The Daily Show is pure Democratic hackery. Jon Stewart expresses his open contempt for Bush in every interview he gives. It's partisan propaganda as humour.

That is why The Daily Show has had politicians from both parties on, as well as the head of the Bush re-election campaign on. Would a Democratic hack show do that?

So tell me then, what is Fox? A fair and balanced network, or a propaganda arm of the Republican Party? I pick the propaganda arm.

Stewart rocks, Faux sucks. Stewart treats Reps a hell of a lot more fairly on his show than Reps would on their version of it. Stewart's also pretty smart, which always royally pisses off Reps to no end with Dems cuz they (Reps) are so used to talking down, and doublespeaking to, anyone of their party stupid enough to fall for their BS.

Stewart is pretty funny; it seems like he socks it to Republicans more often than Democrats, but in his actual interviews, he's pretty civil and fair--I've seen him do very nice interviews with Republicans (Karen Hughes, for instance).

I'd at first heard, and then a bit later seen, the full clip online of Stewart on CNN's Crossfire cuz I'd missed watching it originally. Had I known ahead of time that he'd be on I might've watched it. Anyway, it was pretty good cuz he was trying to be more serious than funny, which seemed to peeve the show's hosts a bit.

I took a look at the America book co-authored by Stewart. I was rather disappointed. The book really is very adolescent in tone. For the most part, it isn't funny either. Some of it is downright offensive. I thought the page featuring "nude" photos of the nine Supreme Court Justices was in truly bad taste (the photos of Ruth Bader-Ginsburg and Clarence Thomas were particularly unflattering). These photos could only be described as an attempt to humiliate the Justices. The photo of Clarence Thomas is downright mean. One would need a microscope to find his thing. Was that an ironic joke about his infamous joke to Anita Hill that he was "Long Dong Silver", or just an ugly partisan attempt at sexual humiliation. For that matter, I also thought it was in bad taste that Kitty Kelly included a rather cruel discription of the size of Bush Senior in her book The Family. As much as I don't like these lowblows, I have to admit they pale in comparison to Republicans' attacks on Clinton.

Rona: Jon Stewart is first and foremost, a comedian. He may be a left leaning comedian, but unlike say an Al Franken or a Will Durst, Stewart puts the comedy ahead of the liberalism, not the other way around. And frankly I sometimes wish I could do the same. I'd get away with a lot more.

Let me tell you - I believe the Daily Show more than I believe the current White House. The Daily Show is the ONLY news organization that was willing to call Bush on his BS, and they are not even a real news organization.

The American News Media is in a sad state, but that is a discussion for another board.

The Daily Show's coverage of the election was great. Recently, the show has lost a bit of its edge (maybe, they suffered from post-election blues too). It is often just silly now.
I just think Stewart went a bit too far by including nude photos of the Supreme Court Justices in the America book.

Rona,

I disagree with you on the Daily Show losing its edge. Granted, I did not watch it for 2 weeks after Black Tuesday as I did not watch much of anything. However, their recent story about Porter Goss' purge of the CIA and installation of Yes Men for the Regime, oops the "Administration", had Rob Corrdry saying that now the White House will get its information already misinterpreted, so that they don't have to misinterpret the information themselves. A brilliant piece of work by them.

They have nothing to lose because they will never get access, so they can call BS on the White House. However, smart politicians realize that it is in their best interest to embrace the Daily Show so that they don't become targets.

The Daily Show is doing a great national service. I wish the show ran for one hour instead of 30 minutes. They were the only ones to call BS on the whole Iraq War while the traditional media was suffering from collective Cranial-Rectal Insertion Syndrome. The traditional media still suffers from this.

I should have said it was more focused during the election. Also, I wasn't in the mood to laugh about G.W. after the election (if anything, I had a sick feeling in my stomach). Right-wingers definately had the last laugh in this election.

Probably the best observation I heard on the media came from I speech I saw on C-Span. The speaker noted that the American media has a problem with calling anyone a liar. Thus, they present two sides to every issue. No one can accuse the right-wing of being liars; they just have a "different" point of view. One critic of the election's results said that Bush voters were susceptible to a "Goebbels-Orwellian propaganda machine". The American media was a willing accomplice.

Jon Stewart's book named years best book!

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041206/media_nm/arts_book_dc_2

I look forward to reading it. And on a personal note, please note that someone like Ann Coulter or any of the other right wing propagandists would never win something like this.

Coulter could win an award for the worst fiction though.

I bought the book last week. I love it. It was like the show in book form, which IMO is a wonderful thing. It had me laughing out loud in many parts, wincing in others, and doing both at the same time at other spots.

A couple of my favorite exerpts:

On the three branches of government:
"Quipped a jubilant [Alexander] Hamilton, 'The only way it could fail is if one party gained control of not just the Executive, but also the Senate and House chambers, and upon doing so, proceeded to bring in like-minded juges!!!!' And then the Framers all laughed and lauhged and laughed."

