Tucker Carlson--my
initial choice for president in 2008; not a
popular one, apparently--has posted
a great takedown of the sanctimonious and preening Jon
Stewart, which includes some funny bits about Stewart's off-air
antics after his absurd appearance on Crossfire a few years back.
The summation:
The relationship between Stewart and the media is a marriage of
the self-loathing and the self-loving: He insists their real
news is fake, they insist his fake news is real. He doesn't
take them seriously at all. They take him way too seriously.
But nobody takes anybody as seriously as Jon Stewart takes
himself.
Along those same lines, I wrote
after Stewart's Crossfire appearance:
The problem with Stewart is that he demands respect but is
unwilling to take responsibility for the things he says. When
it is time for a Stewart lecture, there is no room for kidding
around. But when his conclusions or statements are questioned,
it's suddenly time to roll his eyes and morph back into the
Teflon comedian. On Crossfire, for example, after pleading
with a straight face for the hosts to "stop, stop, stop hurting
America" and praising his own show for its level of "civilized
discourse," Stewart summarily shot down Carlson's questions
about the kid-glove handling of John Kerry on The Daily
Show last month. "If you want to compare your show to
a comedy show, you're more than welcome to," Stewart said,
adding snarkily that he didn't realize that, "news
organizations look to Comedy Central for their cues on
integrity." When Carlson protested that he thought Stewart was
going to be funny, Stewart shot back acidly, "I'm not going to
be your monkey."