Got some time to kill on a Saturday afternoon? Check out Rachel Maddow’s unedited interview with Jon Stewart after his rally, in which they discuss his role, her role, FOX, MSNBC, false equivalencies, whether George Bush is as bad as FDR (or Pol Pot), and more.
Anthony Hecht is The Stranger's Chief Technology Officer. He owns no monkeys. More by Anthony Hecht
I loved this interview – probably the best one I’ve seen since the (much different but still compelling) O’Reily Obama interview of 2008
TV by adults, for adults.
what a sensible fellow… I particularly enjoyed the comment about “tribalism” that seems to me to be a lot of the energy, more extreme on the right – but occurring on both sides – if it’s our side, it’s good – no need to actually confront what is actually under discussion, just look out for the tribe.
It’s fine to be mature, but sometimes you have to beat the shit out of a bully.
It’s fine to be mature, but sometimes you have to beat the shit out of a bully.
Stewart has some pretty significant blind spots, the main one being that he refuses to recognize that the right wing hate machine was intentionally designed to cause and exploit the problems he claims to be criticizing, with severe consequences to our politics and way of life. A few shows on MSNBC in no way counterbalances the harmful effects of that. Also, he seems to have internalized at least some of the right wing framing (“legitimizing” torture as an official government policy is really equivalent to the Japanese internment? Seriously?), which I guess is to be expected if you expose yourself to as much of it as he claims to. All-in-all it was a reasonable conversation (except for his constantly interrupting Maddow when she was trying to make a point) but I came away having much less respect for him.
Yeah, John Stewart falls into the trap of always trying to get halfway in between two points as if that point is always right.
Often times, one argument is actually correct.
Arg… At 35 minutes or so Stewart equivocates so much about what Bush intended in regards to WMD. Why bother? Why make excuses for a liar? That’s not being precise, it’s being obscure.
I couldn’t disagree more with 6-7. I respect Stewart far more because he treads that centerline than if he took sides.
During this interview, he uses a metaphor of a football game. There are two teams – the left and the right – on the field, while Stewart is in the stands. Or better yet, he’s in the announcer’s booth, calling the game. Now while he may have a bias in who he likes more – he trends to the left, which I think is obvious – he still calls it as he sees it.
I think that if he ever took the field, he would be the star player. More powerful than Keith or Maddow, for sure. And I think the fact that he refuses to do so really pisses off those on the left.
Personally, I’m glad he does what he does. I have a bitter hatred for both self identifying liberals and conservatives, and Stewart may be the closest thing I’ll get to someone at the center.
I believe that Stewart is vexed that news networks are in a left/right shouting match for ratings instead of staying above the fray. It’s not about grading the match, or saying MSNBC is an underdog. He thinks there shouldn’t be a match in the first place.
Maddow, on the other hand, was defending the legitimacy of the match and doesn’t like being lumped in with her opponents because she feels they play dirtier.
Even after 40 minutes they were still talking about two different things.
@10 Well said.
@9- But it isn’t a game. Politics is real. People die from the decisions that get made. Not having an opinion is only the right thing to do when you are ignorant. If you know what is going on, than “staying above the fray” is not the right thing for a voter, a politician, or a reporter to do.
@10 is right that Stewart seems to be saying there shouldn’t be a game, but I think he’s going about things the wrong way by pretending that meeting in the middle means being accurate or fair. Fair, in news coverage, should mean honest and accurate. It doesn’t mean you bring in a creationist every time you talk about evolution.
Stewart seems to me to be a little too enamored of this mythology he’s created where he’s an island of sanity in the middle of partisan thermonuclear war. When Maddow suggests that Olbermann’s stance gave network execs the courage to set aside their hidebound notions of equal time and impartiality, Steward rejects the idea categorically and suggests that this is an arms race, and that CNN and MSNBC were just upping the ante.
