TNR TV Critic Compares Jon Stewart to Stalin

[Fenris]

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=tube&s=siegel041204

Laugh Deter
by Lee Siegel

Just at the moment when American politics is becoming no laughing matter, the job of commenting on American politics
has fallen to the comedians, to "political satirists" such as Al Franken and Bill Maher, who have aligned themselves with the Democrats, or Dennis Miller, who has aligned himself with the Republicans. For the first time in the history of comedy, you have to register to laugh. And now, Jon Stewart and his "Daily Show" are following the same trend. With the comedians' solemnity about their politics, with their grave concern about the direction the country is headed in, comedy is fast becoming no laughing matter, either. The marriage of comedy and politics is even more unhealthy than the marriage of church and state.

Enjoy!:)

[DenverDem]

1. Typical wrong wing psychotic projection syndrome.

Sure, everyone who satirizes bushler is a Stalinist, when the repressive shoe is in actuality on the other wrong wing foot.

Screw the wrong wing propagandists, we will remember their treason and The People's karma will be exercised with extreme prejudice.

[Fenris]

4. Strangely, this 'critic' also expresses displeasure with the Junta

HOWEVER, I still think he's a shill and a miserable fuckwit.

[sir_captain]

13. He's not a shill

he just doesn't like Jon Stewart, unfortunately.

I point you to my other posts in this thread. Lee is a friend of mine, and he's a liberal, even though he's misguided about the Daily Show

[MikeG]

2. Oh yeah, I see the similarities right away.

[ThoughtCriminal]

3. Comedy and State

"comedy and politics is even more unhealthy than the marriage of church and state."

Good grief, the things people say. I must have missed the "Separation of Comedy & State" Amendment.

In an increasingly authoritarian society, satire can become a very effective tool for freedom. PHHHTTT Right in Der Fuehrer's Face!

[SeveneightyWhoa]

5. I thought TNR was supposed to be "liberal"?

What kind of a liberal magazine attacks a comedian like this for poking a little too much fun at Republicans?

Really, what is with TNR? Why would they print this crap?

[Fenris]

6. To me, it's as worthless as the WSJ.

Neo-liberal crap, mostly. At least it is with Andrew fucking Sullivan at the helm.

[sir_captain]

15. Andrew Sullivan hasn't run TNR in quite some time

[WillyBrandt]

18. Yeah, but having Sullivan AND Kelly run it was retarded

And remember that it was Sullivan who lovingly used TNR's pages to popularize The Bell Curve.

[sir_captain]

19. No question

I was just pointing out that Fenris didn't have his facts straight

but yeah, why they decided to let Sullivan run things for a while is a truly mind-boggling question

[WillyBrandt]

23. Peretz, the nuts, switches between neo-conism and neo-libism

And "National Greatness" Conservatism and "National Liberalism" and all that crap.

These switches are reflective of a crazy owner.

[sir_captain]

26. yeah

marty and leon are definitely nuts. i agree with leon occassionally, but not too often anymore.

[WillyBrandt]

27. Leon is still erudite, but his pieces just fail to map to reality anymore

It's almost self-parody by now. Learned hot air...

[sir_captain]

28. Leon

is certainly a big fan of Leon

[WillyBrandt]

29. Exactly. His pieces are sesquepedalian free-assocation exercises

[sir_captain]

30. The main credit I'll give him

is that he brings in a lot of really smart people

[WillyBrandt]

31. Peretz or the Weasel?

[sir_captain]

32. both of them

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

20. WHOA, Andrew Sullivan praised The Bell Curve??? That's EVIL!

I didn't know that! Sources?

[WillyBrandt]

21. Link from FAIR.

http://www.fair.org/extra/9501/bell.html

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

37. What a quote

"The notion that there might be resilient ethnic differences in intelligence is not, we believe, an inherently racist belief."
(Andrew Sullivan in 1994, attempting to justify The New Republic's extensive coverage of The Bell Curve)

[PROGRESSIVE1]

36. Sullivan and Kelly are bigots.

[Cush]

7. Oops, nevermind

[Fenris]

8. Republic

[Paragon]

9. Yeah, who knows more about comedy than...

...the TV critic of a political magazine...

Oh, wait - everybody. :7

[NightTrain]

10. Wonder if this is the same New Republic writer who called...

...Tim Robbins' play EMBEDDED "poisonous?" :shrug:

[Fenris]

11. I love how Tim is using the bad reviews to promote the play

Makes me want to see it even more!

