From his latest Slate post, “Why Jon Stewart Was Bad for the Liberals Who Loved Him“:
…I grew up with The Daily Show. It hit its stride during the 2004 election—my last full year in high school—and was critical viewing when Barack Obama won the Democratic nomination and then the presidency, my last full year in college. I attended Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in 2010 and have watched the show on a semi-regular basis for almost a decade. And as a liberal, college-educated millennial—the almost prototypical viewer for The Daily Show—I’m thrilled Stewart is leaving.
I’m not saying this because Stewart has given his time or deserves to try something new. I’m saying this because Jon Stewart, with his brand of left-leaning cynicism (sprinkled with occasional earnestness), is a bad example for the liberals who watch and love him.
The emblematic Stewart posture isn’t a joke or a witticism, it’s a sneer—or if we’re feeling kind, a gentle barb—coupled with a protest: I’m just a comedian. Sometimes, this is refreshing… More often however, Stewart’s stance is frustrating. His protests to the contrary, Stewart is a pundit, and like many pundits, he’s wed to a kind of anti-politics, where genuine difference doesn’t exist (or isn’t as relevant as we think) and political problem-solving is mostly a matter of will, knowledge, and technocratic know-how…
Not only does this discourage people who want to make a difference—like the earnest young viewers of Stewart’s audience—but it blurs the picture and makes it hard to see when those arguments really matter. It’s how we get the spectacle of Stewart’s rally, when tens of thousands of liberals gathered on the National Mall in Washington to hear an ode to civility—with an extended metaphor about the Lincoln Tunnel—as if Washington gridlock were a case of bad manners and not deep-seated ideological differences about government and its place in the world.
Again, there are times when this basic perspective is vital, when we need someone to bathe our government in light and mockery and challenge the dishonesty, incompetence, and self-seriousness of our leaders and elites. But this approach, which worked wonders during the Bush administration, isn’t always the best one. For liberals in particular, the idea that government is only hypocrisy and dysfunction is self-defeating and nihilistic…
Pogonip
Anne, now I am sure you will see this: thanks for the interesting info about Boston Hahbah and its fancy filtration.
Now let’s hope they don’t decide to dump all the snow in your (I’m guessing unfiltered) yard.
Culture of Truth
I sort of get what’s saying (although it also feels like clickbait, and the rally for sanity was a one-off a while ago) but it’s in the nature of satirists and critics to point out “the dishonesty, incompetence, and self-seriousness of our leaders and elites.” Someone’s gotta do it, and sure isn’t going to be millionare network anchors.
Culture of Truth
Adding, never saw Stewart as sneering – if anything, he’s too earnest, hence the rally for sanity. So not sure I agree with his premise.
MattR
Isn’t it both though? Ideological differences don’t explain the conservative opposition to Obamacare
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Culture of Truth: Yeah I wouldn’t say sneer, but a moue of supercilious, world-weary disappointment. Stewart’s good far outweighed his bad, but the Rally About Nothing was a low point, and around that time he did seem to go in to some kind of Broderist funk.
jl
I don’t agree with much of the column.
Sneer? Is he confusing Stewart with Maher? I think Stewart did more than gentle barbs, and I think he was less likely to run behind the ‘just a comedian’ dodge than most. He tried to back up his analysis, comedic and otherwise, including the bothsidedoit pablum part of his act that I hated.
His act at the Restore Sanity rally was hard to stomach, but Colbert was there too with a needed counterpoint.
The Daily Show is more than Stewart: Mandvi challenging Scott to pee in the damn cup at a presser, Cenac doing a hilarious debunking of ‘Will we be SWEDEN!!??’ nonsense. The Daily Show has produced shows by Colbert, Oliver, Wilmore, all of which (Wilmore has just debuted but it is promising) are more consistently pointed. And then there is Black, who I do not think is a bothsidesdoit kind of guy. At least from what I saw of his pieces.
I believe in newspapers and I very much believe in friends and family around dinner tables, but fact is that what most people see and hear is cable and broadcast corporate media. Actually, Stewart did a service by skewering print once in a while, reminding younger people that existed.
The world is not perfect. Somebody is going to be doing political humor. Stewart did it better than most. Does Bouie have a suggestion as to who we should love for political humor? Someone will take Stewart’s place soon, on the Daily Show or off. It’s a free country and and a market for political humor.
The question is not whether Stewart should or should not be loved by liberals, or why he is not perfect? It is who would do better?
Villago Delenda Est
Concern troll is concerned.