"Jesus Irony #639: Jesus was steadfast pacifist whose teachings advocated turning the other cheek for the puropose of universal borhterood. Funnily enough more people have died 'in his name' than any other human in recorded history. (Even Hitler!)"

excerpts, not exerpts

This is one of the stupidest things I have ever heard. America, The Book is being banned in 2 Mississippi counties.

http://www.cnn.com/2005/EDUCATION/01/10/banned.book.ap/index.html

*Sigh* Despite what the article says, the book is not being "banned." Two libraries are simply refusing to stock it. It is because there is nudity in the book, which MANY public libraries have policies about. It is because they are public institutions where parents often let their children wander freely. Unfortunatly, this makes libraries consider what they have on the shelves very carefully. The librarians must decide if a book has enough merit to be an exception to such rules. As a humor book, this doesn't really qualify. Adult-only sections of libraries were tried, but were ridiculed and quickly abandoned.

Stewart's real last name is Feinberg. Must everyone use an Anglo name in television. If anything, he should stress that he is the anti-Bush and that he's no Anglo!

OK, you are missing the point. There is nothing pornographic about his book. Yes, their are nude pictures of the Supreme Court Justices, but it is obvious that they are FAKE!

The country needs an enema to get over its squeemishness about the naked human body!

But shouldn't libraries have some say over what books they choose to stock or not?

How are nude pictures not pornographic?

Ask the J. Paul Getty Museum. They have quite an extensive collection of non-pornographic pictures of nudes.

Pornography is material desgined to cause sexual arousal. Nude photographs, in and of themselves, do not all have that intent, or for that matter, that ability. I for one, might be aroused by a nude photo of Pam Anderson or Jenny McCarthy, but not by Ruth Bader Ginsberg or Antonin Scalia, Ccabe. Nor am I aroused by the paintings of Ruben or the sculptures of Michelangelo.

I don't think it's pornograpy, but I also think nudity is not appropriate for everyone. Also, you might not be aroused by pictures of a naked David Souter, but someone else might (then again, anyone can be aroused by anything).

you might not be aroused by pictures of a naked David Souter, but someone else might

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

ccabe,

Would you consider a picture of Michaelangelo's David or the Venus de Milo to be pornographic?

You might have a point there.

My eye was caught by Stewart's face on the cover of "American Spectator" (a conservative review) proclaiming his book "America" to be the 'Worst Book of the Year'.

According to the Spectator's Emmett Tyrrel:
Stewart's fans are those who consider themselves "television's sophisticates and troubled 17-year olds". "He is almost a Holy Person to the idolizers of pop culture"...and his book is "infantile", "If you really think he is any more sophisticated than these other creatures of televisionland, Begala and Carlson, read the book. It will not take long. It is mostly pictures."

I think the Daily Show suffered a loss with the departure of Steven Colbert. I thought his "God Report" was one of the best parts of the show. His own show, The Colbert Report, is great though. I just hope the "Daily Show" doesn't let Lewis Black go, I love his "Back in Black" segments.

They still do "This Week in God". They just have Corddry doing it now.

He's nowhere near as good as Colbert.

I think Jon's best guest was Kermit the frog. And how Kermit was just running circles around Stewart.

Colbert's great virtue is that he plays it straight, which in a venue as absurb as the Daily Show works rather well.

I would comment on Stewart, but to be honest, I never liked him and still miss Craig "Creggers" Kilborn.

Pesti, funny you should say that. I never liked Kilborn. To me he was always like one of those egotistical frat boys who I couldn't stand to be around at school, much like the unlikable character he played "Old School." I like Stewart because he's more of a regular, what you see is what you get, guy.

I love Stewart's stand-up, and really like The Daily Show. In a way, I'm grateful to my local WB station for no longer showing repeats of Friends at 11pm EST, because that allowed me to check out TDS. I had read great things about it from Peter David on his blog, but never checked it out until then. This was right around the time (maybe just before) Colbert got this show. Both are brilliant, especially The Colbert Report.

Kilborn was okay--he was just of a different style. I loved his "Five Questions" routine.

Most critics were of the opinion that Stewart was a real dud hosting the Oscars. I thought so too. Whoopie Goldberg was terrific when she hosted; she got in a lot of anti-Bush jokes. All Stewart could offer was a joke that Cheney shot Bjork in her swan dress.

I've heard it's been a loved him or hated him performance. Personally, I loved it.

So, let me get this straight, Rona. The success of an Oscar is directly related to how many anti-Conservative jokes they make? Personality, presentation, just having great jokes in general do not matter? Just how many swipes they take at Republicans? You have a very weird standard you're using.

I was going to say something, but after Benn it would be redundant.

Brian F: Yeah, that was the act. The Daily Show is a parody news program, it's anchors should be parody newsmen. Being incredibly vain is good start.

I thought Stewart was very obviously 'holding back' as to not offend. The result; blandness. Even the ridiculous spectacle of "It's Hard Out Here Being a Pimp" was bland. What was that? A G-rated vision of pimps and hookers?

Anyone ever see a movie he did called "Mixed Nuts"? Horrible!!

LOL.

Trump: Stewart's racist.

Yep. You read that right.

Because Jon Stewart lampooned Herman Cain, and with a "tone" or "inflection" that Trump takes issue with, Stewart has done "a horrible, horrible thing to the African-American community".

Jon Stewart has appeared before the Senate in regard to re-authorizing the 9/11 victims fund. Incredibly, the bill was blocked for unanimous consent by Senator Rand Paul. More here.
9/11 first responders are dying at an alarming rate. I worry about my brother, the retired NYPD detective, who worked both ends of it (the Trade Center site and the Staten Island landfill, where much of the 9/11 debris was sorted out.)