But that doesn’t pass the smell test. They still haven’t come close to the ante. The idea of an arms race suggests that each side is continually topping the other, but Fox has been and remains so far ahead/beyond/beneath what CNN and MSNBC in terms of an ideological arms race, that this notion is nonsensical. Fox has a machinegun, and MSNBC pulls a knife, and Stewart calls that an arms race?
But I also thought he protested way too much about his role. “There is no honor in what I do, but I do it as honorably as I can.” What’s he martyring himself to, there?
@9: You’re missing the point – I fully agree that he restricts himself to the limitations of his chosen profession, which he readily admits is that of court jester. I actually respect that. But the “shouting from the stands” thing is misleading b/c he’s not recognizing that the right is playing rugby while everyone else is playing cricket, and the cricket players are getting their heads stomped just from the shear brutality of the rugby players.
@10 pegged it that they spent the whole time talking about two different things. Also that Stewart is whining that everyone should just stop fighting when the right has been beating the piss out of everyone for the last 20 yrs and Maddow/Olbermann et al have only just started defending themselves.
I loves me some Daily Show (and some Maddow) but I have to side with Bill Maher here, there’s only one “side” here that has even a passing relationship with sanity. And to try to pretend “both sides have their crazies” is a little ridiculous whens it 97% to 3% on the Reps. Methinks he needs to stop trying to straddle the fence too much and get over this “we’re too cool, we’re above all that” approach he’s taken.
I really wish he forced himself to watch DemocracyNOW! everyday as well, then he might now what a real “Keepin’ ’em Honest” news show looks like.
For the most part Stewart’s great for TV but I don’t know what the hell his problem is. Code Pink is as Maddow says, like, 12 people. Who I haven’t even seen in the media in a LONG time. The tea party folk going crazy at the health care town halls (they’re lucky they were even offered that forum), bringing guns to Obama events or publicly in general is probably 12 MILLION people, at least.
Another fake equivalency: One group acts out against war, the most horrifying things are capable of carrying out on one another, and the other group is outraged over health care reform.
Why all the equivocating over Bush’s motives, and intentions, and honesty in going to war? Jesus Jon, ever heard of the Downing Street Memo?
The news media is full of hard right leaning hawks who even stand up for torture. It is 90 percent of talk radio. The left’s mainstream stars are like, 4-5 MSNBC hosts and that’s about it, and I guess Bill Maher counts. Progressive radio is scant. The REAL progressive heavyweights are rarely on TV, if ever. Real progressives know this. Stewart doesn’t ever acknowledge this imbalance.
totally agree w/ 6, 8, 16. and prob some others here
Jon Stewart has turned into a douche royale. Seeing this interview has made me not like the guy so much…
Calling a spade a spade is apparently a “conversation stopper” in Jon’s book. Now that’s sad.
@19 Jon was absolutely right about that. It forces the listener to either agree or disagree and leaves no room for them to come to the same conclusion on their own.
The parents of these children:
http://www.rawa.org/temp/runews/rawagall…
would be quite relieved, I’m sure, to know that their kids were maimed and murdered by the “sane” side of American politics.
@20 Dude, the war criminal moniker is a deserved fact. The US is a signatory to the Geneva Convention, which has a provision against torture. Bush admits to authorizing torture. Therefore Bush is a war criminal. What the fuck is there to disagree about here?
@22 It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not. Shouting it for the cameras at a town hall is no more productive than shouting You Lie at the State of the Union.
The war criminal discussion was a digression; Stewart used as it an example of a bad method for spreading a message, while Maddow was confusing that with the validity of the message. (Which actually goes a long way to proving Stewart’s point). That’s why I said earlier that they were never really talking about the same thing during the interview.
If you don’t like Stewart’s position on Bush (or FDR) that’s fine by me; just don’t confuse it with the real issues he was trying to talk about at the rally.
