TNR (online only) WHY CAN'T JON STEWART MAKE AN ARGUMENT? [View All]

[Chicago Democrat]

WHY CAN'T JON STEWART MAKE AN ARGUMENT?
Peace Keeper
by T. A. Frank
Only at TNR Online
Post date: 07.26.05
Last October, Tucker Carlson made a good point. (It happens.) Jon Stewart of "The Daily Show" had turned up on "Crossfire" to upbraid his hosts for "hurting America" and "doing theater, when you should be doing debate." Carlson, unimpressed, suggested that Stewart, too, was failing the public: "Kerry won't come on this show. He will come on your show. ... Why not ask him a real question instead of just suck up to him?" Stewart went for evasion: "I didn't realize that ... news organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on integrity." When Carlson revisited the point, Stewart took the same tack as before: "You're on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls." Clever line--but still a dodge.

The truth, as Stewart knows, is that "The Daily Show" isn't just comedy. What gives his show heft--what makes it true satire--is that the program brings actual conviction to the stories it covers. Sure, it's willing to digress into sheer silliness, but it just as often finds an ingenious way to make a serious point. The mystery, then, is why the sharpness vanishes as soon as a guest arrives on the set. No one asks that Stewart lay into someone like Reese Witherspoon; but why should John Kerry, a politician dodging real news shows, get such gentle treatment? And it's not just Kerry. With most political guests, Stewart sticks to harmless questions and gentle quips, and he seems unable to pursue an argument. Rarely have such flaws been more pronounced than last night, when Senator Rick Santorum appeared on the set.

(snip)

It should have been great. Santorum, on the show to promote his new book It Takes a Family, isn't shy about sharing his views. He has blamed Boston's political liberalism for the Catholic Church's sexual abuse scandal; he has compared homosexuality to "man on dog"; and he has equated Democratic attempts to preserve the filibuster to "Adolf Hitler in 1942 saying, 'I'm in Paris. How dare you invade me? How dare you bomb my city? It's mine.'" Surely with material like this, Stewart could get a spirited debate going. Yet the only solid part of the interview was the start:

STEWART: felt that we would not agree on a lot of things, so I'd like to start off on some common ground. I will throw the first salvo: I believe sir, that ice cream is a delicious treat. But too much, sir, will spoil the appetite. Your move, sir.

SANTORUM: I uh ... I would agree with that.

(snip)

Here are some other questions Stewart asked: "What do people misunderstand about Rick Santorum?" "What would you like to say to people?" "Are we more corrupt now, do you think, than we were?" And here is Stewart trying to sum up the exchange on homosexuality: "But ultimately you end up getting to this point. Like it's this crazy stopping point, where literally you can't get any further. I don't think that you're a bad dude. I don't think that I'm a bad dude. But I literally can't convince you of the idea that it's doing society a disservice to dismiss the potential of these really ... " Little of this managed to rattle the senator.

Rest
Available ONLINE ONLY to TNR subscribers...here:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=w050725&s=frank072605