Film at 11.
Villago Delenda Est
@MattR:
There must be something else then. I wonder what it could ever be?
Culture of Truth
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Yeah, it’s like, “Stewart sneered, so let me sneer at his rally for sanity.” Not sure I concur with JB on this.
Villago Delenda Est
Why is Stewart, even with his flaws, so loved by liberals?
Because he was one of the few voices who dared to question the legitimacy of the fascist fucktards of Faux Noise, and routinely skewered the MSM for their failure to do so, and their endless lazy devotion fucking narratives that usually had only a tenuous connection to reality.
Feebog
@Villago Delenda Est:
Might also be that Most Liberals have a sense of humor, and Stewart made us laugh.
jl
A little trip down memory lane. What else? Bee;’s first skewering of Mornin’ Joe. Jones’s coverage of contested Iranian election. Klepper is dong good stuff. Right now i am rewatching Williams doing Hova’s honor.
Steward was a motivating force behind all that work too.
Edti: and where would this world be without Hodgman’s Deranged Millionaire?
JimV
Jon Stewart was the best interviewer I’ve ever seen. Comedy is usually about poking fun at someone or something, and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. Overall, for my money he gave the sanest interpretations of the news available. Most of the people he made fun of desperately needed it.
In short, I couldn’t disagree much more with the quoted piece.
Crouchback
@Villago Delenda Est: It is an ideology, just not a very pleasant one. There are the Deserving – decent, white, Christian God fearing folks – and the Undeserving. The Deserving are entitled to respectful treatment from cops, government aid when they’re in a jam, understanding and sympathy when they sin, etc. The Undeserving not so much. That’s how Tom Cotton can proudly cash farm subsidy checks while questioning federal aid to New York City after Sandy. That’s how elderly Tea Party members (read some of Taibbi’s descriptions) can cry out against big government hand outs while clinging to Social Security and Medicare. That’s why Ted Cruz’s dad talks of righteous kings plundering the wicked. It is not merely ok, it is just to take wealth from the Undeserving and give it to the Deserving. Likewise, it is just to rig the electoral system against the Undeserving.
Of course, openly admitting this would be too extreme – so they cover it with a thick layer of BS. They strive to justify their actions some other way – e.g., blocking the Undeserving from voting is really fighting voter fraud. So the ideology can seem a bit incoherent. But once you grasp the underlying philosophy, it all makes sense.
Steve from Antioch
The person who wrote this is a fucking moron.
kc
Stewart was sometimes wrong & exasperating, but to say he was generally “bad for liberals?”
I’m starting to feel like this blog is just trolling me.
kc
@Culture of Truth:
It is. It’s Slate.
lol
ITT: People intent on demonstrating Bouie’s point.
jl
@lol: Too bad Daily Show is only shown when time to go out to do election and GOTV work. Maybe it is all a fiendish plot.
Elie
Amen
Rex Tremendae
Bouie also has an article up about why we shouldn’t care that Scott Walker might not believe in evolution.
different-church-lady
As a wise person once said in a now-deleted diary at the GOS: “The best progressive is a humorless progressive.”
It was sarcasm. Or maybe it was sneering. Apparently there’s no longer a difference, according to our youngers…
srv
At best, I could stop a few juicers from voting, but Stewart could stop millions.
He will be missed.
EconWatcher
@JimV:
Have to disagree, I thought the interview was the one area where Stewart pretty much sucked. Did you see Lynn Cheney eat his lunch? He seemed, quite frankly, afraid of her.
But overall, the guy was great, and I think he helped create a whole generation of liberals. He had a gift for uncovering the absurd core of things. While obviously and grossly incompetent and venal, the Bush Administration would not have appeared as much a pure laughingstock without Stewart. By getting young people to laugh at them, he helped get them on board, probably for the long haul (these attitudes tend to stick).
And of course, there would have been no Colbert without Stewart, and Colbert is of course responsible for the moment during the Bush Administration when I was proudest to be an American (I refer, of course, to his presentation at the White House Correspondents Dinner). It reminded me that some of our people do indeed have cojones.
Overall, Stewart is a great man, and arguably the finest living graduate of my alma mater…..
Anne Laurie
@efgoldman:
But there’s also pet rescue, gardening, recipes, meet-ups, random YouTube videos, soccer, ACA info, making fun of the Blogmaster, and most importantly — Act Blue campaigns for our candidates!
