I saw that Stewart is using the Fast Furious gun walking story on his show. Is he pandering to the right?
Equating Olberman with Glenn Beck, and now pointing out all this alleged hypocrisy among Democrats. Is he doing this to earn points with Republicans? What’s your opinion?
What’s the ‘Fast Furious gun walking story’??
I have to say that I seriously doubt Jon Stewart (!!) is pandering to conservatives. Certainly not based on this. 
-XT
My guess is that he’s trying to make money.
Do you have a link. I’d rather not make judgements about him before hearing what he actually is saying.
Fast & Furious was a program started by the ATF to let gun runners buy guns in the US, and sell them to the cartels in Mexico. It turns out that the ATF let all these guns “walk” to Mexico in an effort to track them back to the cartels. But they had no way of tracking them, and this whole thing was done without the cooperation of the Mexican government.
No, he’s not pandering to conservatives. He’s criticizing the Justice Department for doing a terrible job. The difference should be obvious, I think.
Everything I have seen on the issue has been just as funny as the normal Stewart commentary. My take is, if it is funny he prefers to skewer the Republicans but will gladly settle for the Democrats.
Sorry. I should have put some links and better background but I was lazy.
Wikipedia ATF gunwalking scandal
Although Stewart definitely leans left, he’s never been above skewering the Democrats (individually or collectively) when they deserve it.
Ok, watched the thing on JS talking about the Fast & Furious story…which part of it was supposed to be pandering to conservatives? I mean, it was relatively amusing (always liked JS’s dry humor and love the faces he makes :p), but I must be missing something here. I didn’t see anything that would remotely be pandering to conservatives, so could you (the OP) detail which parts YOU think are pandering to conservatives, and why?
-XT
I did think his criticisms regarding Democrats and Republicans and the invoking of executive privilege were a little shallow compared to what I am accustomed to from The Daily Show. They’re in it for laughs first and foremost but they try do be fair- and yes, both sides complain when they other invokes executive privilege, but that doesn’t mean all complaints about executive privilege are equal or that all invocations of that privilege are equally bad. That being said, no, it’s still not pandering to conservatives.
I think the problem is that these particular Republican’s mindset is that if someone is on “your side”, they must remain on your side no matter what, and never, never, never criticize anyone on “your side”.
They have seen Stewart mocking Republicans (“their guys”), therefore when he takes aim at something stupid that a Democrat does, it renders them confused.
These particular kind of Republicans are wholly, completely partisan, and they assume that everyone on “the other side” particularly someone like Stewart must be the same. It is puzzling to them that someone can judge situations individually, and not just take a completely partisan approach.
Jon is a Lefty. But!! From what I have seen, he has no issue with calling out Lefties. And besides, he is funny as shit.
Because Jon Stewart left out the part where there was a similar operation used during the George W Bush Administration, and how these Republicans had no problem with “gun walking” back then. Or how no mention of the conspiracy theory proposed by the Repulicans and Fox News. Compare it to Rachel Maddow’s show. I understand that The Daily Show is comedy but Stewart uses it to point out hypocrisy and failry criticizes Fox News for not being “fair and balanced.”
Yet, as Rachel Maddow showed, it’s clearly an example of the Republicans using anything they can to go after Obama, even if it involves crazed right wing conspiracy theories.
The problem isn’t the existence of the operation, it’s the undisputed fact that the Justice Department lost track of 2,000 guns, one of which was evidently used to kill a federal marshal and others of which must’ve been used in Mexico’s drug war, very likely harming a bunch of Mexican civilians and law enforcement and military personnel.
I notice you linked to YouTube. Those links will probably disappear once Comedy Central finds them, so here are the bits from the Daily Show site:
June 20
House Panel Holds Eric Holder in Contempt
June 21
Differentiate Your Party’s Assertion of Executive Privilege From the Previous Administration’s
Glocks and spiels
thanks.
I brought up the pandering thing after seeing Bill Maher’s criticism of Jon Stewart’s “Restoring Sanity” rally. He said that Stewart equates conservatives calling Obama, Hitler, with that of libearls calling George W Bush a war criminal, among other things.
This, combined with Stewart and Maddow’s completely different takes on “Fast & Furious” got me thinking that Stewart may be trying to appeal to atleast moderate conservatives.
I remember Stewart saying that you shouldn’t call your opponent “Hitler,” period, and addressing that to both Democrats and Republicans because both sides have done that at times.
The point of the Rally to Restore Sanity/Fear thing was that they wanted to address reasonable people of all stripes. That includes conservatives, but that’s not the same as pandering. To me, the accusation of pandering makes it sound like he is deberately taking an anti-Democrat position to impress conservatives, and I don’t think that’s the case. I think he genuinely feels that the Justice Department fucked up royally.
This is about a cable comedy show, right? A man who mocks politicians to get laughs and sell advertising time, right?
I just want to make sure we aren’t taking about another “John Stewart.”
It’s pandering to conservatives only as much as Democrats approve of dead border agents.
Yeah it’s a comedy show but a surprisingly informative. I too would also think it’s crazy to discuss Jon Stewart’s show in regards to serious issues, but after watching Fox News and some of Keith Olbermann’s rants it doesn’t seem so crazy after all.
And I assume most shows on cable and TV are trying to sell advertising time.