@23 Actually it really, really, really, really, actually, really, truly, really does matter whether it’s true or not. & like others on this thread I wish they had actually talked about that. When Joe Wilson contradicted Obama during the State of the Union, Wilson was the one lying about healthcare reform’s provisions for illegal immigrants. When Maddow calls Bush a war criminal with her inside voice on TV, or Code Pink shouts it at a hearing, they are stating an incontrovertible fact. And it goes a long way to pointing out Jon’s bias that he cares more about messaging than truth. Like Jon I hate the state of corporate media, (and in my own small way delegitimatize it by not watching it) but whether something is true or not still trumps messaging, and he appears to have forgotten that.
I was on HuffPo and the comments thread was all about who “won” and a lot of squirming “mommy and daddy are fighting!” shit. Way to miss the point….
It’s two grown-ups, with sophisticated views on media, talking about their mutual roles in the landscape and how that influences society. It was not a talking points match, it was a conversation that was thankfully recorded so we could sit in on it. I agreed sometimes with Jon (there is an aggregate effect of talking points and Rachel is not as even-handed as she pretends) and sometimes with Rachel (you can’t be moderate on torture, and Jon is in the game whether he admits it or not) and sometimes I had no opinion, but it made me think. I loved it.
@9 actually I liked the opinion of one journalist who commented on the interview (I don’t remember who it was). Jon is not a player and he’s also not in the stands…he’s in the zebra shirt. He’s the ref. He can’t make or break the situation, but he calls foul and the audience (us) listens.
Politics has always been tough, no holds barred rough and tumble in this country. In fact, in a democracy, it’s always about making your opponent look like the worse choice. Considering the alternatives, like tyranny or chaos, democracy is the sanest choice. I always like to look to the ancients for an example and in Rome people would say the most horrible things about their opponents. The stakes are high and the tempers flair but in the end we get the best we can expect from human beings, a functioning society.
to 26, I do not agree that democracy has always been about making the opponent look worse. Democracy is about sharing responsibility for running the country, and dealing with infighting or disagreement as best you can in the process. When it becomes ONLY about making the other guy look worse it is the Xfactor or reality TV gone mad.
I sort of agree with the comments about Stewart being misled by thinking he is somehow in the middle and that there are not two equal sides but I do think he is trying to aim at a different way of dealing with it. I like that he rejects the left/right axis as being a meaningful narrative. I would like him to be more condemning of Fox News et al, but also see how a direct frontal is feeding into that energy. I see him more as a quiet kung fu-type than a boxer in the aforesaid battle. Take their energy and use it against them, do not confront head on. (hint you will lose – the right is always more focused on right/wrong and does not understand grey. Liberals have both the strength and the weakness of understanding nuance and dept, multiple factors. Go right/wrong you play into the hands of the stupid.
Jon missed one great opportunity to make his point. I hate sports metaphors, particularly for politics because it reinforces the notion that it’s a competition between distinct teams with a winner-take-all result, but whatever. During the argument about who’s on the field, who’s off the field, Rachael kept trying to put herself and Jon in the same place – on the field, in the stands, whatever. Importantly she she said that she and her fellow journalists weren’t on the field, because she’s not working with any one team.
But she is on the field. Her role as a journalist is to be one of the people in the black & white striped jerseys – the referees. The ones who have the responsibility and the authority to call foul, to stop the game, and to make sure that it moves on in an orderly manner. And she’s trained via her journalism background for this role. Jon isn’t trained to do this. He is, as he says, the guy in the stands yelling at the players AND the bad referees.
And we need to acknowledge that we have at this moment, a group of referees, in the form of FOX, who has joined up with one team, at complete odds with the ethics of the discipline. And the response of the other referees isn’t to join up with the other team, or to pretend that it’s not happening, but to loudly & professionally call them out, to censure them and to refuse to give them the respect that they demand, but have not earned.
It was made clear to me in this video that smart, engaging, and sane people wear incredibly hip shoes.
More Rachel, less Jon.
I’m so tired of how picky Jon gets when someone paraphrases his points. For the love of God, let her finish a single point.
He used to come off as nuanced and wiggly when he did that. When he does it with Rachel, he comes off as a stubborn ass. He needs to listen.