I came to this blog from Sadly, No! Much as I loved it there, unrelenting snark just wears people out. There’s only so long you can firehose Tha Stupit before you break down/give up, the way so many front-pagers at S,N! did.
jl
The column brings to mind the Daily Show ‘You Don’t Know Dick’ series. Can’t find them right now. I’ll look later. Those were good.
different-church-lady
Are you honestly saying the guy didn’t write jokes? That jokes weren’t the meat of that show? If you honestly think that then you do not have a clue as to what comedy is.
Tree With Water
Stewart peaked the day he called Tucker Carlson a dick on national TV. It’s been all downhill from there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@EconWatcher: the Lynne Cheney interview was weak, and he was often too interested in appearing thoughtful and reasonable when dealing with ‘wingers– I read somewhere that he viewed guests on his show as if they were guests in his home, or something–, but he has some memorable heads on his wall: Bill Kristol on more than one occasion, Jim Cramer.. I’m sure there are others I’m forgetting.
I remembered the moment that sent him in to the Brodersphere before the Rally About Nothing
Summer of 2010. Republicans were trying to kill the bill with poison pill amendments, so the Dems tried to pass it with a parliamentary trick that required a two-thirds vote. Stewart declared Both Sides Equally To Blame
jl
I warned you kids I would pull over the car if you didn’t stop talking all this nonsense.
Poor pee pee
http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/vra301/poor-pee-ple
Tree With Water
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: All I remember about the (always gracious) Lynne Cheney interview is the way she left the stage when it was over, i.e., like she was shot out of a cannon. Stewart made hay out of her big “FU Jon Stewart” of an exit by replaying it and ridiculing her for it on the next night’s show.
She’s a real piece of work, that one. Mrs. Himmler, without the charm or whimsy. For those that haven’t already read and enjoyed it, google: Alan Simpson, 2014 response to Lynne Cheney/takedown of a nasty drunk.
gee
Bouie seems to be trying to hard to stand out from the crowd. Jon Stewart never claimed to be the saviour for Liberals. He always said that he should never be considered a warrior in “your cause”, whatever that cause may be. He always stressed that the DS was really to provide catharsis more than anything else.
If anybody is sneering here, it’s Bouie and that is truly tiresome.
Irony Abounds
Yes, don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good is a cliche, but like most cliches it was born from truth. Bouie didn’t find Stewart perfect, therefore his departure must be a good thing. I really am sick of absolutists, as though there even is an absolute truth about most things (although it is absolutely true that Dick Cheney is pure evil – on that I will not relent). Yes Stewart has faults, sometimes he might miss the mark, but overall he was entertaining while shedding some light on the hypocrisy and vapid nothingness that pervades politics and journalism in this country. I for one will miss him.
Chris
@Culture of Truth:
This.
Moreover, I find it fucking healthy for a democratic society to have somebody poking and prodding and pointing out the warts in our politics. All the warts, not just the warts on one side, even if there are a lot more of them on one side than the other.
ruemara
Bouie is right. Stewart was a double-edged sword of the clarity in issues his humour brought and a cynical skewering of everyone, including the side that was actually trying to do things that were good. Conflating the unprecedented filibustering of everything by the GOP with any sort of hold done by the Dems? If everyone that was a fan remembered that he’s not a journalist, he’s a great comedian, then I don’t think it would have really mattered. I’m still a fan, but I stopped thinking everything was all in good fun when I realized that people really considered him a news source.
How do you even have the Rally for Sanity in an election year and not even mention voting? Look, John Stewart is going to go down in the history books as a wonderful confluence of educated humor, political satire and a generational influence. But there’s always a downside.
agorabum
Sure he was funny…buy he sold us out!
If only Jon Stewart hadn’t told that joke (you know it) we would have a liberal utopia, right?
RandomMonster
Ten years out of high school and this guy is preaching to a comedian about how his lack of earnestness is destroying a just cause…I already feel sorry for the 50 year-old he’ll become.
And this:
He totally misses the point of Stewart’s (and his fans’) world view — it’s not that government is hypocrisy and dysfunction, it’s that politicians and pundits are full of shit. That’s the point of the Daily Show, and why Jon Stewart will be missed.
mdblanche
The problem with that is that the Republicans act more like the truck driver from Duel.
Oh, and the idea for the rally first emerged on Reddit as a response to Glen Beck’s rally that summer. Except originally the idea was for Stephen Colbert to lead it before Stewart jumped in. Just sayin’.
SRW1
Slate does a contrarian piece? I is shocked, shocked I tellz you!
