Digby takes down Jon Stewart (h/t Elia):
The interesting thing about all this to me is that the left’s original critique of the mainstream media was that they affected this pose of being “objective” with this he said/she said . ( Jay Rosen has developed an entire thesis about it, called “the view from nowhere.”) And Stewart isn’t doing that exactly, even though he takes great pride in drawing an equivalence between the politics of Fox, which is owned by a giant corporation with an explicit, coordinated partisan goal and the “politics” of MSNBC which is also owned by a giant corporation and has allowed a couple of liberal voices to speak in public for purely pecuniary reasons. Instead, he’s telling liberals (nobody else cares what he thinks) that it’s more important to behave in a dignified, fair fashion than to stand up for your beliefs in a way that could be perceived as unseemly or one-sided. That makes you as bad as the other side.
Except, of course, it really doesn’t. It’s really about what you’re fighting for. Tea partiers were trying to stop the federal government from reforming our health care system so that middle class workers will not go broke or die if they get sick. The Wisconsin protesters are trying to stop the Republican governor from making it illegal for them to belong to a union so that they can live a decent middle class life. Can we all see the pattern here? I’m sorry that people are misbehaving and failing to have the Oxford style debate that Stewart seems to think we should have, but this is a big argument that’s taking place and I’m fairly sure that it’s not going to be resolved by having some elite representatives of both sides sitting around Charlie Rose’s table hashing it all out and then going out for drinks afterwards. Neither do I think that’s what’s important. If the Tea partiers had been well-behaved, would it have made their noxious politics any better? I don’t think so.
Calls for”civility”are usually just a way to shut people up and sadly, I’m fairly sure that the only people who listen to Stewart are liberals who are getting the idea that it’s wrong to get in the streets or call out the other side in rough language. Conservatives just think he’s a useful idiot. I find this attitude very perplexing coming from a comedian, especially one who commonly does things which could be perceived as unfair, silly and undignified.
Update. Okay, I admit that Digby took it all too far in that last paragraph I excerpted.
Update. h/t Jim for title.
Comrade Mary
Dead fucking on. I actually yelled at my tv last night when Stewart feigned shock at the senators running away instead of fighting.
Comrade Luke
I have loved Jon Stewart for a long time, but when he got up at the Rally to Restore An Ideal That Never Existed To Begin With and said “both sides do it”, I was dumbfounded. Ever since then he seems to be becoming more and more of what he lambasted Carlson for being, without the screaming.
I should have seen this coming from all the times he sugar coated his questioning for John McCain. Ironically, he turned on him a bit at the end of the election cycle, and recently he mentioned that he’s wondering why McCain doesn’t like him any more.
He thinks he’s being “fair” by having guys like Kristol, etc on the show, but the reality is that if he *really* was so one-sided guys like Kristol wouldn’t go on the show to begin with.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised. When you are doing what he does for as long as he’s been doing it, you eventually get absorbed into the borg.
KG
Yes, because screaming that the other side is trying to destroy America and are the worst thing since Hitler/Stalin/George III and telling people who voted for the other side that they are directly responsible for the death and destruction to follow is the way to win votes.
If you want to have adults in the room, as it were, you need to be an adult.
Dave Ruddell
Jon Stewart, the man who came up with the “Go Fuck Yourself Chorus”, is too dignified?
slag
I swear, DougJ, arguing with you about Jon Stewart is as dispiriting as arguing with “firebaggers” about Obama. I don’t know. Maybe my morals are more flexible than yours or maybe my emo pants are on too tight. But I really see no reason to excoriate my few relatively successful allies in the media for their flaws.
And I do think civility matters. At least to the extent that it’s less likely to send the crazies over the edge. Which obviously has nothing to do with how many times someone like you, John Cole, or even Jon Stewart says “fuck”.
beltane
Civility is a pleasant sounding codeword for “silently collaborating with evil”. Stewart got at least a quarter of a million people to show up at his rally about nothing. Imagine if those same people showed up, enraged and screaming, at an “America Hates the GOP” rally.
Davis X. Machina
‘Both sides do it’ is official house policy at Comedy Central, since the whole ‘Indecision’ series of programs going back to at least the ’96 election.
We’ve see anomalous departures from that standard, but only because the behavior that elicited them — the Bush years basically — was so egregious.
Now, the crisis past, it’s back to ‘too cool for school’.
Irony is at least as deadly to republics as tyranny.
cleek
fuck you, and your idiotic complaints. Stewart reaches millions more people than any of you whiny fucking bloggers ever will, and he does it with good humor, and he’s on the right side of things.
whiny fucking lefties. never satisfied with anything.
fuck you.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Josh Marshall, a man not without his own tote-bagger, Villager-lite tendencies, once described the Beltway/Cokie/Broder mentality as people who find it vaguely embarrassing that people, especially Democrats, actually care about politics and policy, as if it affected the sort of people one knew.
What worries me about Stewart is the all the middle- to upper-class college kids (and a bit older who’ve been watching TDS most of their lives), already predisposed by personal, family, economic circumstances to buy into the idea that Democrats are vulgar, grubby people who wage class warfare. That, and his weird and seemingly quite personal hatred of Barack Obama, whose very name turns the Hipster David Broder into Jane Hamsher with a salt’n’pepper pompadour.
fourlegsgood
Sheesh, what the hell are you smoking? Stewart is a comedian. The end. I just don’t understand why Digby has always got her knickers in a twist over this. I watched the show last night – it was just jokes.
Comrade Mary
There’s civility and there’s blind evenhandedness. Stewart flubbed badly last night, going for the cheap joke of “Oh, there go the Dems running away again!” and other attempts at false equivalency.
Honest question: does anyone here think that Stewart really wasn’t aware of the strategic decision for leaving the state, or did he know and just decide to fill airtime with the easiest schtick instead?
I think the next “talk to the camera” piece was supposed to be Colbertesque satire. It just didn’t work very well. I don’t expect Stewart to be a firebrand: I just wish he wouldn’t fall back on the same old equivalency routine so often.
General Stuck
@slag:
Got agree with you. I don’t watch much Stewart these days, but the dude is a comedian and sometimes spastic to get a laugh, or maybe he doesn’t want to get pegged as a pure partisan political type comedian. But the dude, when on, is spot on and can eviscerate the wingnut as well as anyone, and make it funny. A few broderesk foopahs now and then still leaves his account way in the blue, imho.
As for digby, I like her, but she can go full emo firebagger in an instant, but is mostly spot on, like Stewart. We all have our flaws.
Ben JB
Yeah, I’ve been disappointed before in Stewart’s coverage and last night was one of those times. I mean, reasonable people can disagree on whether Fox / Ed Schultz are being hypocrites when they champion one protest and not another; but reasonable people can’t disagree on the massive difference in quantity there–Stewart basically compared one entire network to one guy.
And I was also disappointed that Stewart drew a comparison between people protesting something fictional (death panels out to get our grandparents!) and people protesting something that was actually happening.
(And let’s add the whole “elections matter” issue: Obama campaigned on health care; Walker campaigned on cutting union pay, NOT eliminating collective bargaining rights.)
Mattminus
I am also upset with the Aqua Teen Hunger Force’s dithering on the Egypt issue.
BGinCHI
Stewart has gotten too comfortable. His success has made him too ready to support the status quo. Anyone who makes a living pointing out how “both sides do it” in the current political climate is ignoring the consequences of doing nothing. Which is perfectly fine if you are rich and no one can possibly take away your basic livelihood.
Plus, his reading of the WI Senators is just plain factually wrong: they couldn’t “stay and fight” unless you think fighting is sitting there making a quorum so that the other side can crush organized labor.
Great idea, dumbass.
Chuck Butcher
@cleek:
What side of what “things” exactly? No side of anything other than “you people are rude”? To be sure, I’m vastly in favor of middling our way out into right nut-land.
No, WI isn’t about a war on Labor – it is just a bit of a disagreement about budgeting priorities. Sure. And both sides do it…
Ben JB
P.S. I do think it’s useful to keep in mind that Stewart is a comedian–but what makes his comedy funny is that he’s playing off of real things. When the punchline is “bizarro Tea Party,” the joke isn’t as funny.
BGinCHI
“Just a comedian” is bullshit when you make all your money and reel in your audience by doing political satire-as-reporting.
There is no neutral in this.
Doug Hill
I think he’s gotten too comfortable, as others here have said.
cleek
@Chuck Butcher:
he’s a liberal.
he’s also a comedian who does political jokes. he’s not a fucking pundit. he’s not going to be the Great Liberal Truth Teller that everybody seems to think he needs to be. that’s not his job. he’s a comedian.
Elia
The best argument in favor of Digby’s take, I think, is the fact that Reasonable Person James Joyner completely disagreed.
trollhattan
I don’t blame JS for trying to walk a slackline of balance(tm) but he doesn’t seem to appreciate the line’s not anywhere near where he’d like to string it.
He has Rummy this week and had best not let him wriggle free like he did John Yoo. That was my lowest moment of zen.
Maybe not a fair comparison, but nobody can set up and skewer somebody as well as Colbert. He’s honed his skills to an amazing degree since starting the show.
Lurker
That was not my impression from the Rally to Restore Sanity. I still stand up for my beliefs, but I try to do it with cold facts, not emotional and polarizing hyperbole.
cleek
@BGinCHI:
the most important word in that sentence is “satire”.
Irony Abounds
I thought Stewart was off base when he referred to the State Senators running away, but otherwise that segment was right on. Ed Shultz is a blowhard, and even though I like Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell, they too focus on pushing one side of an agenda, even at the risk of getting facts wrong (as Rachel did in saying that the tax cuts in Wisconsin were the cause for the current deficit). Bob Somersby goes over the line in false equivalence far more than Stewart does. You can not watch Stewart for any length of time without recognizing he has far more contempt for Fox News than any other “news” organization. Cleek is right, at this point, Stewart accomplishes far more than any left wing blogger (and I like Digby). I hate how everytime a progressive doesn’t toe the ideal progressive line they are deemed to be hippy-punchers. It’s a version of victimization that reflects poorly on the hippy claiming to be punched.
slag
@General Stuck:
Yes indeedy.
And comparing a useless tool like David Broder to Jon Stewart who was quite arguably instrumental in getting the 9/11 responders their funding is pretty much a false equivalency. Which is…well…kind of ironic.
General Stuck
@BGinCHI:
What? satire is satire, and reporting is reporting, and are mutually exclusive, except to the point an adult audience chooses to combine them in their own minds.
edit – or simply exercise their constitutional right to turn off the teevee.
Stooleo
Meh. Most the time Stewart is shining a light on the big steaming pile of crazy that is the Republican party. If every now and then he makes a false equivalency with the left, I can live with it. 75% of the time he’s abusing Repubs.
MikeJ
@cleek: That was pretty uncivil. Proof that both sides are awful.
Violet
Like pretty much everyone, he’s got his ups and downs. He was great with the 9/11 responder stuff. Some other things, not so much. Haven’t watched last night’s show yet, so can’t comment on that. But I’m always glad for his voice, even if he doesn’t always say things exactly the way I wish he would.
JWL
Of course, civility matters. So does anger.
That’s something republicans have never lost sight of, and which democratic party officials continue to ignore to the detriment of their own rank and file.
Chuck Butcher
@cleek:
And that puts him on the right side of exactly what the fuck? You said that, not me. I think he’s fairly funny and don’t watch him much anymore because I get plently of his shit from regular news.
His ability to read lines doesn’t make him right about anything – see St Ronnie. Yup, he’s a comedian and I’m not and I take his call to “reason” as about as important as a pratfall.
Cris
I think this is exactly it. Stewart’s writers want to be irreverent; picking sides easily leads one to think one’s own side is above mockery.
Chris
I think the Digby post is nonsense. No one who seriously watches The Daily Show or The Colbert Report could seriously think there is a “both sides do it” equivalence. Yes, he laughs at both sides. But it should be pretty clear to anyone with basic cognitive abilities that the right is portrayed (accurately!) as much, much worse than the left.
