He does, but I know you don’t see it because it doesn’t bit your in-head narrative.
-Joe
When he was in D.C. he interviewed Obama, and it was anything but an egg-shell softshoe interview. In fact Obama looked a bit p.o.d a couple of times.
Almost all journalism is the advocacy type, otherwise it’s boring. This show was excellent. Sadly the Huckabee interview showed the problem television journalism faces. Huckabee was lying his ass off and playing partisan games and Stewart couldn’t hold his feet to the fire without scaring off future guests.
None of the major networks mentioned the problem at all. Not one word in several months. Fox mentioned it for about 30 seconds in a several month period and I don’t remember for CNN. As much as Stewart was pointing out the hypocrisy that the Republicans get riding 9/11 (which the Democrats don’t do), he was exposing the networks for constantly riding the 9/11 gravy train of easy no legwork reporting and not reporting this serious problem.
And isn’t exposing Democrats the job of Fox, Rush, Beck and Insanity? While Stewart does some of it, his primary political target, Republicans are not exposed at all by those sources. And it isn’t as if the amount of hypocrisy by the parties is equal. But that is another series of threads, isn’t it?
I thought he did a good job with Huckabee. When Huckabee tried to say the Dems were politicizing this issue, Stewart called him out on it and said to their discredit they weren’t. And when Huckabee said that Fox was covering the issue, Stewart pointed out how it was just one guy that had mentioned it, compared to all the talking heads who had devoted hours to the Mosque issue.
I was about to start this very same thread, but also mention that Colbert’s first segment was about what Jesus ACTUALLY said about helping the poor, and was also fantastic.
This may not have been the “best” episode of the Daily Show, but it was incredibly powerful.
As far as the “equal time” issue goes, didn’t Stewart say the Democrats were useless assholes for failing to get this issue dealt with? I think it’s in one of the episodes that were linked in this thread.
I see they actually said the Democrats were “fucking pussies” and that Congress was “fucking terrible.” Same idea.
I suspect Steward would like nothing better than to not have to do this kind of advocacy, which the “real” media should be doing, not a comedy show. He’s said that time and again. Fox is about as fair and balanced as the old Pravda, of course, but I suspect none of the mass media wants to offend the people who give them stories or who might give them stories in the future, and so are big pussies. Or their corporate bosses are scared of getting Congress angry, and being likened to NPR. During the Vietnam era the news took a while to challenge the Administration, but they got there. Now, nothing.
He also corrected Huckabee when he tried to claim it was because it wasn’t a standalone bill.
I remember an interview with Gore Vidal many years ago- I think Reagan was president but it may have been Carter (he didn’t think much of either man’s intelligence) when Vidal got frustrated at the interviewer’s factual errors and jingoism and said “Look, you are used to dealing with very stupid delightedly ignorant uninformed men like most journalists and the president! Let me acquaint you with fact!” I like Stewart much better than Vidal because he can do the same thing with a lot more tact.
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I watched the panel discussion part. It was certainly admirable, but kind of strained at the same time. Not a bad change of pace, but not something I’d want to see Stewart trying on a regular basis.
My Jon Stewart shrine is staying up for an extra year.
I watch the show just so that I can hear at least one sane voice talk about politics. This episode was great because of the amount of hypocrisy it cut through in just a few segments. All the arguments against passing this bill were gracefully obliterated while pulling no emotional punches.
It was embarrassing to watch those four men up there talk about how they still don’t have health care for responding to 9/11.
I stopped caring about Stewart’s role as a journalist/comedian. He can do whatever he feels like doing if it will help get health care for 9/11 first responders.
I don’t think he’s changing his format, but time is of the essence in passing this bill and nobody else seems to be doing anything about it. Stewart has said he would love if if he could devote himself completely to silly stuff.
I think this segment might actually have some benefit in getting the legislation passed. If so then it will ultimately do far more good than Olbermann preaching to the choir about how deranged Glenn Beck is or Limbaugh preaching about how evil Obama is or even the more moderate professionally concerned Anderson Cooper shouting from the closet about how awful bullying is for weeks on end (a ratings winning concern-du-moment that was picked up by many, most of whom seemed to think bullying is an exclusively homophobic issue). Perhaps this will actually get some advocacy by somebody with political power now; they’d be fools not to pick it up as to use his own words he handed it to them on a silver platter.
I hope you’re right, but it’s not that far from “That was fun to try just this once” to “Maybe we should try that thing we did a few months ago” to “Maybe we should do this as a weekly segment” to “This is our show now.” It’s not like there’s a shortage of very important issues that one could convene a heartrending panel about. And I don’t doubt that Stewart loves the silly stuff, but if he didn’t have such an appetite for the serious as well, the show would be closer to how it was in under Kilborn.
[QUOTE=Snooooopy]
And I don’t doubt that Stewart loves the silly stuff, but if he didn’t have such an appetite for the serious as well, the show would be closer to how it was in under Kilborn.
[/QUOTE]
Or as Kilborn’s better known now, “the guy who did that 5 questions thing then vanished into obscurity while Jon Stewart made his former show globally recognized as awesome”.
Thank you for this point. As a former bullee who is straight, this implied message of this campaign had bothered me.
We now return you to your regular scheduled programming.
I imagine he’s been doing that for a while now, considering the history of Christendom. Or not, depending on how much of the resurrection myth you buy.
Jon’s best point is that the broadcast nets have ignored this utterly. I knew about it from the internet, I didn’t realize that CBS-ABC-NBC hadn’t mentioned it. But Katie Couric will take time to plug iTunes. They’re just advertising shills now, aren’t they?
This is freaking sad.
I’m glad it was done because it needed to be done, but I had to change the channel after I burst into tears.
Well he drove coverage at least a little bit. Anderson Cooper did 11 minutes on the topic last night, without once mentioning that The Daily Show had shamed them into it.