Matt McIrvin
Stewart’s interviews could be too softball, and sometimes he seemed to be reaching a little too far to criticize his own “side”. But his show was also probably the most mainstream outlet to publicize the idea of false balance in media coverage of politics. And we wouldn’t have Colbert’s or John Oliver’s harder-edged shows without his.
chopper
This column is stupid and bouie is an idiot.
chopper
@Anne Laurie:
unrelenting snark just wears people out.
you, maybe. the rest of us just change the channel or redirect the browser when we want to see something else.
Mike N.
The piece seems to take the approach that a viewer ONLY watches Stewart. The solution: don’t do that. Of course that’s bad, and I think Stewart would agree.
satby
I had a 6 hour layover in DC on my way to Haiti on the day of the Rally, so I went to it. It was fun, and most of the people seemed to be there because it was to blow the Glenn Beck rally numbers out of the water. It was an election year, and Stewart talked about staying engaged, because this dysfunctional mess was partially from disengaged citizens not insisting on it stopping. I had to leave before it was over to catch my flight, but I never thought it was a waste of time. The original point was to demonstrate that anybody with a high profile could get people to rally in DC and undercut Glenn Beck’s claim that his rally represented anything other than him and his nutty followers, and it successfully did that.
brantl
I found what I saw of Stewart in shorts, on the internet, to be to the point, laying the bare philosophy of the two major parties open and plain for the viewing. I think he has done the sort of analysis that no one else is, in as large-scale a format as he’s been in. I will miss the hell out of him.
Marc
@satby:
So his response was to hold a rally telling us that both sides were equally to blame for the dysfunction, and his idea of “engagement” was to get everybody to take a day off on the Saturday before the election.
I was also at the rally. I remember it as a clusterfuck of epic proportions. I saw lots of funny signs, most of them implying that the Republican candidate for the Delaware senate seat was or was not a witch. (Zing!) Any larger political point was so buried under the snark as to be lost.
Michael Bersin
It’s not particularly Jon Stewart’s responsibility that some portion of the population’s political activism consisted solely of watching him on The Daily Show.
Butch
@jl: As far as disagreement, I would replace “most” with “any of.” Stewart’s interviews could be awful, true (I’m thinking in particular of his fawning interview with Michelle Rhee and his attack-dog piece with Sibelius) but to me his humor rarely missed.
Starfish
Jamelle Bouie writes facile clickbait for Slate. How is he a wise man?
Jon Stewart makes a lot of silly faces and sighs. That part of his show annoys me.
Mike Furlan
“For liberals in particular, the idea that government is only hypocrisy and dysfunction is self-defeating and nihilistic…”
Down with Weimar, nothing could be worse than the Weimar Republic. . .
That attitude is bad for everybody.
mtiffany
I smell a Pulitzer! Bouie is as wise as he is cromulent.
Mike Furlan
BTW, more good news for Larison supporters:
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/02/neo-confederate-group-plans-celebration
Join him in celebrating the assassination of Lincoln.
Mike Furlan
“He and his older brother, Lawrence Leibowitz, who was previously the Chief Operating Officer of NYSE Euronext (parent company of the New York Stock Exchange)”
Somehow this doesn’t sound like the background of a radical.
Jon may actually be the greatest conservative mind of our time.
He turns the serious issues of our time into jokes, and dissipates the energy that might address them.
Fundamentally he likes things the way they are just fine.
And, to be clear, I cannot say without doubt that he is wrong.
dan
@lol: If Jamelle Bouie cared so much about a public option, he wouldn’t spend his time writing columns and tweets about Jon Stewart.
Larv
Does Bouie actually watch TDS? Because that’s a pretty ridiculous thing to take away from it. Stewart’s target isn’tgovernment, it’s bullshit. Is it’s Bouie’s position that when politicians engage in bullshit, we should ignore it so as not to discourage the oh so delicate and idealistic youth? Fuck that.
Stewart may occasionally miss the mark, and sometimes he tries too hard to be balanced, but overall he and the TDS staff are relentless critics of the nonsense that pervades our political discourse. Government and politicians aren’t even his primary target; he spends much more time skewering the bullshit of the media, and especially its right wing. Liberals and young people are far more likely to find Fox News untrustworthy than other demographics. Would that be true without Stewart mocking them on a near-daily basis? He’d be a worthwhile, even heroic, presence on TV for that alone.
lethargytartare
@RandomMonster:
that’s a distinction without a difference – the notion that all politicians and pundits are full of shit is equally toxic to effective political discourse. It’s the default position of those that have given up, the coworker who’s entire political philosophy is “they’re all liars”.
