Jon Stewart: Anyone is Fair Game for'The Daily Show'

AP ^ | April 21 2003

[new cruelty]

NEW YORK (AP) -- "Daily Show" host Jon Stewart says his show doesn't pay much attention to party lines in picking its comedic targets.

"People ask, 'Why aren't you really making fun of Democrats right now?'" Stewart said. "And we say we'd love to if we knew where they were."

Stewart says few Americans care much about ideological categories.

"Liberals and conservatives are two gangs who have intimidated rational, normal thinking beings into not having a voice on television or in the culture," said Stewart, whose show airs on Comedy Central. "Liberals and conservatives are paradigms that mean nothing to anyone other than the media."

[KantianBurke]

Please. This show is decidedly liberal, quite unfunny and formulistically boring.

[mattdono]

Let me add some amplification to your comment:

PUUUHHHHHLLLLEEEEAAAAZZZZZEEEEEE!

Other than that, your assessment is right on.

[JohnnyZ]

Jon Stewart is funny.

[bmwcyle]

John plays to the New York crowd who gave us Hillary.

[uvular]

Maxine Waters, for one, must have laryngitis.

If Jon and his crack staff are having a hard time finding them, perhaps someone should e-mail them a few examples, such as Patty Murray's comments on the kindness of Saddam....

[new cruelty]

...such as Patty Murray's comments on the kindness of Saddam....


Great point.

[Doc Savage]

Jon: Eat me!

[Anotherpundit]

Well, I think he does have a point that *major* democratic figures are basically keeping their mouths glued shut right now. Comedy shows have a tendency to just hit whomever's in office or in power, and there aren't any democrats in power to make fun of. Which is just fine.

[singletrack]

Sen. Robert Byrd in a conferderate uniform wasn't ............um..odd? Monica Lewinsky's very own TV show? These come to mind before I've finished my first cup of coffee. The Daily Show spent the impeachment time mocking Ken Starr. Screw 'em. Jon Stewart is like Bob Sagett.

[Cathryn Crawford]

Jon Stewart's show is quite liberal-slanted. I, however, with my perverted sense of humor, can, at times, find humor in it.

Although it's been months since I've watched it.

[cousair]

Jon's show is hit and miss, with miss topping the list. He is a left winger but understands polls and that most of the country hates the Hate America First crowd. He makes fun of them but you always know where he is coming from. From time to time he is funny..hit and miss. Sorry Jon, you missed on this one.

[uvular]

True, and the more I thought about it, the things alot of liberals say are more scary, cruel, or downright ignorant than funny-exactly what they claim conservatives say.

But yes, they are on the whole, pretty quiet in the past few weeks!

[tuna_battle_slight_return]

The longest job Stewart ever held before the Daily Show was about six months. The show was funny back in 2000 but not now.

[hgro]

Jon Stewart is only funny to the Hollyweird classes. He is his greatest admirer.

[battlegearboat]

I saw one Daily Show around the time the troops were bogged down in that orange sand storm.

Their crack reporter on the scene did the bit like the way weathermen do a snowstorm.

The reporter at one point stated that they were getting around an inch of sand an hour and that they expected a five inch sheet of glass by morning.

They then ran through the list of school closings. They all had variations of Saddam Hussein in their titles.

The reporter went on to pretty much confirm that Armageddon was here. The graphics were good and it was funny in a nervous sort of way as I recall.

[bushfamfan]

I don't know why anyone on this board would actually watch this show. I read an article a couple yrs. back that quoted the head writer for the show and he was really vile and nasty towards President Bush. They get personal and they get really nasty. And they are really not funny. I will never watch that show.

[George W. Bush]

Comedy Central built itself up as a typical Hollyweird Lefty outlet. It really hit on anything conservative. Over the last two years, there seems to have been a move to just making fun of anything in sight.

Still, one should expect they'll be more Leftish since that reflects more their youth-oriented rebellion culture. They're just in it for money these days and they have trouble coming up with enough material to hold their fickle audience longterm to generate ad revenues. I expect they'll always be a little more Left/liberal than conservative in outlook. But the Dims are making themselves irresistable targets these days so we might see CC focus more attention on them too.

[Bluntpoint]

They have Barbara Streisand , Michael Moore, Tim Robbins and Al Franken making total idiots of themselves daily. Let me guess, tomorrow’s Daily Show will make fun of Bush’s speech malapropisms.

They Daily Show is losing a large portion of its core audience by permitting Stewart to use the show as a DNC attack platform.

For instance, Al Franken made a total ass of himself at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The Daily Show’s reaction… silence.

Attack both sides. Or stay non-political.

The Daily Show is best when it treats idiots as idiots from all political persuasions. Stewart is coming across as a whiney “Michael Moore” type.