[Steven Colbert]
It’s French, Bitch!
[/Steven Colbert]
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.
Yes. Colbert Réport, please.
<nitpick> it would be Le rapport Colbert in proper French. 
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.
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:
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.
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?
Um… apparently it’s not obvious and overriding enough. What are you thinking is the obvious “G?”
“GWB elected to office,” natch.
Colbert’s name is French, not the show’s. 
</nitpick>
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…
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).
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.
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?
::: 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.
<nitpicking the nitpick> but what you wrote was not French. I was correcting that 
</nitpicking the nitpick>
jsc1953 wrote:
The first rule of The Blame Game – do not talk about The Blame Game!
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.
And of course, “It’s French, bitch!” is Mr. Colbert’s tagline.