It’s a comedy show, not a political show. Because of that, Ed Schutz is portrayed as a full of himself blowhard, because he’s an easy target and because he acts like a full of himself blowhard. But MSNBC does not take anything near the lashing that Fox gets on a pretty much constant nightly basis form Stewart and Colbert.
Stewart understands that Fox is a coordinated political operation, whereas MSNBC is not. He’s said this on multiple occasions, including his interview with Terry Gross, to cite at least one example from memory. However, if someone on MSNBC like Ed Schultz makes themselves an easy comedy target, he’ll take that opportunity to make a joke out of it.
Elia
Everyone making apologies for Stewart seems to be under the impression that his self-important speech at the Rally, and his self-important appearance on Bill O’Reilly’s show — as if Jon Stewart represents Blue America, I guess? — were brilliant acts of comedy.
Turbulence
And I was also disappointed that Stewart drew a comparison between people protesting something fictional (death panels out to get our grandparents!) and people protesting something that was actually happening.
Stewart’s a nihilist: his core political belief is that it is shameful to care about politics and policy. That’s why he can casually compare the Teabaggers to Code Pink: the fact that one group has insane policy ideas and the other is reasonable doesn’t matter — they both get emotional about politics, so they’re equivalent in Stewart-land.
Sometimes I wonder if Stewart and his ilk are disillusioned idealists who get enraged when they see people take politics seriously (like they used to before they lost their innocence) and feel compelled to humiliate them for reminding him of that time when he wasn’t in on the joke. Church of the Savvy indeed.
BGinCHI
@cleek: Because satire is only meant to be funny?
No, satire bites because it takes a position on behavior or attitudes, etc. Sharp political satire isn’t meant to suggest that “everyone does it” and so our noticing it renders it ironic.
Stewart can and should make fun of both sides, but he should do so because of facts and the calling out of bullshit.
Uloborus
@cleek:
See, this is a very good argument, and it’s why I usually let my irritations go with Stewart. Yes, he goes for ridiculously cheap shots that wildly mischaracterize important issues. That’s what a comedian DOES. He’s under less obligation to provide real context and analysis than a regular journalist, and instead he provides more.
I just get the honest feeling lately that he’s starting to see himself as a legitimate pundit rather than a comedian. In that role he’s not particularly better than anyone else. And this ‘civility’ thing does seem to be hardcore with him. I wince every time I remember his interview with Obama, which was blatantly not a joke, when he spent the whole time digging at Obama for not fulfilling his campaign promise for Change. And the only Change he seemed interested in discussing was the tone of political debate.
So I’m kind of torn.
Nellcote
Jon Stewart should stand up for the Union workers in WI and elsewhere as strongly as he stood up for his writers when they were on strike. He’s not if his WTF show last night is any indication.
General Stuck
@Elia:
But they are fake apologies, for fake news
freelancer
@trollhattan:
Colbert’s interview with Laura Ingraham was epic.
Uloborus
See, this is a very good argument, and it’s why I usually let my irritations go with Stewart. Yes, he goes for ridiculously cheap shots that wildly mischaracterize important issues. That’s what a comedian DOES. He’s under less obligation to provide real context and analysis than a regular journalist, and instead he provides more.
I just get the honest feeling lately that he’s starting to see himself as a legitimate pundit rather than a comedian. In that role he’s not particularly better than anyone else. And this ‘civility’ thing does seem to be hardcore with him. I wince every time I remember his interview with Obama, which was blatantly not a joke, when he spent the whole time digging at Obama for not fulfilling his campaign promise for Change. And the only Change he seemed interested in discussing was the tone of political debate.
So I’m kind of torn
Cris
The Daily Show has even more reason than most journalists to be concerned about access. Being a comedy show, they’re likely not to be taken seriously anyway, so they need to keep some semblance of respectability to attract high-profile political guests. So I don’t expect to see Stewart backing anybody into too tight a corner.
MikeJ
@Turbulence:
Every blog post will eventually have a comment quoting the Simpsons, so I’ll do the honors here:
The whole thing smacks of effort, man.
BGinCHI
@General Stuck: What?
No, Stewart does both. And if you don’t recognize that you aren’t paying attention to his show.
He is the best media commenter in the business, but when he goes after what politicians do, for example, he can’t afford to miss the whole fucking point of what they’re doing.
You don’t think he’s engaging in some false equivalency here?
beltane
@BGinCHI: Especially when the “just a comedian” is a de facto substitute for our failed news media. In a sane world the false equivalency of a comedian hosting a fake news show really wouldn’t matter, but in a country where the real “news” is nothing more than an exercise in corporate PR, it matters a great deal. Maybe instead of getting mad at Stewart, we should promote alternatives to the real fake news on TV.
cleek
@Chuck Butcher:
the right side of the fucking issues. he’s a solid liberal, though not the strident fist waving blowhard everybody thinks he should be.
SGEW
Phew! I don’t think I’ve ever seen cleek so fired up.
MaximusNYC
“Conservatives think he’s a useful idiot.” Really? Come on, Digby. And come on, Doug. Now we’re supposed to regard John Stewart and TDS as part of the Right-Wing Noise Machine? This borders on purity trolling.
Cris
Could be. I wonder if he makes the same error that most of us do: believing that he writes all his own material. He’s funny, but he’s not nearly as funny when he’s speaking off the cuff without a script that’s been hashed out by a tableful of funny people.
Doug Hill
@cleek:
I’m not that anti-Stewart, but I don’t like the “I’m just a comedian” stuff and I don’t like his desire to be above it all.
Agoraphobic Kleptomaniac
@”He’s just a comedian” comments:
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been listening to something on a news show, from almost any corner of the ideological spectrum, and they’ll reference some strange policy or statement made by someone, and I’ll wonder what they’re talking about.
Then, I’ll watch the daily show (a few days late on Hulu) and He’ll have the specific clip that the news person was referring to, often with the exact same context removed and the exact same joke/commentary that the news person was repeating.
Stewart is important in his B.S. “both sides” because of whom quotes him, and which news people then go to repeat his claims. Almost like how Fox can do the same thing with some of their made up stuff.
MikeJ
Here’s the question for Stewart: What’s wrong with the Teabaggers? Protesting or making shit up?
Stewart doesn’t mind teabaggers lying. It’s what he expects of political movements. It’s the expressing opinions out loud when nobody has paid you to do so that irks him.
That’s why he doesn’t like the protests in Wisconsin.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@slag:
So is he just a comedian, or a comedian with a prominent platform who can and does influence public perception and even policy?
and part of his stance on the first responders’ funding was that both sides were equally responsible for the delays, because Republicans wanted to tie up the bill with a lot of nonsense about immigration and God knows what else, and Democrats wanted to pass a clean bill. Sounds pretty fucking Broderish to me,
BGinCHI
@beltane: THIS.
Context, baby, context.
I like Stewart, and that’s why I have high expectations for him. And also, too, because we live in a fucking shark tank and he’s got a cage.
jl
Stewart is a paid clown, an entertainer. He has his schtick. Good to note that obvious fact once in awhile. I don’t know if I would make a big deal about a ‘take down’.
At least Stewart is a respectable paid clown, unlike Brooks, Will, etc.
Digby made a good point about the differences between Stewart and Colbert, which is why Colbert may turn out to be the better satirist in the long run. You could make the same comparison between Lewis Black and Stewart.
That is what makes Colbert and Black more dangerous than Stewart, since if they decide to come after the “good” (liberal) side, they will really believe it and give it the same effort they do towards conservatives. There won’t be any BS kabuki that you can use to turn them off, which looks more and more is not the case for Stewart.
On balance his show does some good. He is (respectable) paid clown and entertainer. That is all.
He and his show are no substitute for an effective U.S. political movement that is within shouting distance of Dwight Eisenhower from the conservative side. I don’t see why anyone would get upset that Stewart is not that.
Doug Hill
@MaximusNYC:
I think that’s bs and I didn’t mean to heh-indeed that part of it. I can see why some of you think Digby took it all too far here. I do think she has a point.
wsn
I wish I thought of “Hipster David Broder”.
Stewart, much like Obama I think, seems to have a fundamental assumption that The Other Side is composed of rational, thoughtful people that can be reasoned with.
Just Some Fuckhead
Jon Stewart is a a fucking comedian. His show is on a comedy channel. Sometimes you will think what he says is funny. Sometimes, you won’t. It isn’t really any more complicated than that.
General Stuck
@BGinCHI:
I have no teevee, and only catch some clips on the web. He may well be doing some false equivalency, but if so, I am saying he is much more spot on, than not. And of course, he is nothing remotely like a reporter, or doing reporting. If you are taking his show as serious news, then I don’t know what to say. He is at most, at times, a semi serious commentator. With an emphasis on semi.
Napoleon
@BGinCHI:
Good thing he wasn’t advising Geo. Washington on military tactics in the Revolutionary War or he would have been wiped out outside of NYC or somewhere else early on as a result of “staying and fighting”.
kc
God bless Digby.
I was watching Stewart the other night when he got started on that. I just turned off the TV. Stewart was coming off like a typical overprivileged Beltway CW-spouting douchebag.
Maybe he should just move the show to DC already.
cleek
@BGinCHI:
i’m not sure you get to define what satire is “meant” to do, nor which positions are the ones he needs to take.
Alecmcc
Perfectly, and uncivilly, said.
Chuck Butcher
@BGinCHI:
Cripes, it was an opportunity for Stuck to cry “hippie-punching”. It likes that.
harokin
I’m not seeing it. The Bizarro tea party reference struck me as a parody of Beck conspiracy theories, not as something Stewart believed or was suggesting. Bizarro is the absolute opposite (in every way) of Superman. Calling someone the “Bizarrosomething” is saying they have nothing in common with that something.
The Walker Mubarak stuff was essentially directed at the media, and he’s absolutely right in how the media wants everything to be a trend and how stupid that “analysis” is.
There are so many good things Stewart did, including the big thing of pointing out that this is a fight over union rights, not the budget, that I can forgive a quick dig at the Democrats’ tactics.
I don’t think his deal last night had much to do with civility, but (to the extent it talked about liberals) it was their relative failure to explain simply that this is NOT about the budget, but about the existence of unions. I think he’s wrong and they have been getting that message out, but his criticism is nothing like “he said she said.”
Alecmcc
http://ok-cleek.com/blogs
Perfectly, and uncivilly, said.
BGinCHI
@Just Some Fuckhead: What’s it called again when you satirize yourself?
Doug Hill
@wsn:
I didn’t think of it, either. I started seeing it in the comments yesterday but I can’t traceback to see who said it first (teh google is betraying me).
Turbulence
@Lurker: I still stand up for my beliefs, but I try to do it with cold facts, not emotional and polarizing hyperbole.
What happens when the facts are emotional and polarizing?
That’s where Stewart’s brand of nihilism becomes a problem. The US started a war for no reason that exterminated a million people. That’s a horrific nightmarish crime. But Stewart can’t talk about that; he can’t mention it to his good friend Johnny McCain. And when presented with people who do mention it, he MUST mock them. Because giving a fuck proves you’re a loser. Or something.
He’s fully internalized the village consensus that politics is just a silly game and the only way to lose is to take it seriously. As a result, the knives come out whenever someone points out that there are real life and death consequences to the political “game”.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
WTF does any of this have to do with hippie punching?
Elia
Don’t tell me that he’s just a comedian — tell him.
Chuck Butcher
@cleek: So Labor in WI and elsewhere isn’t an issue? He’s a commedian, his political leanings as evidenced by what he’s said outside that arena are the same middling into reichland that Bobo loves. Evidently you’re pretty happy with the course of the nation over the last year or 4 decades.
You’re happy, good for you – say so and have done with it rather than acting like anyone who isn’t is an asshole.
Nom de Plume
I watch Stewart for the jokes. And yeah, he has traditionally mocked right wingers a lot of the time, and that’s because the jokes write themselves. Comedians love easy targets.
