Jon Stewart as Bush Apologist, Ick ... (from the Personality Over Character School of Media Get-along)

Jon has done nothing with Jon. There is nothing up with him. He isn't a Bush apologist. He isn't crabbing. You have utterly mischaracterized what he said and completely missed his point, and in so doing, have demonstrated his point perfectly.

Watch it again, but leave your preconceptions behind.

If he were, d'you think he'd still have a TV show?

I liked Crossfire. On the one hand, I sort of agree with Stewart. For example Keith Olbermann is an intellectual lightweight who gets ratings by being the Left's Rush Limbaugh. On the other hand, who exactly is stopping the conversation? Few liberals in Congress are calling Bush a war criminal or being overly incendiary in their dealings with Republicans, so who cares if some people on the outside are? Why is that so distasteful to Stewart? We are a country of 300 million, there's room for less than temperate views. Further, moderation is certainly not always the answer. If abolitionists had settled on a middle of the road approach to slavery where would we be today? I don't worship on the alter of civility. Frankly, there are areas where I think the American people have been too civil in their response to their government, particularly in the regards to the bailouts and economy. Finally, I think Jon Stewart takes himself to seriously as do all infotainment stars.

baloney being spewed by both Stewart and Maddow last night. I mean, WTF was that -- other than a complete waste of an hour? Grrrrrrrr....

Stewart showed his true colors a few years ago, when he crossed the picket lines during the Writers Strike and went on the air in spite of the fact that the people who actually make him funny were fighting a very tough battle. His cover was that he was paying his writers out of his own pocket. Wow, some show of solidarity! Very generous for a multi-millionaire to give the little people some spare change. How about paying them to hold the line and maybe even joining them?

Anyway, Maddow's segment was as worthless as the rally. Neither one seemed to have a purpose, and I totally agree with you on the supposed 'call for civility'. No, that's not what we need. We need people out in the streets, demanding jobs for all, an end to the wars, restoration of the rule of law, a social safety net that isn't a cruel joke and on and on. We do not need anyone -- especially not Jon Stewart -- defending Bush. "Technically" he broke the law? Puhleeeeeze. That's usually how it's done. Or is there some other way to break it that I'm not aware of?

Is it time to stop even hoping that anything on national corporate media will be worthwhile? Would we have more time to be doing things that might bring about real change?

Stewart's defense of Bush also grated for me. Stewart said that he thinks true evil is rare and seems to deny that the system itself can manufacture evil outcomes and evil people while pursuing business as usual.

However, what I heard from Stewart was a Situationist critique of the media without any of the background. He is calling out the Society of Spectacle, the hype cycle and the trumped up hysteria that is the leading characteristic of our media "culture." I wish that they had spent more time on that and maybe name checked Guy de Bord.

Stewart's reluctance to call out George W and Condi Rice may come out of that anti-hype impulse. Stewart also obviously tries to be a gracious host to ALL his guests. I've never seen him treat a guest as a target the way Colbert sometimes does. This is a fundamentally humane thing to do but may not be what we need right now.

As for evil, I wish Stewart would look again at Dr Philip Zimbardo's work on the social pressures that result in evil, the Stanford prison experiment being one example. Stewart, I've read, majored in psychology in college and he is obviously intelligent and well-read. He should know something about how environment can transform and deform character. (Stewart is also the brother of the COO of the NYSE and now a wealthy and famous person with all that implies.)

I do think you've missed Stewart's main point, the way Maddow did, possibly because Stewart hasn't thought it through himself. The argument isn't left/right but between competence and fraud. The argument isn't partisan or ideological (and I found it useful that Stewart tried to parse those differences) but between hyped-up hysteria and reasoning based upon accurate facts and data.

Truth be told, I find some of that hype and self-righteous partisanship incorporated into the foundations of the Might Corrente Building.

said that his show's material is extremely carefully researched and that it is absolutely necessary that it be accurate. It can't be good comedy if it's based on falsehoods, misleading information, or lies.

But...he is now placing himself with the punditry, MCMers (members of the Mainstream Corporate Media), and Versailles courtiers in supporting the "Can't look backward! Can only look forward!" Can't call a crime what it is, and the BS of the powerful now trumps, like, known information and facts? Uh oh.

This is sad, very sad indeed.

But, he does now have a family, perhaps sees a conservative wave coming, and wants, needs, to keep his job and income. Living in Manhattan with kids is not cheap....

The link above has a transcript of the interview with Terry Gross, so you can read his actual words. Alas, it's a partial transcript of "highlights." Only part of his words. Drat, one would think a news organization, which has no space limitations on its web site, might realize there's very little in an interview which doesn't add information, some of it very valuable. Sheesh, NPR.

The audio runs 44:35. MP3 it and go for a nice walk in the leaves?

You're no extremist. You're just a good-old-fashioned 1950s liberal Democrat who believes in truth, justice, and the American Way.

They're the crazy ones. Halfway to fascism and don't even know it!

Stewart is pretty incoherent regarding a political philosophy, and sadly clueless when it comes to the realm of civility with sadists and war criminals. But where else are you going to find such an incisive jab at Bush's current mediafest and his evasion of responsibility? "Bush relied on his lawyers to tell him waterboarding was acceptable. On the other hand, he couldn't send federal troops to New Orleans to protect and help people because his lawyers said it was illegal. I think his lawyers just like to see people underwater." Stewart remains enjoyable as long as you don't expect something more than he is capable of delivering. Colbert, however, is much sharper and perceptive about the way our national discourse has become warped; yet he can't speak out of character without ruining the satirical facade. Too much earnest complaint only undermines the source of his humor.

Jon is trying to be too nice, and it's caused him to play the false equivalency card. He seems unable to dig himself out of that whole and is now just flailing away. It's got to be killing him on the inside that he's actually excusing torture or wars of choice after spending years railing against those things.

Aside from the false-equivalency bullshit, here are at least three things he said that were utter nonsense.

1) He wants the media to drop the left-right partisan dynamic and focus on who is corrupt and who is not corrupt. OK sounds good. Hey, I thought up a great example of corruption - when the leaders of your country are so corrupt that they break national and international laws regarding torture and the invasion of other nations. But uh-oh, it would be uncivil to talk about that level of corruption, so we better drop it.

2) We should have stopped using the "tea-bagger" thing after a day? Are you fucking kidding me? That's comic gold. Why would a comedian, who excels at base humor of this nature, be scolding others for employing the same sort of humor? That was just nonsensical...

3) Lefties like me have no problem simultaneously lauding FDRs record on domestic issues and his political skill, while condemning his internment of the Japanese as evil. Nope, I didn't have to re-examine my orthodoxy at all, Jon. Likewise, I love what LBJ did for black people, I just wish he didn't murder 4 million Vietnamese while he was doing it.