Frankly, I think much of the 2nd half of Stewart’s oeuvvre reeked of petulant disappointment that the world wasn’t instantly remade as he’d dreamed on 1/20/2009
Bystander
Stewart turned me off finally when he did some bs both sides do it skit. The Dem tat to the Repub tit he advanced was entirely lame. Wish I could remember it now because it summed up perfectly how Stewart – or his TV persona – became the New Broder Now With Laffs.
Paula
@Michael Bersin:
Oh, my lord, someone talking sense.
MBunge
Jon Stewart isn’t the problem. Jamelle Bouie is the problem.
1. The Daily Show was/is a satire on the media. Bouie pretty clearly doesn’t understand that.
2. One of the things that absolutely cripples the left, at least in this country, is the pathological need of narcissistic liberals to always be the most righteous liberal in the room.
Mike
Frankensteinbeck
Stewart lost me with his interview of Obama, where he spent the entire time harping that Obama did not live up to his promise to bring ‘change’ to Washington. ‘Change’ was defined as ‘bipartisan cooperation’. That was the only definition Stewart would discuss. Any attempt to discuss legislation, progressive accomplishments, policies of any kind was ignored so that Stewart could go back to insisting that Republican obstructionism meant Obama broke his promise.
Stewart has done a lot of good, but he’s also relentlessly pressed a ‘pox on both houses, both sides do it’ philosophy, and used any cheap joke that ignores the depth of an issue to do it. If he were just a comedian, that would be fine, but he acts like a pundit and people trust him as one.
Starfish
@lethargytartare: Stewart was not opposed to all politicians and all pundits. He was opposed to the 24-hour news channels that had to fill hours and hours with talk though they had no new information to actually talk about.
The difficult work of actual journalism is not happening in pundit land.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
people seem to think Bouie’s tweet about twitter liberals, Stewart and elections is criticizing Stewart, which kind of proves Bouie’s point.
kindness
So Stewart went down hill after 2004?
I hate to say it but some of the younguns out there seem to think they are in a position to pass judgement. I’m not Methuselah but I’m old enough to know when someone is in and floundering way over their head. The clue? They don’t even see it. Now if only Darwinism would work so well in the rhetorical world.
AxelFoley
@ruemara:
Well said.
AxelFoley
@Frankensteinbeck:
This. So much this.
slag
Couldn’t disagree more. Jon Stewart was a clear voice of sanity in an increasingly insane world. I’ll never forget his response to Condoleeza’s extreme fecklessness before, during, and after 911: http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/5g68q8/me-ain-t-culpa. What a depressing world in which we lived in that time. Humor may not be activism, but at least it keeps things real.
schrodinger's cat
Jon Stewart was a mixed bag. He was at his best when he skewered the media and at his worst when he interviewed the war criminals in the Bush administration with fawning solicitude. I also did not like his Broderian tendencies.
His biggest contribution in my opinion was giving Colbert a platform.
Mike Furlan
@schrodinger’s cat: Larry Wilmore is more to my liking. Another guy that probably not have a career without Stewart.
schrodinger's cat
@Frankensteinbeck: Fawning treatment for John Yoo and Rumsfeld and hectoring reserved for the likes of Pelosi and Obama. Not my favorite interviewer by far.
I like the way the BBC world news crew does interviews, tough and fair. They don’t see any need to chit chat and be Oprah like with their interviewees.
schrodinger's cat
@Mike Furlan: JS has been a good spotter of comedic talent, in general. Although I do find Sam Bee and her husband a tad tiresome.
mtiffany
“I christen thee Jamelle Bougie, newest resident of The Village.”
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@mtiffany: Yes, I’m sure Cokie Roberts, Chuck Todd and the ghost of Tim Russert all agree that the problem with Jon Stewart is that he was too much of a centrist.
samiam
Slate doing what they do best. Trolling the left. Ball Juice bloggers who are all about the low hanging fruit will fall for that every time.
VodkaOhNo
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: That Jim Cramer interview, that was actually painful to watch, but so cathartic at the same time. Cramer was basically crying by the time it was over. Even if they’re a complete jackass, there is something really cringeworthy about watching a man in his 50’s cry from being publicly torn a new asshole. Like, “oh that’s just sad, you’re are not a grown man right now, you’re a 7 year old boy who just pissed his pants on national television.”