That’s really the main reason Stewart became so popular with the left during the past decade: all the easy material has come from the right.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Uloborus:
Exactly why I’ve found him tough to watch ever since. He went from “Dude, we were hoping a little audacity!” to “We’ll all be fine. We all just want what’s for our kids and for each other. Won’t you be my neighbor?” in 48 hours. Everybody needs to calm down and work together, except Obama, whose calm efforts to work with others are the problem. Or something.
opie jeanne, formerly known as Jeanne Ringland
@cleek: Thank you. Amen.
Nellcote
@cleek:
Then he’s failing at his job because he sure wan’t funny last night.
singfoom
I usually love Digby. I love Stewart.
He’s a comedian. He’s not a journalist. He’s been very clear about this. I think Digby is being unfair.
Go ahead and scream and yell about it, but he’s not one of the village. Sure, it irritates us when he says “both sides do it”, but he’s also had conversations on his show about the Crazy Side vs. Rational Side and basically said he doesn’t know why that form gets on TV.
So hate him if you will, but I think that Digby et al are wasting energy attacking Stewart.
ETA 2 seconds later: Watching the daily show and being a fan of the show doesn’t automatically mean you agree with every little thing Stewart says or does. You can be a fan while having quibbles….
BGinCHI
@cleek: I’m making an argument, not offering a definition.
Satire does all kinds of things, but in this case it does so in the political realm. Stewart is not a right-winger. I think what he’s being called out for here is letting down his own standards.
Again, I like him and root for him because we need him. That’s the country we live in right now.
And anyone who thinks American comedy and comedians haven’t played a huge part in American political culture need to pull their heads out of their asses.
jl
@harokin: Thanks. I will take a relook. Maybe Stewart was too subtly meta for most people to get the joke, including me.
But… nevertheless, Stewart is an entertainer, not a political movement, and he never will be. And he does have a Broderllish side.
Anyone to the left of Ike, or fricken Hoover for that matter, doesn’t have any effective political forces arguing for their viewpoint. That is a sad commentary, and a source of trouble for the U.S. since the effective political sources are nutcases, corporate shills, and empty posturing suits.
So, people are desperate for some voice. But Stewart is a comedian, and it is a sign of slim political times that a whole segment of the population yearns that somehow or other, he be more than that.
MikeJ
@Doug Hill: https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/21/fortunate-son/#comment-2441710
Doug Hill
@MikeJ:
Thanks. So h/t Jim, Foolish Literalist on the title!
Turbulence
It sure is odd for a guy who is ‘just a comedian’ to launch a campaign to get Hardball removed from television because it was ‘hurting America’. Yeah, he is a comedian, but he wants to play a larger role in our politics, and that’s what he’s doing.
General Stuck
We must have PURITY for our liberal comedians. No exemptions!!
Evolved Deep Southerner
@cleek:
I only made it eight comments down and the thread has already been won, taken home and put on the shelf for posterity.
Cleek, you took the words right out of my mouth, rearranged them, and made them sound better than I could have said them.
Every time I see shit like this – bitching about Jon Stewart, bitching about NPR, bitching about anything “too mainstream to really be truly progressive” – I just shake my head. It’s no wonder liberals have such a stellar record of snatching defeat from the jaws of electoral victory.
I won’t say this forever, or on other subjects, but right now, on this particular one, all I can say is “Fuck all y’all.”
jl
A piece of strategic advice.
IMVHO, when you disagree with a comedian, earnest ‘take downs’ are the wrong approach.
Humor and satire is better. That approach might get to a satirist.
The next ‘Stewart take down’ whenever the BJ posters or Digby disagree with him, should at least be funny.
Edit: I guess what I gave was ‘tactical’ not ‘strategic’.
Marc
@Turbulence:
This. Of course, when _he_ cares enough about a policy to build a week of shows around it, that’s different. But commitment is so gauche in other people.
The most remarkable thing about his Fox/MSNBC, teabaggers/unions false equivalency is that he actually made me feel some sympathy and even respect for Fox and the teabaggers. So his devastating put-down is that they’re out there pushing for their agendas, praising the rallies they agree with and criticizing the rallies they don’t agree with? That’s what you’re supposed to do to advance your agenda. Of course I disagree with that agenda 100%, and I take issue with Fox passing off their partisan advocacy as news, but I can at least respect them for pushing for what they want.
But liberals are supposed to hold themselves above all that in the minds of the Beltway media (a class Stewart is increasingly gravitating towards). And when liberals do start fighting for what they believe in, and criticizing those who try to stop them, well then it’s time to lock the door, hide the good china, and start crying “both sides do it.”
MaximusNYC
@jl:
I agree with this. Stewart would never have done what Colbert did at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner a few years back. That was not only deadly-sharp, take-no-prisoners, extremely ballsy satire, but also speaking truth directly to power.
But I also agree with this:
He is what he is. You can complain till the cows come home that he isn’t what you want him to be. But he fulfills a useful role in the media universe (and certainly not the role of “useful idiot” for conservatives, most of whom regard him as a communazi Obot).
Arclite
@General Stuck: What the general said.
Turbulence
@General Stuck: We must have PURITY for our liberal comedians. No exemptions!!
It seems silly to talk about PURITY when no one is calling for consequences. Digby’s not saying “Everyone boycott Comedy Central now!” — she’s calling out bad logic and bad ideas by a political commenter.
When people criticized Stewart’s really really crappy interview with John Yoo, did that strike you as a call for PURITY also?
freelancer
OT – Taibbi’s on vaca, but still this is pretty sweet.
khead
OT – But the Giles Co, VA school board voted to take down the Ten Commandments down today.
MikeJ
Rush Limbaugh who once called Chelsea Clinton the “White House dog” also relies on being just a comedian. It’s also what Glenn Beck says.
So nobody should ever get upset at anything either of them say because hey, they’re just comedians.
BGinCHI
@khead: In tomorrow’s news, coveting sharply on the rise…..
MikeJ
@freelancer: No, it’s moronic.
https://balloon-juice.com/2011/02/21/fortunate-son/#comment-2441850
policomic
Jay Leno is “just a comedian.” Jon Stewart is a satirist. He’s implicitly asked to be taken seriously, over and over, with his Crossfire takedown, his high-minded interviews, and the rally. That’s fine–he deserves to be taken seriously. At the same time, he can’t afford to be taken too seriously; it’s a tough balancing act. But he’s way past the point where he can justifiably use the “just a comedian” excuse. Come on–would all those people have spent all day on the National Mall to see Jim Gaffigan?
But a satirist operates under a different set of assumptions than a mere comedian. Satire should be funny, but it can’t be all in fun–that’s the bargain you make with your audience.
Stewart is under no obligation to be ideologically consistent, but a satirist who substitutes truisms for truth is worthless. It’s fine for him to go after Democrats or lefties when they do something stupid, but falling back on false equivalencies for the sake of “balance” is lazy and dishonest.
Colbert is much better in this respect. For one thing, I think the show is better written (and more written; there’s little reliance on mugging, byplay with correspondents, or interviews with the clueless). But because he plays a character, rather than himself, Colbert doesn’t have to be Everybody’s Friend.
Amanda in the South Bay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Hehe, I agree completely (see my comments in the thread on class warfare). I think we’re turning into a country where the haves just care about being socially liberal and making money, and think that stuff like grubby class warfare politics is somehow beneath them. And Stewart, on his average day, just radiates that sentiment.
And yes, that demographic probably describes TDS and TCR demographics quite well.
Paula
Stewart’s carried more water for “liberals” and “progressives” in America than “Digby” ever, ever, ever will.
Excuse me while I LMAO at this foolishness.
Cpuppy
@Mattminus: Well they laugh at Egypt and its quaint third dimension, far too busy sodomizing their vast intellectual minds with out-dated pornography in a Ikea dresser, playing the Legend of Soltare.
WWJBD: What Would Jingle-belly Do?
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
This would be you? You see, I don’t have the least problem with her take on Stewart other than I don’t take him as any sort of model.
beltane
@MaximusNYC:
So true. Blaming Jon Stewart for the failure of the left to create and promulgate a message seems kind of ridiculous. Why are all our hopes being pegged onto a single comedian and his fake news show? We really have to do better than this and stop passively expecting various celebrities to come to our rescue.
BGinCHI
Isn’t this the guy who smells like a dirty dick?
“Former Pennsylvania Senator and potential 2012 presidential candidate Rick Santorum doesn’t have a very high opinion of the union workers protesting in Wisconsin. “They are acting like their drug is being taken away from them.”
He could have added, “C’mon, it’s Madison.” But he’s not even that smart.
General Stuck
@Turbulence:
We also need more SENSE OF HUMOR.
And more cowbell wouldn’t hurt.
singfoom
@MikeJ: Yes, because right wing radio talk show host pandering to the worst excesses of the hateful right wing = a host of a comedy show that uses satire against all hypocrites from all political fields.
Really? John Stewart = Rush Limbaugh = Glenn Beck?
Nuance, motherfucker, do you speak it?
Trentrunner
If you want to see what a smug, condescending, patronizing, holier-than-thou, but-I’m-just-a-comedian buttsnort is, watch the Rachel Maddow interview with Jon Stewart.
(Spoiler alert: Stewart is the buttsnort, not Maddow.)
khead
One other thing….
Can someone fix this fucking site?
Damn. I’m tired of looking for the carriage return.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Turbulence:
That was a case where I was on Stewart’s side. Taking on John Yoo is, should be, the job of real reporters. That said, if Stewart wants to be seen as a comedian, not a pundit, he shouldn’t have people like John You and Chairman of the JCS as guests. I get it that he doesn’t want to be a partisan Democrat on his show, but hat doesn’t mean he has to spew nonsense about Rachel Maddow being a mirror image of Sean Hannity, and people who were upset about the Iraq War and torture are just like people who are upset about daeth panels and the soshalist takeover of the health care and auto industries.
Cris
Your comment overall is a closer fit for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
Paula
@beltane:
Because you/they don’t have a movement. Jon Stewart looks like he’s the only effective means to gather an audience because progressives haven’t built up a base for themselves. The more they complain about what they think Jon Stewart should be doing for them, the more ineffective and, quite frankly, stupid they look.
BGinCHI
@General Stuck: We also need more funny walking skits and more crossdressing.
I miss Flip Wilson.
MikeJ
@singfoom: I thought “just a comedian” was the get out of jail free card.
Turbulence
@singfoom: a host of a comedy show that uses satire against all hypocrites from all political fields.
What was the great hypocrisy that Code Pink had which merited getting smacked by the Daily Show? Besides giving a fuck?
And I think you totally missed MikeJ’s point. He wasn’t saying that Stewart was identical to Beck/Limbaugh. He was pointing out that Beck/Limbaugh also break out the “you can’t criticize me — I’m just a comedian” line and it is bullshit when they use it too. Stewart, Limbaugh and Beck are political commentators in addition to being comedians.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
Well, that has nothing to do with me “crying hippie punching” . And you left out the part where I think digby is mostly spot on, and I like her, and we are none of us perfect.
This would be you Butcher.
Paula
@singfoom:
Well, if anything, you can see this thread as evidence that the “left’s” real complaint about Limbaugh is that they don’t have one of their own.
MikeJ
@Paula: No, that’s not it at all. I don’t want a Limbaugh, and never thought of Stewart as being like Limbaugh.
It’s Stewart’s *defenders* that think they’re alike.
Berto
“I believe in this, and it’s been proven by research, that he who fucks nuns will later join the church.”
-Joe Strummer “Death or Glory”
Turbulence
@Cris: Your comment overall is a closer fit for Trey Parker and Matt Stone.
You’re right. Although they seem to have this contrarian streak that Stewart doesn’t. But I still think it is a good fit for Stewart.
Chuck Butcher
@beltane:
So objecting to doing something being mocked with false equivelance won’t further that aim? When does objecting count? Cleek calls Stewart “on the right side” so that must be our voice? Apparently.
