The sort of ahistoric, illogical , contentious at best, crackpot wisdom that marks Stewart’s reputation for so called insight
Argus-Dispatch (D-A) columnist Don Wooten laments the announced retirement of Jon Stewart from his gig as host of cable’s The Daily Show. He does so referring to him as a comedian at one point but also saying “Stewart is, in many ways, the sanest, most reliable voice to be found in the cacophony that passes for broadcast journalism these days.”
Wooten praises Stewart’s “sanity” in context of indicating his distress over the suspension of Brian Williams by his bosses at NBC. As has now been documented Williams had a casual grip on the truth and subjected the NBC news division to scorn for having a prevaricator as their premier on-air talent. Which means it was OK for Williams to read all day long stilted stuff provided him , and continue to collect his paycheck, as long as he didn’t embarrass the bosses by getting caught in lies not shared by their rivals, or that they could ignore.
That Wooten can confuse Stewart’s shtick as a snarky tear down artist practitioner with good fair-minded journalism says a lot about Wooten’s intellect. Which reminds us of why we consider him one of our go to guys for a read on the liberal mindset. We can count on him to encapsulate that mindset and the A-D/D-A to pass it off regularly as erudition. His support of Stewart does confirm the sort of ways we thought Wooten got his views.
Excerpts from Wooten’s editorial:
Stewart’s decision to retire is a real loss. . . . It’s hard to sift through the constant static of 24/7 news to find meaning or even the simple truth. Stewart does it in a factually funny way.
Stewart is an excellent comedian. His staff of writers and researchers produce inspired satire night after night. From what appears to be an inexhaustible video supply of past stories, they are able to demonstrate — without doctoring — what politicians actually say and do; often, with devastating effect.
He has a fine sense of outrage at injustice and inanity, but his explosions of exasperation at them are funny. That can tend to make us dismissive of some dangerous people. How seriously can you take such fools? . . .
Surely Wooten is delving into the absurd . . .
For all his comedic ability, Stewart is obviously a serious man and a clear, honest thinker. Brian Williams happens to have a taste for comedy and crafting stories to make them more interesting.
Son David suggested a good resolution of the two career developments: have the two men switch anchor positions.
He may be on to something.
Or on something, to use a typical Stewart response. Mr. Wooten, what does your column say about the responsibility of journalists to fairness and to objectively present news of the day — snippets out of context presented as the full story with sarcasm? Incredible. Just incredible from someone who likes to pretend how serious he is about culture.
A devastating expose of Wooten’s type of journalistic thinking is contained in this column in the New York Post by Kyle Smith. Brief excerpts are set forth, the entire column is highly recommended.
How Jon Stewart turned lies into comedy and brainwashed a generation
Any standard liberal publication was as likely to contain an unflattering thought about Stewart as L’Osservatore Romano is to run a hit piece on the pope.
The hacks have a special love for Stewart because he’s their id. They don’t just think he’s funny, they thrill to his every sarcastic quip. They wish they could get away with being so one-sided, snarky and dismissive.
They wish they could skip over all the boring phone calls and the due diligence and the pretend fairness and just blurt out to their ideological enemies in Stewart style, “What the f–k is wrong with you?” . . .
Yet Stewart uses his funnyman status as a license to dispense with even the most minimal journalistic standards. Get both sides of the story?
To a key audience, he was a strong influence. Longtime Cooper Union history professor Fred Siegel says his students constantly came to him repeating Stewart’s talking points.
College students, of course, are both little acquainted with realities of adult existence and walled off from conservative views, so they’re the perfect audience for Stewart’s shtick, which depends on assumptions that are as unquestioned as they are false.
This week’s “Daily Show” segment in which Stewart defended Williams was distilled, Everclear-strength Stewart. It was as amazing as watching Barbra Streisand run through a medley of her greatest hits in only seven minutes: In this little chunk of error, cliché, preening and deception Stewart managed to pack an example of just about everything that is unbearable about his style. It bears close study.
R Mall
really? okay…name ONE “LIE” of Jon Stewart, on numbers, percentages… Name one. I can name many from your presumptive love, Foxnews.