The Daily Show

jon passes on these counts, at least.

Before the "Limbaugh/Idiot" book, Franken had been unfunny for eons.

How old are you?

I don't think anyone is trying to hold Stewart to journalistic standards in the sense that he has to ask tough questions out of some sort of duty. It's more a feeling that we enjoy it when he does that sort of thing because it actually makes the show funnier. There is something genius about those moments when the show is able to savagely lampoon the media and yet simultaneously ask tougher questions than the "real media" would ever dare.

People seem to be annoyed that Stewart said Santorum is "a good guy"--is that not true? Santorum has some less than "good" beliefs but that's more a question of how you are raised, how much thinking you've done since then, and how intelligent you are to begin with. You can't just demonize people and treat them like subhumans because they aren't very enlightened--they're just misguided people! Why not relate to them like people and discuss things in a civilized manner? This is really important, and maybe is a cliché now, but it's a good lesson. It's really difficult to deal with these people on a purely personal level, and Stewart provides an excellent model for that.

He couches incisive jabs in irony, too, which may not be ROFL funny but entertains me plenty. I think that's his M.O. and in that sense he succeeds almost all the time and is doing a great service.

Also, we don't really live in a culture that looks kindly on truly grilling people face to face, rather than being nice. Compare the "town hall" debates with Bush to the equivalents with Blair (which I saw on Daily show, btw…) France has a talk show where the host just insults and belittles his famous guests for an hour (can't think of the name right now), but I hear it ends up being pretty unconstructive and embarrassing, though amusing. I don't think that kind of approach would work at all here, even if I'd love to see it. The Onion AV Club tried it but I think after making fun of Jim Breuer to the point where he actually seemed hurt or at least insulted, they gave up on it.

(altho the best way to convince someone their position is wrong is, of course, to get them to endure the consequences of said position themselves. which in this case I guess would be negating and outlawing Sen. Frothy Fecal Mixture's marriage.)

xpost

Nobody 'learned' anything from that backscratching session the other night. As an ex-standup comic, I guess my argument is Stewart is breaking professional protocol by mocking these twerps in his satire -- the implicit premise of which is that they're dangerous and/or pathetic -- then sitting down in an interview (after a hearty and successfully diverting opening joke) which concludes "we're both good dudes who just disagree." If JS's critical appraisal is accurate and The Daily Show is Lenny Bruce without the arrest record, he's just sleeping with the enemy in these politico chats.

I think a guy who demonizes gay people as a matter of public policy (tho he doesn't mind hiring some queen to be his aide) is well worth demonizing, but that's just one fag's POV.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Santorum

When the A.P. reporter asked, "OK, without being too gory or graphic, so if somebody is homosexual, you would argue that they should not have sex?", Santorum replied, "In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality. That's not to pick on homosexuality. It's not, you know, man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be."

On July 20, 2004, while debating the Federal Marriage Amendment, Santorum said "defending marriage" was the "ultimate homeland security."

In July 2005 Santorum's Director of Communication, Robert Traynham, confirmed speculation that he was gay, describing himself as an "out gay man" who strongly supported Santorum, "a man of principle, he is a man who sticks up for what he believes in." Santorum himself responded to the controversy by praising Traynham and chiding those who made Traynham an object of "bigotry" to get to Santorum. He also said he knew that Traynham was gay.

I think the public figure of Rick Santorum is repellent and horrible. I have no idea what the private figure is like. As such, I feel no cognitive dissonance between roundly mocking the fucker's policies and ideas and someone who's spent more time talking to him than I have coming to the conclusion that at heart he's a decent person.

The Dan Quayle comparison is kind of OTM and there's an unspoken caveat going on here regarding how the end result of intentional or unintentional denigration and oppression of a particular demographic is the same regardless of intentions.

Why is that surprising? I remember reading that 23% of the openly gay folks in America voted for Bush in November. Which I guess means that one in every four gay people is voting for someone who wishes to hurt and oppress them (if not kill them!). They obviously don't know what they're doing and need to be educated about the subject.

that being said, I don't believe that 23% statistic for a second. please verify/substantiate.

NO fookin' way this is possible. is there state-by-state evidence/breakdown of this? what about the states that had anti-gay marriage ballot issues?

also, yeah, people always vote against their best interests. Narratives are far stronger than reality, no matter what the facts actually are.

Bush wins same portion of gay vote as '00

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html

(scroll about halfway down the page)

Of course, feel free to disbelieve the accuracy of that poll, but the numbers in it are in line with what I remember hearing at the time.

xpost

xpost: YES IT IS ALL GAY PEOPLE ARE ALIKE (aren't they?)

(*Of course, they would be wrong about Bush as the best choice.)

xp

I don't think this is the type of thinking that made the Democrats lose at all. The opposite is true, every time I screamed at a Republican in the run up to the election they became 200% more firmly entrenched in their position. Not ENOUGH of this kind of debate when on then, remember how it was all personal attacks of "Kerry is a fag" or "Bush is hitler" nature?? That clearly didn't lead to a democrat victory!

exactly. Narratives are stronger than reality. if you have this framing hardwired so deep within("bush is a good guy"), reality/facts alone("bush was misleading, bush's guys lied, bush's guy leaked CIA identity", etc) will take forever to make you change your mind.

which is why it's fun to see people continually saying that "if the rest of america just knew the facts, we wouldn't be in the situation we are now", as if all humans are completely rational and see all facts the same way.

You're dreaming.

What's far more likely is that more people in the center will think "Hey, that Santorum guy wasn't so bad. He sounded pretty calm and reasonable and Jon Stewart says he's a good guy."

-- walter kranz

OTM, I'm afraid, for me as well. I guess it was an inspiring model of how to relate to those people personally, but maybe not how to treat them on national television that has an influence.

Of course, if poll numbers come out that say that Democrats across the country now want to lick the backs of Santorum's knees, I'll recant, but I kind of didn't see anything in that (wafer-thin) interview that was of any use to someone who was undecided on the issue (and, at this point in American politics, those seem to be the only people who count).