Bargaining, negotiating, compromise is supposed to mean coming to the table with the other guy’s POV?
thefncrow
Stewart has a very particular civility fetish, and it’s annoying as shit.
If my house is on fire, I don’t particularly care if the firefighters who are there to put the fire out track mud into my home. Step 1 is “Put Out The Damned Fire”, and if, afterwards, we have to clean the carpets due to the mud tracked in by the people who saved my house from burning to the ground, so be it. But I’d much rather have an in-tact and livable house with muddy carpets than pristine carpets in the charred remains of once was my house and all of my belongings.
Stewart is so concerned with the mud on the firefighters’ boots that he’s not paying the proper attention to the 3 alarm fire that’s destroying the house.
It’s not really a problem that exists solely with Stewart. It’s also what makes Obama so goddamned annoying. He’s more concerned with issues of tone and compromise than he is about actually fixing the problems that ail the country. By no means am I saying I’d rather have McCCain, but it’s quite sad how small the gulf between those two candidates has become, and not because McCain’s turned away from the fiendish ghoul that he was in the 2008 election.
Angry Geometer
Digby jumped the shark about 6 months ago when she jumped on the intellectual birtherism bandwagon, taking small, out-of-context quotes from Obama’s books to try and prove that he’s a secret Manchurian candidate.
Critiques of Jon Stewart always seem to come from (a) people with no comedic talent of their own; (b) people who make a livelihood out of criticizing their own side. Digby is both at this point.
If anybody with a sense of humor who isn’t a professional whiner would do a good takedown of Jon Stewart, the world would probably better for it. DougJ isn’t it, and none of you fucking yokels seem to have the chops, either.
Also, please look up what the fuck “useful idiot” actually means before using it again. When has Jon Stewart ever been manipulated by somebody on the right? It hasn’t happened.
singfoom
@MikeJ: @Turbulence:
Listen, I’m not just defending Stewart for the hell of it. So he pissed some people off when he smacked Code Pink and the “both sides do it”. I don’t know if Code Pink deserved it or not.
I just don’t understand why some people want him to be on the same level as a mainstream journalist.
The guy is a comedy show host. The content is political, and yes, he does give slight of hand political tells on his show, but I don’t know why he’s the great white hope of the left.
The primary point of the show is comedy. The show is designed to get maximum viewers and make them laugh so advertisers will buy ad time during the show.
I’ll give you that perhaps he’s made some mistakes on the targets of his comedy, but jesus, why all the serious butthurt?
I think on the level, it’s pretty easy to see that Stewart has done more good for liberals over the years than he’s caused damages.
It also seems to me that the left doesn’t have any kind of humor about it. Call it a get out of jail free card if you want to shrink it down, but I just don’t see him being on the same level.
Hob
@MikeJ: What show are you watching?! Stewart very frequently does pieces whose entire point is that right-wingers are making things up, and that that’s a bad thing. He does that regardless of whether they’re bug-eyed teabaggers or well-spoken pundits in suits.
singfoom
@MikeJ: As someone who is defending Stewart, I can tell you that this is demonstrably false.
Your words, man. I didn’t bring up the comparison.
They’re completely different. But go ahead, put words in my mouth.
ETA: I can haz blockquotes
Bobby Thomson
Digby was right. Stewart had a huge megaphone right before the elections and punted. He often pulls his punches when interviewing liars. The good stuff he does is written by someone else.
Look at his greatest moment of triumph. He thought Crossfire was hurting America, not because Tucker Carlson is a lying asshole who wants to hurt people and the fake liberals legitimized his act, but because people disagreeing about stuff is mean and nasty. Well, that’s politics. People disagree about this stuff because it matters. Wear a cup.
Parole Officer Burke
@Angry Geometer:
The ACORN thing?
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
In the context of this post, and evaluating the political sincerity, or consistency, or whatever it is people are butthurt over, about a goddamn comedian. The above quote has to be the stupidest thing I have ever read on Balloon Juice, or at least in the top ten. jesus christ in wonderland.
nancydarling
Amen from this corner, Doug. He struck so many sour notes for me last night, and I love the guy. My daughter and I trekked back to DC for his rally and never saw it as it took 5 hours to get to the mall from Fairfax. We just walked around and enjoyed the crowds for a couple of hours and they were wonderful so I never heard his speech. Also, Ed may be a blowhard, but his way of speaking and standing up for the working guy has a better shot at getting through to some of the swing voters than Stewart does. I’ll still watch Stewart because he makes me laugh most of the time, and there can never be too much laughter. I haven’t had time to read this thread so it will be interesting to see how everyone else felt.
Turbulence
@singfoom: The content is political, and yes, he does give slight of hand political tells on his show, but I don’t know why he’s the great white hope of the left.
Look, Digby criticized a political/media personality for being dumb. That’s what she does. She does the same thing for mega-TV stars and NPR commenters and random stupid blogs that she finds. The idea that her criticizing Stewart proves that “he’s the great white hope of the left” is just bizarre. I mean, when Digby criticizes Richard Cohen or Cokie Roberts, does that mean she thinks that they’re the great white hopes of the left?
I’ll give you that perhaps he’s made some mistakes on the targets of his comedy, but jesus, why all the serious butthurt?
What makes you think there’s any butthurt. Guy with TV show was stupid. Lefty-blogger criticized him. Story at 11.
cokane
well i will say that Maddow did report some erroneous facts on this issue.
http://politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/feb/18/rachel-maddow/rachel-maddow-says-wisconsin-track-have-budget-sur/
So whether calls for civility are wrong (they are) it’s certainly true that msnbc is engaging in the same kind of lying about the facts that fox does. :[
All that being said, stewart and the daily show have shown a peculiar anti-union penchant in the past. There is a weird anti-union disease amongst some liberals. There’s a flipside too though, there are some pro-union conservatives.
Paula
@MikeJ:
Do we now?
As far as I can tell, Stewart has never implicitly or explicitly asked me to believe anything he says on his show. Because in case you couldn’t tell what was wrong with Limbaugh, it’s the fact that he excuses himself as a comedian to everyone else, but wants his own audience to think he’s serious and truthful.
MikeJ
@singfoom:
Isn’t this kind of the point?
Not all political humour is created equal. Some really is just dumb jokes. When some hack goes on about how horny Bill Clinton is or how robotic Al Gore is, yeah, those are just stupid jokes.
When Stewart attacks the powerless who dare to protest because he thinks speaking to your betters is unseemly, I think that’s different.
Paula
@singfoom:
Code Pink, in his opinion, was “not helping”. I happen to agree, so I found it funny.
Given that Code Pink often inspires derision among lefties, I have no idea why this is so upsetting.
beltane
@Chuck Butcher: I am cynical enough to think that any media personality who is truly on our side will not end up on the air for long. The differences between our corporate owned media and the state controlled of less politically sophisticated states like Libya are slight. He who writes the checks controls the message, and none of the seven corporations that own all of the US media are going to write checks to someone, comedian or otherwise, who delivers a message that truly threatens them. We will find it easier being in the opposition once we realize that we have no friends in high places.
singfoom
@MikeJ:
Fair enough, I’ll agree to disagree, because I don’t think you can declare that Stewart “thinks speaking to your betters is unseemly”. I don’t know how you can even claim to start to know that. What’s the factual basis for you thinking that? I think you’re just ascribing motives to others with nothing other than speculative thought…
I just don’t understand why a satirist is held to the same standard as real journalists. ESPECIALLY when the majority of his comedy is based on the idea that real journalists suck so bad at their job.
Bobby Thomson
@Angry Geometer:
Oh?
http://www.newser.com/story/78134/jon-stewart-i-should-have-nailed-john-yoo.html
CaliCat
Fuck Jon Stewart. TDS was an offensive mess last night. Stewart has really and truly jumped the shark. His false equivalency garbage has hit a new level of absurdity. Yeah, JS, the Teathuglicans and Wisconsin’s public workers are the same. Exactly the same.
Go to hell, Jon. Your shtick is tired and your show is crap.
Chuck Butcher
@beltane:
Not many for sure.
cleek
and do you know what the segment after the WI union segment was on that very same TDS ?
it was the best anti-corporate screed you will ever fucking see on TV.
fuck you, bitch-ass lefty malcontents.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@singfoom:
Because when the satirist engages in the same behavior as the journalists he’s made a career of mocking, that opens him up to criticism. When Stewart made fun of CodePink and pointed out that showing up to protest the Iraq invasion with a sign that says “Free Mumia” is really fucking stupid, I thought I had found a brother. When he equates protest the Iraq War with protesting “death panels’ I think he’s an ass.
As for “butthurt”, DougJ has never liked Stewart, I think Stewart has been serving up some weak shit lately, a few other people have other critiques. Cleek’s response to this was “FUCK YOU ALL, YOU FUCKERS!” and evolved deep southerner agreed. Which side is the butt-hurt on?
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
In the context of the comment replied to? But expecting any sort of sense from someone hiding behind being “a collection of bytes” in the same way Stewart hides being being “a commedian” as he works at something other than that is silly.
But then you’re the guy who finds on-going and virulent racism in a satiric reference to “voting for the White Republican” to differentiate from the “ostensibly Democratic” black President while he puts a hit on Federal workers.
Paula
@singfoom:
Again, because they can’t face up to their own failure to organize.
SGEW
@cleek:
I’m just looking forward to seeing “bitch-ass lefty malcontents” added into the rotating tag lines.
Chuck Butcher
@cleek:
A rude person could go with, “fuck you, equivicating tools of plutocratic dominance,” in response.
Perhaps more accurately in regard to the political slide of 3 decades and…
Ajay
I saw the clip and it made no sense to me. You just cant equate the two protests.
Stewart is trying the false equivalency as he has done in the past on the sanity/insanity rally. Its all about two sides to everything.
Paula
@cleek:
But, but, but he said mean things that we don’t agree with. You’re either with us or against us, you know??
General Stuck
After re reading the above digby quote, without actually having watched the source clip, it seems to me she is trying to equate a call for civility with capitulation. Now where have we heard that before? You can be perfectly civil and calm and still eviscerate your opponent verbally and with action. You don’t need to go Huey Long and pound tables and scream and shout. You can, but anyone that thinks that works better outside of street theater protest, is full of shit, imo.
And I suspect Stewart was likely talking about something other than that. It might make partisans feel warm and fuzzy in their tummies, but smart focused and persistent rabble rousing almost always works better in the end. In a stable democracy. The other kind would no doubt work better in Egypt, but we ain’t Egypt. Let it hang out in street protests, but players in the governing game. Stewart said “civility” according to digby. That is different from surrender.
Chuck Butcher
@Paula:
As though it is as foreign as the reichwing? OK – and that’s pretty much answers your “why?” issue.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
Puts a hit on federal workers? You have lost your mind Butcher, But at least you admit what you are.
edit – “satiric reference” that’s a good one, better than the standard ‘oh you’re just being oversensitive”
Paula
@Chuck Butcher:
Who are you responding to here? This makes no sense whatsoever to the linked comment.
Nick
When are we going to come to terms with the reality that most Democratic VOTERS aren’t fighters and consequently, most Democratic POLITICIANS aren’t either?
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
As typed by its model citizen….
It certainly is an ass.
Nick
@singfoom:
For me, it’s because he’s the only one taking down the bullshit media everyday. I never see him as an activist lefty, he’s the anti-activist. He just wants everyone to get along and stop demagoguing.
trizzlor
In my opinion, the most frustrating part of Digby’s post is that she shamelessly cribs the right-wing framing of urban liberals as effete, elitist hipsters now that it suits her petty narrative. And then there’s this:
No, he’s saying that chanting mindlessly at an interview, putting Hitler mustaches on your political enemies, and dividing ordinary protesters into “real, hard-working” and fake Americans makes you look like a fucking idiot regardless of your underlying position. And he’s fucking right.
