Jon Stewart sucks

Let me say first up - that I love Jon Stewart on the Daily Show - he is the most brilliantly incisive commentator on American and world politics today - an upholder of the great tradition of political farce and satire. But every such opening sentence heralds a mandatory "but". And here comes that mandatory "but"

 

But he absolutely sucks donkeys balls at interviews. He is the worst giver and taker of interviews. Especially of interviews on the Daily Show. He seems overly eager to please and be affable - and ends up making a total hash of things. He gets some real big name guests and one always hopes that he will take them to the cleaners. Hold them accountable for their deeds - or at least make them sweat under the collar for a few moments - and disturb their self-satisfied pompous equilibria. Instead, he gives them an opportunity to acquit themselves - and make their opposition (lead by J.S) seems like a bunch of greenhorn fools.

 

Take for example his interview of Donald Rumsfeld.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-february-23-2011/donald-rumsfeld-pt--1

 

How many hours of TV time has JS devoted to mocking DR and making transparent his vile odious smug certainties and condescension - while all along he was utterly completely full of bovine excrement? And this was the time and place to do it. And JS opened the innings strongly - by quoting a line from DR's autobiography where he  describes the "certainty bordering on arrogance" of a Nixon staff member  - and asked DR if that wasn't a perfectly apposite description indeed of him and his administration. You could see DR was beginning to squirm. But instead of finishing him off - JS as is typical - let the ball slip and got totally confused about what he was asking and what his point was. And DR, being an old hand at this game, capitalized on this fumbling and ran rings around JS. It was truly embarrassing watching JS trying to regain his composure - and more over trying to remember what he was asking.

 

DR parried JS's question about "certainty bordering on arrogance" by saying "Oh - but you didn't see all the internal deliberations and hand wringing the administration went through - how hard we tried to grapple with the uncertainties of the intelligence we were receiving and of the military solutions we were proposing." And JS seemed to go along with this a bonafide acceptable answer - and let it go but following up with a question of some terrorist training camps - apparently about which he was less well-informed than DR.

 

NO DAMMIT - YOU MORON. YOUR ORIGINAL POINT WAS THE DUPLICITY AND CONDESCENSION OF THIS ADMINSTRATION. AND THEIR TREATING OF ANY ONE WHO OPPOSED THEM AS TRAITORS. And DR has handed you the ammo you needed to finish him off. He told you exactly what you wanted to hear. This is how the interview should have gone down - allowing for some poetic license:

 

DR: "We didn't know what the fuck was going on."

JS: "Oh yeah - but listening to you - one would have believed that you had personally gone and inspected Saddam's weapons - and the outcome of the war was already a  done deal."

DR (sweating) : "No no no - it was never like that."

JS: "Oh yeah mother fucker ? Watch this" (plays some stock footage of this asshole and Dick "dearth vader" Cheney making their proclamations and dismissing dissent as treachery)

DR : "We had to do it this way- we couldn't reveal all the details about our internal deliberations and our ignorance - emboldening the enemy and whatnot, old chap."

JS: "So basically - you sold us the war with a spiel built on thin scaffolding of lies and propaganda."

DR: "But we were doing what we thought was right. It had to be done - knowing what we knew then."

JS: "Ah ha - so you asswipes admit it. That you thought we were a bunch of idiots who don't need to know the truth - and that you know what's best for us. That it's OK to tell the people a few white-lies to protect them. We went to war because we trusted you clowns. We thought you knew what you were doing. And now you tell us - that you knew how full of shit you were all along."

 

Jon Stewart - you truly suck at interviews. Stick to interviewing celebrities trying to sell their silly movies. This doesn't mean I won't watch the Daily Show - I'm just going to skip the last 10 minutes.