Yeah, Jon Stewart has done plenty of bits exposing the Republicans for the hypocritical assholes that they are.
But tonight he did a brilliant takedown of the GOP for their blocking of the 9/11 responders bill, even having a serious discussion about it with a panel of NYC fire fighters. The kicker was at the end when he got Mike Huckabee to admit the Republicans were in the wrong on this (and it was also kind of funny watching him squirm as he tried to defend Fox News’ “coverage” of this, which basically consisted of just one guy talking about it).
Once again, Stewart proves that he’s one of the few people in mainstream media who has the balls to blatantly call the Republicans out on their bullshit.
I was thinking about a thread about this show with another theme. It seems to me that Stewart crossed a line from comedy to advocacy journalism. I think the show has been sidling that general direction for a while, particularly with the Rally to Restore Sanity (which I went to).
I’m not sure that this is a bad thing. But it seems to me in pretty direct contradiction to what Jon was claiming in the long Rachel Maddow interview a few weeks ago.
A completely thorough smack down of the failure of the news media in this country and the utter heartlessness of the Republican party. The Democrats are only slightly less heartless because we’ve had nine years in which to bring up this issue as evocatively as Stewart has done in 20 minutes. Damn Congress to hell.
I just saw the show, as it’s up on the website. That was incredible. And I see nothing with advocacy journalism in this case. Someone had to do it, as no one else would.
Still, if you need the comedy and stuff, go see the extended interview with Huckabee. I must admit that the guy is one of the Republicans I dislike least, even with his obvious political spinning.
Here’s the permanent link.
No. You might argue that it was the most “important” episode, I guess. But it wasn’t what I look for from the Daily Show.
Now if only he’d spend an equal amount of time and energy exposing the Democrats for the hypocritical assholes THEY are.
No, it’s not their best episode ever. It was time spent on a worthy cause that means something to them, since they’ve been hammering the Republicans on this one for a while. Not to take away from the effort, but it’s not like it was hard to make the Republicans look like crap on this issue since their priorities have been abysmal and their decision making incoherent and inexcusable. It’s true that this is more of an advocacy position for Stewart, although he did criticize the news networks for ignoring the issue. I can’t say that bothers me, though.
My vote for Best Daily Show Ever is still December 13, 2000, the Al Gore Concedes episode.
You are right. He crossed that line on this issue because clearly it is important to him plus it is the epitome of the political BS that is going on in Washington. By the way, the Democratic Congress has been introducing this bill for a long while now and it has been blocked by the GOP everytime. It isn’t new.
I only saw part of it, but thought it was well deserved. If the Republicans had simply said it was unfair to the senators and their families to throw their plans into disarray instead of doing whatever is the normal process I might have let it pass, but it takes some balls to claim a desire to help people at Christmas is disrespectful to Christmas.
Jesus must be rolling in his grave.
Here’s the clip from a few days ago where he first tears into the Republicans on this. It’s excellent:
He does so regularly. He’s hammered the Obama administration and the Democrats pretty hard for waffling on a lot of issues like DADT and Guantanamo.
I know, I’ve seen that. That’s why I said “as much time and energy.”
The first time he brought this up was in early August:
Not to say that they Democrats don’t have their share of hypocrites. They do. But simply put, it’s the GOP in the past few years that has taken hypocrisy to levels that were previously unimagined, which is probably why he expends more effort skewering them.
It only makes sense to spend an “equal amount of time and energy” exposing hypocrisy on both sides if you believe that the level of hypocrisy and assholishness is actually equivalent on both sides. Otherwise you’re just making a false equivalence. I think a better standard to strive for is spending a proportionate amount of time and energy criticizing hypocrisy.
I haven’t seen last night’s episode yet, but this has been an issue for Stewart for some time now. I think it’s probably the angriest I’ve seen him get about any issue on the Daily Show yet; even CNN and Jim Kramer only got the attention they did because Kramer decided to take a poke at Stewart and Stewart fought back.
I think the best ep was the one after Vice President Cheney shot his hunting partner friend in the face while shooting at birds that were basically deployed as skeet. The video game was hilarious.
That was some Thomas Nast meets Upton Sinclair worthy muckraking. And I mean that as a compliment.
Huckabee reminded me of the interview of Wallace Shawn’s Stuart Best character on Murphy Brown. (Brown: “You really want to reinter the Japanese?” Best: “…yessss…”)
He’s not a journalist, has not only never claimed to be one but has emphatically denied that he is, and (unlike Fox) he’s under no obligation to be fair and balanced, though that said he probably is the most fair and balanced voice on television.
Why? What possible issues are there about the Democrats that aren’t already covered by FOX, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and the rest of the right wing media?
Equal time is not balance. I think if you consider the orders of magnitude of the hypocrisy, he is pretty balanced.