Brian
Yeah! Because WE’RE right about everything, and THEY are wrong, and intellectual honesty has nothing to do with it! We can lie, make false equivalences, and distort things because OUR ideas are too important (and did I mention inherently correct?) to be constrained by “rules.” Wait, is this Balloon Juice or RedState?
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
and you are a lying piece of shit collection of bytes with no integrity and less sense. You’d think I stuck my dick in your eye with your kneejerk horseshit. You talk about “emo-firebaggery”?
Fuckwit.
jl
Being comedian is not a “get out of jail free card”.
You can criticize a comedian for bad jokes, or telling jokes that almost no one gets, for explaining the jokes, for being a chump, for being simple, for being stupid.
You can make fun of Stewart because you just feel like it.
I cannot take seriously criticizing Stewart for departing from my political orthodoxy. Stewart is not the the President I wish I had, he is a clown. If Obama had made the comparison, then Digby would have one humdinger of a column to write.
I did not like the Daily Show pieced on the WI protest, so I will find some reason to criticize it. I’ll watch it again to find out whether I will diss it for being stupid or being to ‘meta’ for people to get, or because it looked like Stewart had a booger in his nose. I can’t keep a straight face and criticize it on the basis that Stewart is not taking political stances that I like. That is not his job.
note: minor edits for typos and clarity, but too lazy to note them.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
LOL, was that “satiric reference”?
Paula
@trizzlor:
Oh god forbid anyone should try illuminating the difference between effective political rhetoric and demagoguery.
Oh god forbid anyone try to pinpoint why our political dialogue is such a goddamn turn-off for most people.
Oh god forbid we criticize “our side’s” ability to express ourselves clearly.
Paula
@Brian:
God forbid we question ourselves and our tactics to make ourselves more effective!
Mnemosyne
Have we really gotten all the way through the thread without anyone mentioning Stewart’s epic screw-up with ACORN? Did he ever bother to apologize for that, or did he just quietly let it fade away?
Paula
@jl:
I think that TDS, when they criticize the left, are almost entirely coming from a meta perspective. Of course, “meta-” is a difficult thing to sell consistently when so many people are apt more often to take popular culture at its most shallow, face-value level.
Chuck Butcher
So does somebody think that Swift actually meant to have the children of Ireland eaten? Does somebody think the conditions were made up by Swift to get a laugh?
Satire has a point to make – when there’s no point made it isn’t satire. Swift took himself serously and Stewart makes the rounds taking himself seriously – there was a real risk to Swift – of course.
I don’t give a damn about Stewart’s politics, any more than I do Limbaugh’s. He does reach a large audience and that I take seriously, kinda like Limbaugh, so calling it out doesn’t seem over the top.
jl
@Mnemosyne: I think he made a partial retraction later, but not sure. Not sure if it was on the show or something Stewart said. I would be curious too.
I apply the same principle on ACORN to Stewart: give him holy hell for being a chump, and spinning a bad satire that made him look foolish (’cause the premise turned out to be nonsense).
Actually, I have enjoyed much of Stewart’s ribbing of liberals, when the satire is based on truth, and does not look stupid when the truth comes out (as it always will).
I don’t care if somebody thinks a piece fed some frame or narrative, or was politically counterproductive.
Edit: Anyone know if Stewart followed up on ACORN? I remember something, but not sure what it was.
Edit: You can also criticize a ‘comedian’ for being a hypocritical liar, a fraud, and never saying or doing anything funny (that takes care of Limbaugh).
General Stuck
@jl:
Dying is easy, comedy is hard.
MattR
@Mnemosyne: @jl: IIRC after some report came out basically vindicating ACORN he did a segment where he bashed all the idiot pundits who jumped on the ACORN bandwagon without all the facts and included himself in the montage. I can’t remember if he explicitly apologized after the montage though I kinda remember that he did.
CaliCat
The ignore Stewart because “he’s just a comedian” line is preposterous. He is extremely serious (almost unnervingly so) when he chooses to be. So, yes, when he presents something in a false light, whether it’s satire or not, he deserves to be called out on it.
singfoom
I like Stewart and I like Digby. I think Digby went too far. I think Stewart has done more for the left than he has committed crimes against it.
For those who wish to argue about how horrible he is and how he’s equivalent this other asshole that belongs in bad journalist jail, carry on.
I think I’m done allocating any more mental or digital resources to this “issue”. Have a good night.
jl
@MattR:
OK, thanks. You jogged my memory. A comedian skewering himself in front of an audience is worth more than some earnest apology. Wanting an earnest apology would be confusing entertainment with politics, and satire with reality, and the people who want that could never put on a show.
I’ll see if I can find the clip, now that I know what to look for.
digby
@Angry Geometer:
huh?
I don’t know what you are referring to, but the only one I can think of is a post I wrote about two weeks ago and I never said he was a Manchurian Candidate or anything like that. I was referring to a story by Mara Liasson about how Obama has been inviting Reagan historians to the white house and how the administration is explicitly using the Reagan playbook. I pointed out that he’s always said that he admired Reagan and that people assumed it was only admiration of his tactics, not his policies. I suggested that might not be entirely true considering some of his recent rhetoric and went back to his books to show that he had always said that he believed in a market oriented, smaller government approach etc.I certainly didn’t suggest that he kept it a secret. (And keep in mind that by today’s standards Reagan is almost a centrist — those goal posts have moved a lot.)
Unless that post is the one your talking about I’m completely stumped. Care to share a link or at least give me a clue about when I became an “intellectual birther” and called Obama a Manchurian Candidate, because I have really got to stop drinking.
On the other hand, if you are simply hurling insults because you can’t stand to see Obama criticized then well, there’s nothing I can do about that.
You are correct, by the way, that the specific term “useful idiot” doesn’t correlate exactly with Stewart’s role. I was imprecise. The right considers him useful (which he is with this sort of false equivalence) and they also consider him an idiot. Mea culpa.
j low
@cleek: John? Is that you?
Peter
“Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will.”
I’m with Digby: calls for civility are usually just thinly veiled demands for people to shut up. In this day and age of the internet, civility is just a mask indecency wears to protect itself from a decent response. That’s because we as a society have made a mistake, confusing a means with an end. Civility is not an end in and of itself. Civility is a means to and end, and the end is decency. If civility isn’t serving that end, then be prepared to set civility aside.
General Stuck
@CaliCat:
No one is really ignoring him as far as deserving criticism when it’s justified. I think digby may have connected some dots that didn’t warrant connecting in this one instance. And the degree of outrage from some on this thread, and condemnation of Stewart, as some kind of liberal hero gone to the dark side is stunning, and bizarre. imo. Especially for what his main gig is.
Maude
@General Stuck:
Stewart was smart enought not to be a NJ state worker anymore. Especially now, under Christie.
Paula
@Peter:
Depends on who you think possesses the “shallow understanding”.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
That might be correct if he weren’t running around asking to be taken seriously. But then you seem to, also, considering your “main gig”.
TTT
I permanently lost a measure of respect for Stewart when during his interview with the author of “Freakonomics” he agreed with his guest that global warming seemed to be a secular religion, unsupported by evidence. That “Freakonomics” was a crackpot contrarian pile of slush completely escaped Stewart’s fact checkers–the book was popular and trendy enough that he figured it must have been on the up-and-up.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
You really should stop pulling quotes out of context of my comments to make phony points butcher. I didn’t say he shouldn’t be criticized because he is a comedian, I said I thought digby took the term civility, and applied her desired meaning to it, and attached that meaning back to Stewart. I seriously doubt Jon Stewart was calling for people to shut up.
And my main gig, today, seems to be causing you to sound like a knuckle dragging fool.
CaliCat
@General Stuck: I think the degree of outrage here has to do with a cumulative frustration with Stewart and the nonsense he dispenses. I never considered him a liberal hero but I am aware the he is very influential among a great portion of his viewers. Many people actually consider his show to be the closest thing to real news on TV. His viewers trust him and trust the spin he puts on things. So it does matter that he misleads people on important issues.
Tim
@Angry Geometer:
Colbert is funny.
Stewart is most definitely not funny. When he tries so hard to BE funny it is embarrassing. He needs to stay in the role of anchor, introducing DS correspondents who actually are, on occasion, funny.
Tim
All I need to know about Stewart I learned when I caught his revolting, obsequious, chummy interview with Condy the war Criminal Rice.
Buttah wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
Disgusting.
General Stuck
@CaliCat:
That’s odd, because most of what I see when I did watch him regularly was destroying wingnuttery with skill and laughs. But even then, he said some things I didn’t agree with, but my own primary purpose was to be entertained. As far as taking him as a serious political commentator, I would apply the same standard i always apply, and that is judging for myself his total product and not expecting complete fealty to my beliefs. And if they end up on the plus side, then I might watch or listen to them again.
So far, even if Stewart fucked up here, and I’m not sure he really did, he is way over still, in the plus column, and that column is almost entirely to the general benefit of those on the left, and a sorely needed column that we have a deficit of.
CaliCat
@Tim: Agree completely. Colbert IS funny. Stewart tries to be funny. Big difference.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
I never asserted he was some liberal hero. I said he goes around publicly taking himself seriously and is target of criticism.
But your (its) kneejerk asshattery is old news.
And yes, you are (it is) a lying sack of bytes and arguing with you (it) is beyond pointless and boring thanks to all of the above.
It might try differtiating between criticism of Obama that is based on actual actions versus the fictional horseshit of some. It doesn’t and it is stupid for it, whether it agrees with the critique or not is another thing. Hence your racism horseshit and assorted assery.
J.W. Hamner
@Mattminus:
This was when the thread was over. Y’all need to get a grip.
cleek
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
this word “literalist”… you keep using it, but i don’t think you know what it means.
General Stuck
@Chuck Butcher:
Now that is some primo satiric reference. Bravo!
Will there be an encore?
Chuck Butcher
@cleek:
I DO.
Chuck Butcher
@General Stuck:
no
Doug Hill
You know, I realize this must be dumb and irrational, but it just bugs me tha his own big rally was about nothing and now he makes fun of people rallying for workers’ rights.
That annoys me.
cleek
@Chuck Butcher:
i pronounce you man and wife.
General Stuck
@digby:
Hi digby.
Would you please excoriate me too. I would be like sooo honored.
sincerely, in a satirical way.
Henry
@@J.W. Hamner: :My thoughts exactly
CaliCat
@General Stuck: I disagree. I’m not going to be grateful to JS for spreading falsehoods about liberal causes simply because he “mostly calls out the right”. I’m not against making fun of the left (lord knows there’s plenty of material there) but Stewart doesn’t need to make shit up just to create “balance”. George Carlin never did that. Now he was a comedian.
Paula
@J.W. Hamner:
I dunno, man. Tosh.0 needs to take a position on health care if it’s gonna show videos of all those people crashing into shit.
General Stuck
@CaliCat:
Okay. That’s cool :)
CaliCat
@General Stuck:
Back at ya:)
CaliCat
@Doug Hill:
Exactly.
Jay
@Angry Geometer:
“When has Jon Stewart ever been manipulated by somebody on the right? It hasn’t happened.”
See McCain, J.S., ’til about summertime, ’08.
Paula
@Doug Hill:
Part of the pushback you’re getting is the fact that
1) Not everyone thinks that rally was “about nothing”
and
2) Not everyone thinks that sketch is about making fun of “people rallying for worker’s rights”.
and
3) Not everyone thinks that Jon Stewart’s idea of “better discourse” equals “standing down and/or shutting up” if you’ve got strong feelings.
and
4) Not everyone thinks it’s Stewart’s responsibility to be ideologically consistent and/or journalistically accurate.
But, you know, that’s like, my opinion, man …
Joel
Stewart has always been a “serious person” on some level and it worked and still works when he’s pointing his “church lady” finger at the powerful. There are other elements to his schtick, mainly his terrible impersonations, that never worked for me.