[WillyBrandt]

16. If I remember the comment about Embedded was by that idiot Kaplan

[sir_captain]

12. Lee happens to be a friend of mine

Clearly, I disagree with him on this issue, and on others. For whatever reason, he has a thing against modern television comedians...I've argued about this with him many times before.

But let me assure all of you, Lee is a good liberal and is not part of any wack-job wingnut conspiracy.

[WillyBrandt]

14. I met Lee -- he's a good guy, who is simply wrong about this

It's simply false that politics and comedy haven't been married before. Throughout American history they have, and even more recent times we've had the likes of PJ O'Rourke doing it.

Moreover, Stewart's schtick is meant to be half-entertaining, half-informative. And so it is. Pretending that partisanship dilutes laughs would seem to imply that Leno's or O'Brien's shows are funnier than Stewart's: they aren't.

(By the way, TNR has some good guys, and Lee is one of them. He just misfired here. Don't confuse Chait/Cohn/Siegel with the nuts like Sullivan and Kaplan and Krauthammer.)

[sir_captain]

17. I'm a little biased in favor of TNR

for personal reasons that I'm not going to get into, but WillyB is absolutely right about TNR's merits and faults.

[Bossy Monkey]

22. Even as a fan of the show, I'd agree that it's tragic that it falls to Jon

to provide the only intelligent analysis of this misadministration. However, criticising the messenger for this would be rather crazy at best. I can't follow the TNR link above (suspect DUers are clogging the servers), so I can't comment on his article at this time, but from the quote it appears that he isn't qualified to write about comedy, politics or political analysis. Maybe you can persuade him to write what he knows instead.

[WillyBrandt]

24. It's a poor piece. But it's not nearly as bad as the OP makes it sound.

It's a clever, sometimes deep, piece that's simply wrong.

[sir_captain]

25. He's qualified to write about most things

I'd say he's the closest thing to a genius I've ever met. Incredibly, incredibly smart guy. But I agree with you about his taste in comedy.

And it is a shame that his larger point of political analysis falling to comedians is being lost here, cause I think that's true.

Of course, I also appreciate Jon Stewart saying it like it is.

[kodi]

33. that ass clown has no historical perspective on tv comedians & politics.

more than 35 years ago, the smothers brothers did worse stuff about LBJ and Nixon than Stewart does about contemporary pols, and in fact, Stewart uses politicians own words to skewer them.

the landscape of TV comedy 30 years ago was replete with socially active and politically pointed comedians who make Stewart's show mild.

in lee siegel we have just what the left needs, another poor little nancyboy journalist with easily bruised sensitivities.

you might point out to your buddy that when people have no belief that their voices are being heard they ridicule the power structure.

i guess your friend has never seen "cool hand luke," or understood its message.

[sir_captain]

34. kodi, did you actually read the article?

Or did you just read the paragraph in the original post?

Siegel mentions comedians ripping on LBJ and Nixon...

His point wasn't that comedians should not be socially and politically active. His point is that it has been left to comedians to be voice of politics rather than people like Edward Murrow and Walter Cronkite.

As I've said, I disagree with his sentiment that Jon Stewart isn't funny and on the target, but this article had nothing to do with bruised sensitivities...

[kodi]

38. yes, why do you think i mentioned LBJ and Nixon

comedians have always been socially and politically active and they have led the way for the Murrow's, Cronkite's and Wallace's towards social justice.

Dick Gregory did more for "negroes" to be accepted by whites than Murrow ever did, Lenny Bruce did more for free speech than Huntley and Brinkley did, and antiwar comedians in the late 60's did more to end US involvement in Viet Nam than Cronkite or Noam Chomsky did.

and they did it by making dissent and questioning conventional wisdom acceptable.

to argue that they haven't a place for social criticisms, that critical commentary is above them, and to imply that such critical examination of politics is alone the province of "hard social commentators" is pure intellectual snobbery.

your buddy appears to think that the only true critiques of political affairs rests with an uber class of intellectuals trained in the oh so fine nuances of policy.

that is EXACTLY why the right considers the intelligensia of the left full of shit.

[PROGRESSIVE1]

35. The Free....I meand "New Republic"kkkan.....

is a NEONAZI-CON RAG!!!!!

:puke:

[MAlibdem]

39. his main point is about the individuality of humor

I don't think so.

Humor brings people together and expresses shared experiences.

Group therapy to ease our pain...sex jokes to laugh at our trapped situation and enslavement to the libido, political jokes to laugh at our repression, about how our lives are partially in control of others.

Jokes are about shared experiences, not individuality, at least in politics.