@29 I agree with you. There should be a permanent ban on sports metaphors relating to politics. We have to deal with a two party system, but thinking about solving, causing, or identifying problems in terms of two opposing sides distorts and simplifies reality in an unhelpful way.
The sports team concept is how you get all these people mistaking the ‘middle’ between two sides for being reasonable. It’s not about sides. It’s about ideas, and some ideas are just bad. Adopting a position halfway between each sides’ ideas for the sake of seeming reasonable makes as much sense as adopting all the ideas of one side because that’s the side your on.
People are better off weighing their own, their friends, and their families interests when considering the ideas of the sides we’ve constructed and vote base on that. If one side benefits you more than another, you can say you’re on that side.
No one reading this is better-off because we have for-profit health insurance that can dump you from your coverage any time they want.
No one reading this is better-off from union busting, and manufacturing jobs shipped over-seas to slave-labor conditions, or from the tax breaks corporations get for doing this.
No one reading this is better off lax food safety rules or self-regulation of pollution.
So meeting halfway, we have most people on for-profit insurance, and getting screwed, child labor, high unemployment, salmonella in our eggs, and cancer rates increasing yearly in all age groups. These are the benefits of meeting half-way, and being reasonable.
@32: While I mostly agree with you, Fish Wrench Asteroid, I think that when we consider both sides, we can even go farther than just considering the interests of oneself & one’s family/friends. I think the soul of a just democracy is in asking, “How will this affect the underdogs? How will the lowest/poorest/weakest/sickest people in society be benefited or harmed by this?”
@24 Let me just say that I’m totally behind you about the validity of the facts that Maddow was using. But don’t you understand how packaging affects perception? Listen to the second half of this about why progressives can never get their point made effectively. It’s because conservatives are masters of message packaging, and they can make things that are true, false and vice versa. They’ve isolated their very large base from the rest of rational discourse in this country so effectively that all we can do is yell at Naive White Libertarded Seattle Progressive on SLOG to take the edge off of our frustration at being unable to have a conversation with them.
That base is big enough that we have to be able to have that conversation with some of them to peel them away. Some of them tend towards the rational, but are functioning on the emotional level that the GOP/Tea Party manages to exploit so effectively because of the economic climate. The GOP has that base so piss-scared of all of the rest of us right now that firing Juan Williams for breaching his contract makes NPR punishable to the point of dismantling (NPR? Left-wing jihadists? Seriously?). And they have the power to make that happen (just look at ACORN). I don’t know about you, but I think that we have to talk down some of the lower-class moderate Tea Partiers, because the group as a whole has their finger on the trigger, the safety’s off, and they’re jumpy.
So if we start the conversation with “Bush is a war criminal” ends it right there with them just as effectively as “Obama is Hitler” would with us. For us to win this weird culture war going on right now, we have to be able to circumvent the media machine and talk directly to people. If you have to capitulate a little bit on your language, I hardly think the sacrifice wouldn’t be worth it.
The problem I have with Stewart in this interview is that he acts like he has some superior path. But he doesn’t. He puts forth this idea that he’s “not in the game,” then he criticizes how CNN and MSNBC play the game, but he certainly doesn’t offer any alternatives. He comes close when he talks about how calling Bush a war criminal is a conversation stopper, but he never explains why a conversation between CNN and Fox is desirable, nor how it’s possible.
What is he imagining will happen if Maddow lightens her tone? He never explains. How does he think she should go about her job? He never says. He’s essentially bitching about the way “the game” is being played without offering any constructive suggestions about alternatives, which makes him a whiner. A very self-righteous whiner.
I think the notion that he’s some kind of kung-fu master who is defeating Fox without ever striking a blow is wrong. I don’t think Stewart changes any minds. The people who pay attention to him already agree with Maddow. He is entertaining, and sometimes illuminating, but he’s not altering political discourse or restoring sanity to anything by any measure I can see. I’ve never once heard somebody say that his mind was changed by watching the Daily Show.