One thing that’s been missing from the Daily Show is Stewart’s interaction with Colbert (and to a lesser extent, Carrell). The supporting cast are funny in their own right but the ensemble lacks the chemistry of past ones.
Doug Hill
@Paula:
I realize there is disagreement about 2)-4) but about about 1)? People think that rally was about something? What was it about?
Cerberus
@trizzlor:
Which is great and all except in order to rake both side over the coals for this he has to invent equivalent crimes on the left.
That’s the problem.
False equivalence.
And false equivalence is a big problem because it basically serves as a motivator for exactly the bad behavior said rallies seek to end.
Why stop using a tactic where violent and revolutionary imagery is used in place of facts or debate if the main critics will gladly condemn your opponents for the tactic you just used?
You not only get to terrorize the opposing side, but you also get an entire media apparatus invested in tearing down your opponent and making them look worse in the public record in order to sell you and your opponent as being “equivalent” in bad behavior.
As such, those doing it do it more, because they know that people will bitch and moan, but mostly they will demand the only people who give a fuck tone down their rhetoric and responses and attack those people for being invested in what is often for them life or death issues.
The whole politics as a game fits into the conservative playbook perfectly. If we are or should be above politics, if we are or are above partisanship and everyone needs to be in the middle to be fair or reasonable, then the only game in town is yanking the middle around to wherever is most convenient.
And that’s what conservatives have done.
The main weapons? Being as obscene as they can be and getting the media to attack the left for any attempt to come up with a response. End result? Liberals are more timid, more “reasonable”, right more extreme and the “balanced” viewpoint is one further and further to the right.
I mean, fuck, the false equivalence we are talking about right now was in regards to the livelihoods of some of the most abused public servants out there, whether they will be able to eat, whether they will be able to mobilize for their protection or be protected from politically motivated hatchet jobs. And most critically over rights and organizations that people like my grandfather fought and died over. All throughout the 19th and 20th century, deaths were in the thousands for those who fought for the right of collective bargaining.
And now we’re not supposed to care. We are supposed to be disinterested, dispassionate. All of us, so that no one can find a person who says fuck who can be used as a weapon of false equivalence. And we should agree with the serious people that this is not only worthy of debate but that the reality is somewhere in the middle.
And you know what. Stewart should know better, because half his show used to be mocking the meandering, take no sides bullshit of those seeking false equivalences and the “glory of the middle”.
I don’t mind if he’s a comedian. I don’t mind that he fucks up a lot (and boy howdy does he on a lot of minority rights issues, because racism and sexism are still easy laughs). I mind that he has apparently devoted himself to seeking false equivalences to be more “serious” as part of his motion to be taken seriously, in seeking to make a dramatic point.
That he is in essence, making up bullshit in order to justify the political stance he wants to embody.
And that’s just weak.
It’s not about liberals being perfect. It’s not about Democrats being hands off. For fuck’s sake, Maddow and Olbermann (before he was canned) rail far more about Democratic error than Republican most days. It’s about whether you care more about reality or ideology and hate to break it to everyone, but centrism can be an ideology too and he’s chosen that over whether he’s right, about whether his comedy has the zing of speaking truth to power, over anything.
Because he wants to be Jon “above it all” Stewart.
Fuck that shit.
Sorry for the epic post.
HyperIon
@Doug Hill:
Strangely enough, I agree with you. But it’s because this time you are not being dumb and irrational.
Hawes
@Chris: I’m not going to read the whole thread, because this is what I wanted to say.
I have a hard time reading Digby these days. There’s only so much whining I can take. Yeah, she’s right a bunch of the time, but honestly, what would make her happy?
Anyone?
poicephalus
Remember what Jon said
Bernard
watching Stewart soft pedal right wingers on his show is enough to know he is not even a good comedian. Stewart wants access to these important “right wingers” and won’t dare, as of yet, push some issues.
watching Condi Rice and the rest of the pantheon of Right wing heros getting soft evasive responses to their BS and endless worshipping is more than enough to dis Stewart for being like the pundits he usually disses.
sucking up for access may make him a comedian, but a Leftie? lol.
part of Versailles maybe, the approved lefty sucking up. Colbert is in a league all by himself. Stewart is just a minor leaguer.
Paula
@Doug Hill:
Let me put it this way.
The democrats, Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert, and the Green Party are all holding competing rallies on the same day.
I will probably pick up literature at the Green rally, but hang out the the Stewart/Colbert rally. Why? Because I’m more likely to meet people who are less absorbed with ideological positioning and therefore more likely to find someone who deals with politics like most people deal with it — in a way that is somewhat haphazard, a little uninformed, VERY alienated from the strong discourse of red/blue but still feeling like they’ve got a role to play in public life, defending communal discourse about public policy and not ascribing bad faith to people with whom they disagree.
I’m not any of that, of course, but it certainly describes the subset of liberals I hang out with. And from the POV of trying to actually learn about what non-politics junkie people want from political discourse, what it takes to motivated them, you would think that trying to develop a nuanced understanding of what was going on at this rally would have been a priority.
Cerberus
@Paula:
on 1)
That’s because some white middle class comfortable people want nothing more than to go back imagining everything’s fine and good and they can stop being worried and frightened and feeling helpless more than they want things to change.
I suspect there is a not insignificant amount of even this blog’s readers who would gladly return to apathy not if anything legislatively changed, but if the wingnuts and hippies would just shut up.
Sure houses would still be foreclosed on, people would still go bankrupt, jobs, unions, and the middle class would still be plundered, but at least things would stop feeling glum and everything would be back to normal.
And honestly, I can’t really blame them. Political Investment hurts and in our system, where cruelty is seemingly rewarded, can sometimes be of the knife-twisting variety.
I mean, we’ve got half of the elected officials heavily invested in running on a platform of bringing as much pain as possible to people who care on the other side.
It sucks, majorly and for people who aren’t directly targeted, who were able to spend large times being largely unaffected by the issues, the urge to pull away and be drawn by the cultural gravitas of being “civilized” or being “centrist” to stop the hurt must be overwhelming.
But you know what, some of us are being directly targeted by this shit. Some of us have our lives or those of close friends being determined by this shit. And being blamed because one side has called for our deaths in rhetoric and legislation…well, fuck that. And fuck the people who think “sanity” on one side is at all going to bring us back.
eemom
@Doug Hill:
well, it was about eedad and I got to get the hell out of the house by ourselves for once, and it was a beautiful autumn day and perfect for strolling around the Mall, and people had all these great signs that we took pictures of, and afterwards we walked up to Adams Morgan, our old pre-kids stomping ground, and had dinner at a cool Middle Eastern place that had KICK ASS mojitos made with fresh fruit……and THEN I got to see an old college buddy of mine who I haven’t seen since 2005 —
oh wait. I do not think you mean what I thought you meant…..
Paula
@Cerberus:
Do you have proof that people at the rally were there to “escape” politics and/or political investment?
Doug Hill
@eemom:
All my friends here went, everybody had a good time.
Cerberus
@Hawes:
A political climate that doesn’t suck.
And given most pundits, she probably finds her joy in her connections to friends and family, little victories and human moments and uses the blog to push out the needs to speak truth to power, to alleviate the cancers of society and how they hurt us, and so on.
Ah, the old whiny ass canard, that feminists and liberals who give a shit are forever aggrieved not because of real problems, but because it simply feels good to be so. And that they will never be happy even if Paradise itself occurred.
You know what?
Even if that were true, and it’s not, my answer would be “good”.
We need people who give a shit, who would not rest until life stopped sucking, who will go to the grave demanding a more equal and just system.
Because we can all opine about “winning the middle” for tomorrow’s victories, but the people who change things are the people who never rest and get all utopic about basic liberties. The movements that change things for the better, that give us all those cool rights and social privileges we didn’t used to have, were founded on men and women who basically took that impossible task and fought for it, often with blood, hated by all those who hated the changes and the blame.
And they got shit done.
You want to eventually have single-payer health care, a reinvigorated middle class, better income equality, less racism, sexism, homophobia. You enjoy those rights or comforts you have always taken for granted?
Then you better damn well thank those who “nothing would satisfy them”.
slag
@Doug Hill:
This question is really disappointing. Especially when it’s coming from those who seem to understand how deeply stupid our discourse is and how limiting such stupidity is on our capacity to solve meaningful problems–such as income inequality.
Cerberus
@Paula:
Yeah. A rally to “restore sanity” which seeks above all the toning of rhetoric and in service to said goal invents a false equivalency where both sides are equal, thus both sides should be ignored.
Add to the “too cool for school” posturing that makes a broad-based comedy show easily marketable and hard to pigeon-hole, the arguments Jon Stewart made and continues to make and the false equivalences he continues to invent and overexaggerate…
And oh yeah, the behavior and desires of the type of liberal that are the biggest current Jon Stewart fans, the behavior of white middle class suburbans to the current political upheaval. The historical response of the same groups to other socially tumultuous times (like the 60s), the response of said groups in the 80s and 90s when given the opportunity to forget real problems with distraction and the views of said people now with regards to memories of said times and the 70s.
Every single person I know who was excited to go to the Rally for Sanity because they ascribed to its values (and I realize anecdote =/= data) has wanted more the return to a bubble economy over anything else.
I bet if we studied the demographics of the rally we would arrive at similar conclusions with a majority of youthful whites from middle class backgrounds if not middle class themselves.
cleek
@Doug Hill:
it was about being sick of the inane hyperbolic bullshit that dominates our discourse. which was obvious because that’s what every skit, song and speech was about.
fer fucks sake
@Cerberus:
nonsense. nobody there said anything like that. it was about pointing out that people who think that everyone who disagrees with them is Hitler have made it difficult for the rest of us to work through the problems this country actually faces.
Paula
@Cerberus:
No anecdote does not equal data, mainly because most of the people I talked to who wanted/did go to the rally felt like they wanted to declare their presence as people who had real opinions (and, yes, liberal ones) but felt alienated from other means of expression.
Your individual anecdote. Your individual opinion.
Cerberus
@Cerberus:
Addendum, looking just on this thread and the comments of those on Stewart’s defense in other threads, another interesting anecdotal thing is that many of these have been harshly critical of minority groups who have called for their rights “out-of-turn” and that all should wait until middle class white issues are addressed first and foremost.
Now there are good arguments for that, especially political, but we’re not politicians, and it’s hard to shake the impression that many here at least are of the type who wants their life fixed and who gives a fuck about the people who were hurting before. Aka, the same division used by the only damn side actually engaging in a rhetorical war (given the body count in the last two years, it’s pretty clearly a literal slaughter).
But hey, this could be me just having a bad day. I dunno.
Liberty60
There is saying things hatefully, and then there is saying hateful things.
There are ideas being presented that are hateful and violent, no matter how polite and totebag friendly the words are.
Proposing that the superrich owe no further sacrifice, and that elderly widows be required to sacrifice even the little they have, is a violent and hateful thought, on par with throwing a brick though the window of public discourse.
Thoughts like this need to be opposed loudly, angrily, and with all the cold fury we can muster.
Paula
@Cerberus:
Interesting statement. Given that I am a woman of color and the closest thing to the indoctrinated American Marxist of Fox News’ nightmares that you can probably find (seriously — my tenth grade world history teacher made us memorize and write an in-class ten-page essay on the basic tenets of Marxist thought), the idea that I might like Stewart because most of the left/right discourse of this country is appallingly shallow to me never crossed your mind?
SGEW
I think the problem is that revolution isn’t funny.
. . . Or, maybe, revolutionaries don’t find things to be funny. One or the other.
justawriter
Americans have been calling for civility ever since people were upset over the Boston Massacre (1770 or so) and those people have pretty much been on the wrong side of history every time. Here’s someone who said it better than I ever could.
Cerberus
@Paula:
Well, apropos of nothing, the demographic sampling of the interviews of the atendees found young and ironic as the main defining traits of the attendees. I.e. hipsters with a cultural tendency to view themselves as above issues. And a large whiteness, though certainly much less so than Glenn Beck’s albino rallies.
