Jon Stewart watches too much tv.

[Poll_Blind]

He thinks TV news and talk can be used to help America achieve a greater understanding of The Truth.

It can.

He thinks that...well, maybe that if he points out how full of shit it is the puerile nature of TV news and talk will change.

It won't.

If you watch his infamous interview on Crossfire and compare it to the interview he did with Rachel tonight, do you see someone whose opinion appears to have changed? I don't. Except for the dates they were recorded, and the fact that he doesn't paste Rachel as pointedly as he did Tucker & Paul, it's the same thing.

Why he continues to lament the fact that carnival pitch games involve rigged milk bottles as targets is a little beyond me. Who, seriously, expects anything else? Stewart is smart enough to know that and if this criticism is going to become another lobe of his career it's as disingenuous a shtick as anything Tucker Carlson ever said or did on Crossfire.

A maudlin shtick, promoting a revolutionary idea to return something that never was to something that could never be.

Are there some games at the carnival where you get a better chance of winning? