Jon Stewart just SLAMMED Stephen F. Hayes

Cafe Society
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It’s all over the damn Web.

The bleeped word sounded like “clusterfuck” to me, too, and it fits the sentence.
It amazed me how Hays never seriously tried to defend the factuality of anything he said. Whenever Stewart pointed at something, he’d actually agree. His only replies were boilerplate “If the President knew 9/11 was going to happen …” and so forth. All he showed was that he’s a whore - he wrote a book on commission, basically just paraphrasing Feith, and now he’s doing the obligatory round of interviews - not that he believes a fuckin’ word of what he himself wrote. His publisher wanted something for people to grab from the kiosk when they’re, yes, waiting for a plane, thought there’d be a market, and hired a hack to put some words together. How is Stewart wrong for demonstrating that?

But those of you holding Stewart to any higher standards than you would any other satirical comic are seriously misguided. There’s a reason the show is on Comedy Central, folks. Yes, he can do a straight-up interview as well as, hell, *better * than anybody else with a regular show, but he is hardly *obliged * to. Same for Letterman, while we’re at it - his shows right after 9/11 were as sober and incisive as anything Cronkite ever did.

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I absolutely agree with you. At his best, Stewart is a gracious host who asks insightful questions with some humor thrown in. I think he’s an exceptionally bright person, and I imagine his mind probably races constantly with ideas. It seems like he occasionally just gets a little too eager and cuts off his guests in mid-sentence.

I don’t agree at all with the characterization made by others that Stewart’s interviews are a “bit”. The earlier field interviews by the “correspondents” are definitely satire, very tongue-in-cheek, and often are done at the expense of the interviewee (though sometimes the interviewee plays along), but Stewart’s interviews are not like that. They are done the same way as any talk show like Leno, Letterman, Conan, etc.

I watched the segment in question again at the 1:00 showing, and Stewart definitely displayed a little remorse for pouncing on the guest like that. When he made the “unsubstantiated” comment, Stewart immediately got a look on his face like he thought he had gone a little too far. I think it came out snippier than he intended. His quips are usually in jest, and I think he realized that he had let himself get away from his usual persona.

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Not the least of which is: he usually has read the book. I bet this puts him in the distinct minority of interviewers that an author meets on his book tour.

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I didn’t mean to suggest that his interviews were *nothing but * a bit. While it’s clear that he approaches an interview with a mind toward mining it for riff material–as a bit, if you will–but I also find him among the most insightful interviewers on television. I was explaining his approach, which was meant in no way to dismiss his results.

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I thought that Jon went beyond the pale. It disturbed me mostly because he has been doing well at bringing in people who are political in nature and discussing the issues. Jon (and the audience) is (are) generally liberal, but he is able to bring in both cons and libs and talk the issues. He has an undercurrent comment that goes something like "don’t you think that (group) are actually good people looking out for the best of the US, " except for Dick Cheney (Cyborg/baby killer). He had Bush’s re-election guy in a few months ago and it was a non-threatening milquetoast interview.

The thing is he has these people on his show. His views might be somewhat polarized, but he has a dialog. If he attacks guests on the other side, they might not come to plug books, talk issues and we are left with a show that is as polarized as O’Reilly on the right or Franken/Garaffalo on the left. BTW when Garaffalo was interviewed re. their radio network, I (as a liberal) thought that she needed to be tranquillized.

I am somewhat upset that this type of feedback cannot easily be directed to the daily show. Comedy central has a blanket send an e-mail, where you pick the show. If I submitted a suggestion, he might get it in a few weeks. Sheesh.

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Just to address your curiosity about Jon Stewart and McCain, kaylasdad99,
Jon Stewart *slobbers over * McCain regularly. In fact, IIRC, at the end of the most recent interview he did with him, he murmured something along the lines of “You’re my President” at the very end of the interview to loud cheers before he cut to commercial.

(FTR, I’m a fairly rabid liberal and I love Jon Stewart and like Senator McCain quite a bit. Anyway :slight_smile: . )

And IMO, Stewart did absolutely cream Jennifer Love Hewitt. It was embarassing. He seems to have very little patience with people who come on his show and bullshit about how fabulous their unforgiveably crappy-ass movie is. My fantasy is that he sees it as a public service - saving you, the viewing public, 10 bucks. Although I have to say that I don’t necessarily need Jon Stewart to clue me into the fact that “Garfield” is going to be a dog. ::Ba-da-bum::

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I can answer that. It’s been a couple years since I saw it, but the unbelievable coolness factor has seared it permanently into my brain. However, subsequent brain-searings may have mixed things up a bit, so this is all a bit paraphrased.

The interview was with Posh and Baby Spice (I think. I lost my Spice Girls Spotter’s Guide, and might not have identified them correctly.) Normal celebrity bullshit interview, neither of them are particularly interesting (especially Posh, as I recall) and Jon’s doing his best to keep the audience’s attention, and doing pretty well. He’s getting a lot of laughs. Baby seems to be enjoying herself, but Posh is clearly not getting most of his jokes. About half way through, she says, “I don’t understand why the audience is laughing so much. You’re not that funny.”

Things get pretty quiet, and you can hear some gasps from the audience. The way she said it, it seemed like Posh was genuinely confused about why people were laughing. About a beat after she says it, she realizes how insulting it was, and tries to backpeddle. She says something about how Americans and British have different senses of humor, the British preferring “sarcastic humor.” Jon looks at her for a second, and then says, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but everything we do on this show is sarcastic.”

The thing I remember best about that is how hard Baby Spice was laughing. Just about the funniest damn thing I’ve ever seen on TV.

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Michael Moore’s on tomorrow. Should be interesting.

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I love the Daily Show, and I don’t mind when they skewer conservatives - as long as they skewer liberals, too. I thought the Cheney ‘gotcha’ was brilliant, and hilarious.

But here’s my problem. There’s a fine line between being a comedy show, and being a serious political show. Trying to be both at the same time is dangerous, and puts extra responsibility on the host. Jon Stewart has (deservedly) developed a reputation as a very good interpreter of the news, and as a result he now gets more than his share of very serious people coming on his show. Which is fine. But when you have Richard Clark or Colin Powell sitting across from you, or even Stephen Hayes, you have to be careful about how you use your comedy. Because it’s very easy to use it to shut down your subject and gain an unfair advantage over them.

If Tim Russert asks a tough question on “Meet the Press”, you can assume that the interviewee will have a chance to respond to it. If Jon Stewart asks a question with a little twist to it, he can still make a point, but deny the interviewee the chance to respond. It becomes an exercise in setting up a pinata and knocking it down. And you can always change the subject with a joke, or work in the last word with a little comedic cheap shot.

You can also pick and choose who you decide to be ‘funny’ with. John Stewart let Richard Clark speak at length. He asked him softball questions, then let him speak. Then some conservative decides, “Okay, I’ll do the show”, only to find out that this time he’s nothing but a straight man for a whole bunch of pointed and vicious jokes.

Jon Stewart is turning into a political powerhouse. Apparently, more people get their news from the Daily Show than from any other source. And sometimes he plays it straight and does serious interviews. If he wants to do that, he needs to be consistent.

I thought his interview with Hayes was unfair, but more to the point, it wasn’t very good. Because I never did find out even remotely what the book was about. Stewart held it up, basically called it crap, and that’s about it. About the only thing we found out was that some of the source material came from Douglas Feith’s material for the National Security Council. Other than that, nada. Every time Hayes tried to say something, Stewart interrupted him, insulted him, or launched into a little diatribe. And most of it was NOT funny. It sounded more like Stewart lecturing someone who he felt needed lecturing to.

As for Hayes, I think what happened is that a few minutes after he sat down he realized that this was a setup, and the interview wasn’t going to be fair, so he just shut up and offered noncommittal comments until it was over.

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OK, I’m back to this thread. I was reading it earlier today then was called away, so I apologize if I’m retreading a bunch of posts but here’s my take on it:

I love the first 15 minutes of every Daily Show. But I rarely (if ever) watch the interviews. Because - quite frankly - Jon Stewart can be an asshole, at least as far as interviewing goes. I swear, every time anyone comes on his show the first 15 seconds are a fight to see who’s gonna be the “alpha male” with the interview. I’ve seen Stewart be out and out rude to people like Jennifer Love Hewitt and Rebecca Romjin, yet if someone comes on the show and “out weirds” Stewart - like Val Kilmer did a month or so ago - JS just kind of hangs back and lets them ramble.

But what’s worse is that most of the time, JS just won’t shut the fuck up and let the people answer. I swear, if I had the spare time, I’d count the number of words spoken by JS and his guest and I can promise you that JS would have a substantial majority of the words. Even for “fluff” guests like JLH, he asks a question, the celeb says “Well, Jon it took 3 months to film this…” and JS immediately butts in with “So why do they make a movie of a cartoon that peaked 15 years ago?” It grates on my nerves.

Now, political people… That’s another story. Yes, JS is a liberal. Yes, he bashes conservatives. Any conservatives going on his show should know that, just as any liberal going on the Limbaugh show should know his bias. I understand this and know how it works. Yet, while JS always says that his show is “fake news”, he is getting a stream of “more important” political guests as the show goes on, so he is in fact, “doing news”. And then let some poor conservative schmuck come out and they’re barely able to say three words duing the entire interview. If someone even comes close to besting JS, he’ll change the subject or resort to cracking a stupid joke.

Now this is not to say that JS is the only one. O’Reilly does the same thing, to be sure. But ya know, I was flipping through the dial last night and O’Reilly was talking about how Michael Moore wouldn’t come on his show and how MM told the LA Times(??) that he “tore O’Reilly to shreds” on his last appearance. To prove this was BS, O’Reilly played the entire tape of MM’s last appearance and… well, quite frankly, O’Reilly let MM ramble on a fair amount. While it was obvious that O’Reilly didn’t like MM, he was (jeez - am I really gonna say this?) far more “fair and balanced” ** and polite** than JS ever is with a guest. I wish everyone could have seen that interview to compare it to the hatchet job JS did to John Stossell. You’d know where I’m coming from. And I hate John Stossell!

I agree with the poster that says that JS needs to be careful. Yes, his show is “fake news”. But if he’s gonna interview the “quality” of people that he apparently wants to, he needs to clean up his interviewing skills. Hell, even Pat Buchanan was nicer to Eleanor Clift on The McLaughlin Group than JS is to most of his guests!

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Rex, you had me for a second, then you TOTALLY lost me. I agree that Stewart got a little snippy with Hayes, but I have no friggin’ idea what universe you are in where Jon Stewart is worse than Bill O’Reilly. He’s MISTER ROGERS compared to O’Reilly.

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I don’t know what happened there. I thought I typed “More people between the ages of 18 and 24 get their news from the Daily Show”. That’s what it’s supposed to say, anyway.

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You were probably getting it mixed up with one of their taglines, like “More people get their news from the Daily Show than probably should.”

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Thank you. I rewatched it today thinking “wow, I was tired the first time but I would think I would have remembered better…” but no, it really just wasn’t all that bad. Heck the guest didn’t really seem all that flustered, even. Yes it was more biting than he usually is, but it was still pretty mild. I think this is a molehill >> mountain situation.

Weighing in: I think the airplane reading reference was intentional. Poor taste, but intentional.

I am now wishing I had seen the JLH interview… though I honestly can’t picture what she looks like. I’ll go Google her in a minute and see. Maybe I do know who she is and I’m just brainfarting.

The Daily Show is one of the best half-hours on TV right now. I absolutely love it. (One of my favorite parts is the announcer who pitches their free taping tickets. He says the silliest things! “Do you enjoy things? Then why not come to a free taping of the Daily Show…” “Ever wonder what 300 identical chairs looks like? Then why not come…”)

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My favorite of these was, “Love The Daily Show, but hate watching it on TV?”

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Jesus, that Michael Moore interview was just one softball after another. I’m surprised Stewart didn’t start fellating Moore at some point.

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Well, now, all you conservatives: Michael Moore was just on The Daily Show and Jon Stewart asked him all sorts of hard questions, made fun of him, and was really mean. See, he’s not partisan!

Just kidding. He was really easy on him. He did interrupt him to make jokes several times, though.

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As Jon always says, Dewey, this is basic cable. Maybe if he gets a show on HBO…

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One month 'till Bill Maher returns…

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Well let’s see here we just had a guy produce a book that was full of bogus and weak links that the author didn’t even pretend were true even though he presented the book as facts. That Jon Stewart had just done a show about the commission that found no links.

Then we have a movie where the director comes on admits up front that it’s partisan. Jon Stewart respects that (even though he calls liberals ‘retarded’ after Moore claims the majority of the nation is liberal) and Jon just hadn’t don’t a show where the current news was debunking the facts in the movie.

I’d be willing to bet that even though Stewart likes Moore a million times more then any conservative author the conservative author would have gotten the softball treatment too if the situation had been like Moore’s. After all we’ve seen him treat conservatives like that in the past.