Anon84
Jon Stewart?
Yeah, he always played it a lot safer than other comedians. But that’s how you get your own TV show, right?
And last night. I don’t know if he was off his game because of the cold, or what…..but he pretty much sucked. As in ‘not funny’.
There’s always tonight.
Paula
@Cerberus:
You’re right. That really was apropos of nothing.
For example, I am not above telling you that the shallow understanding you exhibit of your political peers is (one of) the reason(s) why your Political Investment(tm) appears to be making you suffer.
Cerberus
@cleek:
Funny.
Every single one of the defenses of what it’s about seem to confirm the false equivalence.
It was about being sick and tired of the bullshit on the left and the right. It’s about the left/right discourse being incredibly shallow.
I find this incredibly interesting with regards to the statement of @Paula:
That is her response that she is not motivated by the rhetoric on either side. All stressing the false equivalence.
Yet, where do you Paula think those oh so Marxist political leanings came from? Did they come from someone saying, both sides are the same, I’m tired of both sides, or did it come from earnest critiques of the excesses of one side and the demonstration of where the facts lie?
And what has one side been doing and the other side consistently failed to do?
Yet, all of you who are defending this rally, every last one of you, has in each successive defense used the same false equivalence. Tired of the left or right. Tired of the bullshit of both sides.
Made up bullshit, made up outrage over made up crimes.
Punch the hippies for being right, but not being nice. For convincing you, but not giving you a cookie.
Yeah, this playbook isn’t worn and weathered.
The main critique is that it sold false equivalences.
And well, everyone who thought the rally was great has been selling the same false equivalences.
How does this not demonstrate the main objection to the Rally?
Paula
Well, I supposed pretending that a person is saying one thing when they’re really saying something else is part of your tactic for making yourself feel better. Oh, how Cerberus suffers, suffers for our sins! We bow down …
Cerberus
@Paula:
Are you or are you not (you being the defenders, but also you in particular), in defense of the idea that the Rally for Sanity using consistently the false equivalence that left and right are both bad in equal or overwhelming amounts? The same objection we made about the Rally.
Cerberus
@Paula: Great, you have mastered the art of rhetorically minimizing political critics.
Now answer the question.
Paula
@Cerberus:
For one thing, I disagree that what the rally was somehow making any kind of equivalence between the “two” “sides”, as it were. As I said to Doug:
Not everyone thinks that Jon Stewart’s idea of “better discourse” equals “standing down and/or shutting up” if you’ve got strong feelings.
So to the extent that I, as an individual, have strong feelings, but feel deeply alienated from the way current political discourse frames issues and feel like there’s no real (media) outlet in which my opinions are effectively aired, I like The Daily Show and I can relate to how they see the world. It doesn’t mean that I think they’re closet Marxists, it’s that I feel like their frustration with rhetoric mirrors mine in their desire for cohesiveness and clarity in our use of political language.
Chuck Butcher
@justawriter:
A nice try, they just want to be left alone about this shit. It’s OK because we’re all nice people and wouldn’t shit all over others…
Nobody would kick the snot out of most of America for the benefit of a few, ’cause we’re nice.
Cerberus
@Paula:
And on a side note. Yes, I’m not supposed to reveal this, but since you saw through my bullshit, I just have to reveal the big secret.
It’s all a con. All this caring about political issues and so on, it’s just all for show. Really, all of us are putting on a show. It may look like people are affected by politics, like people genuinely care, but they don’t. It’s all part of an epic collaboration among Emo Performance Artists around the world to solicit undeserving empathy.
It’s true. I mean, who, gets more props, more kudos, and feelings of accomplished than a Dirty Fucking Hippie?
I tell you, none. Every DFH is trumpeted from kingdom come as a beautiful martyr, well-respected for their work when push comes to shove. They are never ever punished for being right when it was politically unpopular too. Nor are they ever looked down upon by their own allies for years of investment, back when issues weren’t nearly so cut and dried and even will get invested in things that are not currently politically possible simply because they believe that something would be a good idea when it is finally implemented.
Some of these people may concoct wild fantasies of being directly affected by certain cultural attitudes, legislation, or political climates.
It’s all lies, we’re giant attention whores and we’ll make up any sort of crap in order to trick people into feeling sorry for our “purity”. And in fact, we don’t really want anything passed. We just want to whine a bunch so that we can win the Purity Olympics.
As everyone knows, whoever wins that wins the Gold Microphone and is totally listened to the most. No one seeks liberal voices that are centrist and there is no cultural privileging of those who turn to the revolution and say softly softly.
That’s why Noam Chomsky is the current most listened to pundit on TV.
Wow, that was a lot on my chest, but I just couldn’t keep up the lies anymore.
Thank you for seeing through my seemingly earnest objections to the desperate cry for help it really was.
Seriously, that bullshit has gotten real fucking old.
Chuck Butcher
@Paula:
Why the hell are you here in this pit of divisiveness and inflamed rhetoric? No shit. I don’t care why, but the question ought to occur to you in light of the shit you’re typing.
Cerberus
@Paula:
With whose rhetoric?
Paula
@Chuck Butcher:
I’m here for the snark, when it’s around.
Paula
@Cerberus:
With political rhetoric that frames “left” as being limited to those who support Democrats and/or those who apparently believe that anything short of declaring yourself “for” the Left is a betrayal of the Left’s values. (EDIT: That the version of “conservative” we have today gets serious traction should be enough to consider how damaged this discourse is.)
As for who this “Left” is, I don’t know, but you talk like you have a good idea of what it is and what Jon Stewart and I should be pledging allegiance to. Maybe you could enlighten me on what that is?
Cerberus
@Chuck Butcher:
Well, gosh no. That would be unheard of. And besides, Fredrick Douglass was such an angry intemperate sort with such shocking rhetoric.
Serious hat, justawriter’s comment was spot on.
And furthermore, on the rhetoric issue.
Rhetoric is not the main problem.
And I’ll be speaking straight right-wing here.
It’s not the problem that the right-wing is presenting as unhinged, that they are angry and passionate. And it’s not entirely that they call for violence in their rhetoric, calling for people to reload and take aim, and all that. Though certainly that doesn’t help.
The main problem is that there is a fundamental cultural view on one side reinforced by the most sweet-talking polite people you could find that power on one side is inherently unjustified, that one side are deserving of death, that those who are different are less than or possibly not even human.
People like Brooks are all civility and appeals to the middle, but the ideology they sell is one where people will die for preventable reasons, that people will go hungry, go sick, go jobless, go bankrupt because they are viewed culturally as less than “deserving folks”.
And in the age of dog whistles, it has nothing to do with anger or gun imagery. It has to do with terrorism, with delegitimizing opposition, hurting the other side simply to hurt them, and passing laws that just so happen to have the effect of lessening people’s ability to live and especially live free. And they ask everyone to very kindly not pay attention to that.
It’s the actions. It’s the goals. It’s the things they are saying in words that are patriotic and all american and so innocuous sounding.
Sure, it’s hard to hear now that they dropped the dog whistles in exasperation and declared war, but the things they were saying before weren’t exactly better and as we’ve seen in the aftermaths, the behavior performed was no less monstrous.
The Bush administration had fantastic rhetoric about their wars, about their detention facilities and their enhanced interrogation.
Good rhetoric did not make those actions, beliefs, and debates any less monstrous, obscene or sickening.
Chuck Butcher
@Paula:
Well here’s some for you …
EDK put up charts and facts and links and all that kind of stuff and didn’t actually use the words lying plutocratic bitches while saying exactly that and you’re here? Cole asks how you like getting “fisted” and you’re here? Other than fat cat pics and some doggy pics virtually everything here – including comments – involves brick throwing of some sort.
Now, fuck Stewart and his bullshit of both sides do it. Point to the ‘lefty’ lies and deceits aimed at fucking someone over and benefitting a few. You are given facts and reasoning from them and then call it the same shit as ‘death panels’? The left has destroyed dialogue in this nation? What exactly are the platforms from which they’ve had a hand in this? Oh, I know ACORN…
Paula
@Chuck Butcher:
I don’t understand how “being here for the snark” and “being here for the brick throwing” are somehow oppositional.
EDIT: Esp. since I generally agree with using words like “fisted” to describe what’s happening, and what’s more, Jon Stewart has had many, many sketches in which he’s used bad words to describe plutocrats. zomg, whatta world!
Shoemaker-Levy 9
I’m a little puzzled by why this particular Daily Show is causing such a hubbub, because it didn’t even come close to the worst false equivalence he’s done. There wasn’t anything I particularly took issue with until the very end, when he felt he had to put up three or four seconds of Ed Schultz (Christ, does anybody even watch his show? Aren’t his ratings about like the public service announcements aired at 2 AM?) for balance. Other than that, not much if anything in the way of false equivalence, though I will agree with other commenters that it wasn’t really funny either.
justawriter
If Stewart had done a similar performance in 1968 (maybe on Laugh In?):
STEWART: Martin Luther King was in Memphis this week for choir practice.
VIDEO: (crowd singing)
STEWART: We shall overcome? King is there for the garbage collectors union. What are they overcoming? Their sense of smell?
VIDEO: (King speaking) I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land!
STEWART: God’s will? REALLY? And what’s this about not getting to the promised land. It’s not like someone’s going to kill him. Really, it’s like the Southern Christian Leadership Council is the Bizarro Klan.
STEWART: (touching fake earpiece) We just got word Martin Luther King was killed. My bad.
hilts
Kudos to Digby for standing up to the idiotic beatification of Jon Stewart. The Rally to Restore Sanity was a pure, unadulterated crock of shit. Stewart’s keynote speech at the Rally was a load of cloying, suffocating, cornball tripe. Aside from being the pied piper of false equivalency, Stewart is a lousy fucking joke teller. Between the non-stop, over-the-top camera mugging and excessive use of a NJ accent, it’s agony to watch him tell a joke. For anyone who thinks Stewart is a great satirist, listen to Mort Sahl and Lenny Bruce. Their work is lightyears ahead of anything Jon has ever done.
Chuck Butcher
@Paula:
then why the fuck are you going on about the dialogue if you’re participating in the very thing you’re decrying. In fact in the spirit of Stewart you really ought to shut the fuck up.
I don’t really mean that. Just making some equivilances here… you know bad satire or stupid joke sorta thing.
Cerberus
@Paula:
Okay, you have described centrist attempts to limit the field of the left to begin and end at the DLC.
What should you be pledging yourself to…hmmm…what should you be pledging yourself to on behalf of the left…
Yeah, the left is a big place filled with internal debate, not only on the issues, which issues are most important, but also what tactics should be engaged to pursue them or what form they should arrive in.
The left is giant internal disagreement spanning a large damn field. Inherently unable to be molded into authoritarianism, because one of the few things most on the left, even center-left have, it is a resistance to authority and agents of conformity.
The people who make it up try many strategies on many issues. Some are “further” left than others, but an exact measure does not seem to exist.
In short, your response to the “majority on the left” and the many people who have hideous rhetoric is a response to centrist media critiques of the left from a left-ward viewpoint.
And see, that’s the problem I really have.
That this rally has a lot of people ranting about both sides and ooh I hate them, and buying the false equivalency the entire media is selling. But look, your viewpoints don’t even match that. Your problem is with centrist rhetoric and I’d imagine that it’s connected with dislike of the overly eliminationist and violent imagery of the right’s current salt the earth campaign.
And yet, it’s attributed to left and right, how we hate them. The left is just a mirror of the right, just as authoritarian, rigid, and filled with hierarchal obsessions about purity rather than the storm of debate and dissension that makes liberals who they are.
And that shapes viewpoints, that shapes self-identification, and it breeds a need to “kick the hippie” to prove you’re serious, even if you have to displace something the hippie had nothing to do with onto them to make it fit.
That rewriting of reality to fit a false equivalence for a “fair fight” is my main problem with the Rally for Sanity and those who defend it and return from it.
