BYOO. Bring Your Own Opinion. You may or may not like Jon Stewart. You may or may not like The Daily Show. You may or may not know about either. If you haven't seen The Daily Show, you are missing out on an opportunity to laugh at the most outrageous aspects of modern politics and news delivery. An unapologetic liberal, Jon Stewart nevertheless seems to be interested in pointing out the "absurdity" of partisan politics. His interviews may be softballs, but as he points out, the show that leads into his is about puppets making crank calls.
And now he has fought back at the media that he mocks on a daily basis. His interview on "Crossfire" earlier today is quickly becoming classic. I have posted it here for the enjoyment of all.
A recent debate sprung up about the audience for his show versus the audience for Bill O'Reilly's show. O'Reilly accused The Daily Show audience of being a bunch of pot-smoking slackers. The irony is that studies show that Jon Stewart's audience is more highly educated and has a higher income than viewers of Bill O'Reilly. Either way, The Daily Show's entire purpose is to try and pull the curtain back on modern politics, much to the chagrin of the current power establishment.
The clip below is from today, October 15, 2004. I think that it really speaks for itself. Jon Stewart, a little nervous, goes immediately on the offensive against the two hosts of the show who have a history of bickering and argument. The issue for Jon, clearly, is whether or not this kind of partisanship contributes in any way to constructive discourse and problem solving. If all you are doing is pandering to those who already agree with you, are you really participating in a debate?
Check it out for yourself and see what you think...
(note: Because it is late and I don't really want to spend time at the moment re-encoding this for Flash, I am linking to an MPEG file of the episode. I may return to this soon and put it up in a more user-friendly manner),
Jon Stewart visits Crossfire