Danno Davis @31: “He used to come off as nuanced and wiggly when he did that. When he does it with Rachel, he comes off as a stubborn ass. He needs to listen. “
Agreed. I think he’s used to being the smartest person in the interview, and now doesn’t remember how to behave when that’s not true any more.
Delishuss: If Stewart had said any of what you just said, I think he would have been much more convincing and had a more productive stance.
But Stewart fell on his face because he made none of those points. He didn’t ever say “You’re not convincing anybody when you call Bush a war criminal,” instead he equivocated, pondered the definition of a war criminal, and dredged FDR up. Come to that, Washington owned slaves, so I guess we can’t really criticize anybody today for engaging in the slave trade, at least not by calling them “slaveowners.” What a bogus argument. Rather than make the salient point, which is that Fox is luring the left into an ideological shouting match and that reason and empathy are the ways to win, he tries to dismantle Maddow’s points on the merits, which he’s not really capable of doing.
I agree with your points 100%. It’s self defeating when progressives refer to southerners as if they’re subhuman, accuse Republicans of being evil, and come up with obnoxious labels like “Repugs” and so on. But that just makes me wish it was you talking to Maddow instead of Stewart. He failed, in my estimation, because he didn’t ever bring any of that home.
@35 “I think the notion that he’s some kind of kung-fu master who is defeating Fox without ever striking a blow is wrong. I don’t think Stewart changes any minds.”
That’s not necessarily true. He may not change minds, but he does open them and make people more critical. My older sister, for instance, never paid attention to politics before she met her husband and was never politically engaged at all. But her husband exposed her to politics, and once I saw she was paying attention, I turned her on to The Daily Show. And her ability to make nuanced, articulate distinctions between the types of media and news she’s exposed to shot straight up from nothing after she became a regular Stewart viewer.
I think, arguably, that the ability to critique the message being constantly thrown at you (as it is if you’re at all media savvy today) is more important than your loyalty to left/right ideology. And the thing is, when people start thinking critically, they tend to veer left anyway – no matter whether they end up farther toward the left or just closer to the middle. So Stewart, and his satire, do serve a very important function, because it’s not like critical thinking is taught or demonstrated in our school system any more.
BTW, he kung-fus everyone, not just Fox. I’m listening to him kung-fu Maddow right now. Fox is just the most important target.
@33 You are right. That’s what I meant to say, but didn’t. I was gonna add ‘community’ in there, but got distracted. Thank you.
He did great. Just what I’d hoped for. He’s saying that fighting fire with fire doesn’t do as much for public discourse as everyone doing it seems to think. That he doesn’t have a better paradigm all constructed and ready is beside the point – as he says, he’s a satirist and a comedian. He points at things others build. He’s offering food for thought here, not saying “my way or the highway”.
I loved that he mentioned Al Franken, wondering what it was like for him to make the transition from poking fun to building stuff.
I don’t know if I would necessarily call pointing out facts fighting fire with fire. If the left were lying constantly, then it would be fire with fire.
@27 “worse choice”
@40, all righty then.
@40 But the point is that the way the conversation is constructed means that no amount of pointing out the facts will convince the people we want to convince. We do ourselves no favors by being equally as aggressive and emotionally manipulative as the propaganda machine that is Fox News, but neither do we if we’re as self-righteous as MSNBC. All that does is trap us in the absurd bipolar narrative that’s been constructed for us. We have to circumvent the narrative in order to have a conversation that anyone will listen to.
You can’t dispute someone’s opinion without coming off as self righteous and arrogant.
Take Beck’s recent George Soros conspiracy or “There were no terrorist attacks during George W Bush’s presidency” or “Obama passed TARP” or ‘Homosexual Agenda’ or ‘Death Panels’ God the list goes on forever.
All of these very mainstream Republican memes are demonstrably false. They are lies. There’s no nice way to put it. There is no way to tell people they are that wrong about basic reality without coming off as a big fat self righteous jerk.
To shut up and smile and nod at the intellectual garbage the Republicans in this country produce like say CNN does may make for a more pleasant Thanksgiving dinner, but it’s certainly less productive than letting these destructive lies go unchallenged.