A need for their to be a left that’s just as bad with what we dislike on the right, because that’s just how it’s supposed to work if one is serious and “feed up with the conflict”.
It lets the right off the hook for their terrorism campaigns and continues the trend where those who are consistently right are routinely ignored for those who are consistenly wrong, because those who are right are partisan hippies and those who are wrong are serious centrists above the fray.
And I hate that it works to continue to move what is “politically possible” further to the right to the point where we are fighting for Roe v Wade, collective bargaining, whether people born in America are citizens, and so on.
It’s a political tic, well sold by the media, feeding on desires to be fair, that those who best understand the issue understand that both sides are wrong in some fashion. It’s that tic that most does disservice to our situation and those most affected by the madness taking root.
I’d love it if the DLC wasn’t the beginning and end of “the left”, I’d love it if real solutions to real problems were debated as actual things rather than something for the right to demogauge on to a base who views politics as a sporting event where they make the hippies suck it.
But presenting “both sides do it” and reflexive hippie punching to the left without demonstration of actual wrong-doing is fucking stupid.
And it’s what I dislike about Jon Stewart’s current shtick.
Especially since it’s one side who has made an entire platform of declaring war on reality.
Chuck Butcher
@Cerberus:
It is much more comfortable for them to drift rightward into what was a 60s Birchers wetdream without any voices speaking to the contrary. We should go away and shut up because we’re inconvenient and some to the truths pointed out are disconcerting.
I’m pretty close to deciding it isn’t worth it to give a damn. If it were riding weather I might just do that. I’m pretty tired of getting mocked and discounted for getting things right as proven after time passes. It pays shit and is wearing and the work you do on behalf of the politicians pays off in getting just what you didn’t want or most of what the other side wanted and lots of Paulas who’d like you to just go away.
Cerberus
@Chuck Butcher:
It’s hard, it’s unsatisfying, and it sucks.
But you know and I know it’s work worth doing. Take the break you need, savor the few and far between victories, or just look at how bad things were culturally not very long ago.
Take care of yourself and come back.
It’s a marathon, one which no one wants to admit is happening.
But it’s important that it does happen.
Not the greatest inspirational speech, but the important thing is take care of yourself so you don’t burn out even if it means cutting the pace for a little while.
I might be a young one, but I appreciate what happened before, the gains they made in short times, the way my life has been easier because of the pain of those who went before. I want to do the same for those who come after.
It’s a marathon of generations.
justawriter
Although Jon did piss me off last night, I did like his abortion funding bit tonight.
Paula
whoops, my post included the s-word. Please unlock.
@Cerberus:
Again, I think most of that is your opinion on what is getting framed because you have an agreement with the consensus progressive POV in this country, and TDS somehow varied from that. But my responses are mostly about how people, inasmuch as they do not consume political discourse every day of their lives like people here in this forum do, think differently about their choices and that Stewart/Colbert — because he himself is one of those people — tapped into that in a big way. But your investment in ideological position makes you feel like this is a “false” position, and therefore a false equivalence. I can’t do anything to convince you otherwise, and I don’t really care to. But I do, however, have a big-ass problem with you impugning bad motives and bad faith and/or no belief/no passion to people who somehow don’t see things the way you do.
And yeah, the left is a wide field. In order to join the So.shul.estt Workers Party of America, you [used to/still] have to submit to severing all alliances with mainstream parties. No middle ground w/ which to build coalitions and possibly build your numbers. Either you were a So.shul.est, or you accommodated the bourgeois party system. Would you say that they are “moving discourse to the right” because they refuse to participate in politics in conventional ways? [FWIW, it’s a totally valid political position. Effectiveness is a different matter, but still …]
Butcher, I didn’t say that BJ was somehow part of the dialogue that I was decrying, so it seems really interesting that you include it here. Given that my definition of what I disliked was “with political rhetoric that frames “left” as being limited to those who support Democrats and/or those who apparently believe that anything short of declaring yourself “for” the Left is a betrayal of the Left’s values” — where in that sentence are you reading “Balloon Juice”, or “strong language decrying plutocrats”, or hell, “Chuck Butcher”?
Chuck Butcher
@Paula:
Heh, take my word for it, though I have frequent difficulties with the Democratic Party despite being/having been an officer and etc I haven’t seen anything from the GOP or the “mid-stream” that is more than pretense at policy. By policy I mean addressing problems that actually mean something.
Most of the “middle” doesn’t give enough of a damn to find out what is actually happening and why it is and yet acts as though it is some definition of sanity.
I’m real familiar with CPUSA since their headquarters were 20 miles from where I lived and some political research involved them. They liked me, but couldn’t manage to wrap their heads around my objections to their politics.
I’m well left of most of the people here, but my guns seem to throw them badly. I’m inconvenient and I understand exactly why. Tired of it and pretty ready to watch you all fuck yourselves as badly as you care to. I’m old enough to skitter past most of the bad outcomes and maybe by the time my grandkid is grown you’ll be tired enough of it to straighted up. My living kid is happy with it, so that’s his look out.
That rally of his ended my viewership pretty much in itself. If you want to play at the idea that the world is some duality of black/white, good/evil so that for each there is its opposite, feel free. That is what Stewart did and it isn’t remotely true that the GOP horseshit is mirrored on the left. Fuck him and that shit.
Morbo
When called on his bullshit, Glenn Beck will also say he’s just an entertainer.
Sirkowski
John Stewart sure is SERIOUS BUSINESS!
brewmn
Man, every single pathology of the Firebagging left is on full, glorious display in this thread. I watch every single TDS episode on DVR; it’s short enough that my wife and I can squeeze in a show between diapers and bottles for our twins.
As far as I can tell, every single moron criticizing Stewart on this site, and that includes digby (who I stopped reading in early 2008 when she went full PUMA on us) doesn’t watch his program, and only watches the segments that some other deranged site links to to show how awful Stewart is. Anyone who actually watches the show knows that the takedowns of Republicans and rightwing media outnumber those of left-of-center politicians and pundits by a factor of 30.
But, to the psychos on the lefty blogs, he is now David Broder, when he’s not trying to oppress the powerless, punch hippies, and acting as a tool of the Republicans. You people are so predictable it’s beyond pathetic; wind you up and watch you parade around wearing your own victimizatition like a five-year-old wears a two-dollar tiara.
Comrade Kevin
@Trentrunner:
That interview was pretty bad. From what I remember, Stewart was sick at the time, but still…
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@brewmn: Yeah, DougJ is a notorious firebagger. That’s why he coined the term, to mock himself.
It’s hilarious how all the venom (“morons”, “psychos” “pathetic” “bitch ass lefty malcontents”) on this thread comes from Stewart’s defenders, reacting to some fairly mild criticism of The Blessed One with the same hysterics that Jane Hamsher and her followers bring to any mild criticism of “Howard”, “Dennis”, “Russ”, or whoever the infallible hero of the day is. Or, of course, that PUMAs bring to any suggestion that Hillary lost through any fault or flaws of her own. So those of us who critique The Holy Paragon are now firebaggers.
fewmet
From the perspective of an Australian who has spent a fair bit of time in the States, American political discourse is dominated to an unusual and dangerous degree by shallow bullshit. If Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity was in aid of calling attention to the problem of shallow bullshit, then I’m all for it.
Of course, being consistently opposed to shallow bullshit would entail criticising Stewart when he spouts shallow bullshit. The only comparison that Stewart draws between the Wisconsin protesters and the Teabaggers is that they are both groups of people protesting, sometimes loudly. That’s about as superficial as comparisons get, and it’s misleading. This comparison is then extended to compare Fox with Ed Shultz – since the unionists are the equal but opposite version of the teabaggers, then criticism of one is the equal but opposite version of criticism of the other, and support of one is the equal but opposite version of support of the other. It’s just a matter of what team you’re on, there are no salient differences that make the two cases perhaps not equal but opposite. This really is pure false equivalency/shallow bullshit. As for Stewart’s joke about the Democratic senators running away, there he is being blithely obtuse about their position and relying on a superficial stereotype for humour value (i.e. shallow bullshit).
Uncle Clarence Thomas
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Goddamit, I do love me a balloonbagger circle pop! Oooh, digby is too radical for our precious center-right sensibilities, there are no observations worth making beyond our upturned noses, and stop picking on the “strictly comedian” Jon Stewart!
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brewmn
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: You’re not critiquing anything. You’re just making shit up so you can go off on another rageaholic bender about another sellout because someone with an opinion on politics doesn’t adhere to your precise standards. And I’ve scrolled though 200+ examples of “fairly mild criticism” on this thread alone, so I’m guessing you and I would define that phrase differently.
But my disgust with the thoughts expressed here has nothing to do with criticism of Stewart, and everything to do with the unhinged screamers who seek to conflate every expression of opinion that doesn’t conform to every single one of their particulars into a calculated, heartless betrayal of Teh True Progressivism. Stewart expresses hundreds of political thoughts a year on his show; you’re disagreeing with the substance or tone of a handful of those hundreds doesn’t make him the enemy. But, Firebaggers seem much more concerned with finding apostates to the One True Faith than with persuading people to agree with them.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
@brewmn:
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I don’t understand why you didn’t use every single Short Attention Span Theater/balloonbagger cliche in your mock-vinyl fanny pack.
May the balloonbagger circle pop be unbroken.
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AnotherBruce
This may be the most worthless thread ever to appear on the internet.
I’m so proud to be part of it.
FlipYrWhig
I like how digby herself showed up, played the full Greenwald “y’all just can’t stand to hear your Dear Leader Obama criticized by the likes of me,” and no one said anything about it, because they were too busy yelling at each other about who was more right about what was most unfunny.
FlipYrWhig
Also, the usual “firebag” position is supposed to be that Democrats cave too much and instead should stand and fight for principles. So this time Stewart (I gather; I missed it) said–in part–that Wisconsin Democrats should stand and fight for principles. But that was the wrong answer this time.
Alex
I read this blog every day and don’t bother to comment because who really cares what gets said in the comments?
Regardless this post highlights my big concern with the blog which is it feels at points like reading the liberal version of the Corner. There is a huge tendency towards hyperbole and ignoring the way things appear to those not viewing the entire world through a “we are right they are wrong” mentality. Sure, the Republicans are terrible and I’m going to vote Democrat every time unless the parties change in a huge way, but that doesn’t give Democrats a free pass for acting like idiots.
I think Yglesias said it best when he called the Republicans consistent because their take on procedure is always supportive of what advances their policy interests, and it is often the same with Democrats. Stewart spends a lot of time focusing on the procedural garbage. Saying protesters for whatever cause are anarchists disturbing the country and then the next cause are good honest Americans is absurd, and he called bullshit where he saw it. It was also abundantly clear to anyone watching that having 7 Fox News voices do it and 1 MSNBC voice do it implied that MSNBC is not as bad as Fox News. Apparently people at this site really need Stewart to say straight out (again) that Fox News is worse than MSNBC.
Get over it. Even those of us who agree with the liberal take get tired of hearing everything with the lens of “we are always right”. Stewart appeals to way more people than this blog because he highlights that the Republicans are acting like jerks 95% of the time and the Democrats are 15% of the time. That doesn’t mean he thinks they are both equal, it just means he is not going to blatantly ignore the bad behavior of liberals.
Alex Scott
To be honest, a lot of Digby’s comments about Jon Stewart come across less as griping about false equivalence and more as “That mean ole Jon Stewart won’t let me call Republicans Nazis.”
Like last night’s show: they sent John Oliver to talk to the protesters and do his usual correspondent stuff. The only time he really confronted anybody was when he found a sign with a swastika. That’s how it comes across to me: not “Don’t speak out or protest,” but “Can you leave the swastikas out of it?”
Turbulence
“Can you leave the swastikas out of it?”
The United States started a war for no reason that exterminated a million people, and the biggest problem Jon Stewart can find to complain about is that some asshole put a swastika on a sign. Oh, and that Code Pink gave a fuck.
Right.