he did them, and things would have been even WORSE off if he didnt’ do them (b) there were lots of meaningful things he could have done, and he did few if any of them or (c) there was relatively little meaningful that he could have done Watching TDS, I get the feeling that Jon Stewart is convinced that (b) is the case. But he didn’t really convince me of that at all… ---
**Author:** ![treis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bc79bd/32.png) [@treis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/treis)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/53 "2005-09-08T00:49:07Z")
What about the whole thing with the Levees? It certainly seems if Bush thought no one could have seen the levees breaking, when in fact many people did, he dropped the ball in preparing for that scenario. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/54 "2005-09-08T01:15:04Z")
> [@treis](#): > > What about the whole thing with the Levees? It certainly seems if Bush thought no one could have seen the levees breaking, when in fact many people did, he dropped the ball in preparing for that scenario. I feel like this conversation isn’t going anywhere, but… that certainly showed him to be uninformed about the situation. But, would a better president have actually fixed the levees ahead of time, thus actually making things materially better? Or would a better president have just known more about the situation afterwards, thus being a better Leader Figure? That’s the question I would have liked to see addressed (on TDS or elsewhere). ---
**Author:** ![The\_New\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@The\_New\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_New_Guy)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/55 "2005-09-08T01:16:41Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Did The Daily Show convince me that Bush appears to have done little and been out of touch? Yes. Did it convince me that Bush actually failed in important substantive and practical things that he could and should have done, and that if someone else had been president the people of New Orleans would have been better off in an immediate and material fashion? No. I strongly suspect that that’s true, but I felt like Jon Stewart was taking that fact for granted, and also taking for granted that everyone else would also take it for granted, because of how much we all hate Bush. I think you’re forgetting that this was the first show after a week vacation. Did you really want Stewart to recap the entire disaster, and go into excruciating detail about the failure to get to all the people who were trapped there for 5 days? Do you really think there’s anyone on the planet who hasn’t heard about it yet? I suspect that had the show been on last week, they would indeed have covered those details. But at this point, to suggest that anyone needs to _prove_ that there were material failures in important substantive and practical things that needed to be done, before they can talk about the disaster, is kind of like saying you can’t talk about 9/11 without first proving that airplanes crashed into buildings. I’m sorry, but it’s a GIVEN that there were failures in dealing with the hurricane aftermath. The Daily Show is for entertainment, not to bore us to tears by recapping what we’ve been hearing all last week. > [@](#): > > TDS did a good job of convincing me that Bush has failed miserably at (1). However, it didn’t really address (2) at all… so it could be the case that: > (a) there were lots of meaningful things he could have done, and he did them, and things would have been even WORSE off if he didnt’ do them > (b) there were lots of meaningful things he could have done, and he did few if any of them > or > (c) there was relatively little meaningful that he could have done He’s the President, and it is therefore his responsibility to make sure things are done correctly. You can blame things on his underlings, but as the boss, he is ultimately responsible. I don’t understand what these “meaningful things” are that you refer to. Of course nobody expected him to get in a boat and personally go pick people up, but we DO expect him, as president, to be responsible for the federal agency that is entrusted with the task of dealing with such emergencies. For Christ’s sake, I even heard Bill O’ Reilly admit that Bush waited too long. I mean, at what point does something become a given? ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/56 "2005-09-08T01:42:58Z")
::: Moderator interupteth ::: Just a reminder: this is Cafe Society, where we discuss arts and entertainment. A discussion of the humor in the Daily Show is fine, but please leave the political discussion for Great Debates. ---
**Author:** ![detop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bcef8e/32.png) [@detop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/detop)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/57 "2005-09-08T02:06:54Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Colbert’s name is French, not the show’s. 😉 \ \ but what you wrote was not French. I was correcting that 😛 \ ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_Angel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d26b3c/32.png) [@Johnny\_Angel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_Angel)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/58 "2005-09-08T03:11:15Z")
**jsc1953** wrote: > [@](#): > > But I wanted to jump in to add this: last night, my local news station pulled a TDS on Scott McClellan – they edited his news conference, putting together a montage of him saying “Blame Game” repeatedly. This is from a RealNews show…holy crap! TDS is taking over! The first rule of The Blame Game – do not talk about The Blame Game! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 4:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/59 "2005-09-08T04:03:28Z")
> [@detop](#): > > \ but what you wrote was not French. I was correcting that 😛 \ You’re absolutely right, but it wasn’t supposed to be French. I’m pretty sure the accent and “Re-POR” pronunciation are the show’s official title. ---
**Author:** ![Tracy\_Lord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@Tracy\_Lord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tracy_Lord)\ **Post date:** [September 8, 2005, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476/60 "2005-09-08T04:57:53Z")
And of course, “It’s French, bitch!” is Mr. Colbert’s tagline. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jon-stewart-9-6-05/320476.md?page=4)