It also just doesn’t feel right. I refuse to believe that people that believe the George W Bush’s and Glenn Becks of the world are incapable of changing their minds or realizing they are being lied to. Yes studies show that people cling to irrational beliefs despite proof to the contrary, but I don’t think they have to. Someone needs to be out there providing an accurate picture of the world.
I agree that the bipolar narrative is absurd, Delishuss, but that’s not the fault of the people telling the truth in the face of a vastly more powerful lie machine. There is only one reality. Anyone that tries to set up the delusion of a second one is creating that duality. I hope my thoughts make some sense.
“There is no way to tell people they are that wrong about basic reality without coming off as a big fat self righteous jerk.”
I think Stewart’s suggesting that perhaps there is.
@44
I think Stewart’s right, that MSNBC and CNN feed into the lie machine, because by the nature of their existence as 24-hour news networks, the most worthless excuses for news get hyped up into ridiculous, emotional drama. They have to fill the hours somehow. I have nothing but respect for Olbermann, but even he reported on balloon boy.
What disappoints me most about CNN and MSNBC is they treat the news like it’s a competition with Fox, and they’re never going to win, so their coverage is reactionary. “This is what Fox says is important, so now we have to provide the counterpoint from our side,” is basically what I hear when I listen to them. And by even bringing Fox’s point up on their own programs, they validate those points. That’s why the “Obama is a Kenyan” birther thing is still making the rounds – because the more people hear about it, the more likely they are to think it’s a legitimate point.
What sucks about political discourse today is there’s no function that allows people with opposing view points to come together, sit down, and talk about them. That’s the only way this stuff will ever get debunked, because it certainly won’t if the loudest voice debunking them is Rachel Maddow. She will always be part of the “liberal media,” and Fox will always be able to drown her out. They’re too good at what they do.
But you’re right, the bullshit shouldn’t go unchallenged. I just think that it’s more effectively done in real life, not through cable news or the internet. And like I said earlier, the GOP/Tea Party machine have done a great job of getting their base to barricade themselves in their houses with the tv permanently stuck on Fox. And I also think that the MSNBCs, the CNNs, and in some instances, the Daily Shows and the Strangers only reinforce their isolation by making progressives believe there’s no way to talk to them but through the media. There needs to be more person-to-person discourse in this country, but damned if I know how to institute it.
@45 Well he’s wrong, and so are you. I’m kidding. I just disagree with you, and here’s a cupcake, and your ass looks great in those jeans.
How a person is perceived is not entirely in their control. The reason for this interview is a testament to that concept.
Why is the lie machine so vastly more powerful? That is the bit I do not get. I could never understand why there wasn’t more defense of such a blatantly good idea as national health care. How did that get hijacked? Are there just more stupid people out there who believe the crap put out by teaparties and fox? or what?
@48 I’m going to repost this because it’s so worth listening to. The last half is an interview with Paul Begala about why liberals are so completely ineffectual. What it boils down to is that conservatives already tend to like bureaucracy and structure, and they prefer to be told what to do. So they identify themselves as subordinates within a variety of structures, including religion, the army, and the GOP, which already organizes itself much like a corporation. Fox News is the source they’re told to listen to, so that’s what they do.
Liberals, on the other hand, are a bunch of independent thinkers. Getting them to follow marching orders is like herding cats. I view the difficulty of manipulating progressives as a positive, but at the same time they can’t get organized and get a coherent message out.
@48 Because in 2008 Labor Unions (all of them put together) spent 40 million dollars on lobbying politicians in Washington.
Health insurance and drug companies spent 486 million that year. Electronics companies spent 378 million. Oil and mineral spent 388 million. It goes on and on.
The people that own the news own the companies that spend that money on bribing our politicians. The story that benefits the drug companies and the insurance companies is the one that gets told.
Sorry if the numbers are a bit quick ans sloppy. Check out http://www.opensecrets.org if you want to check my math.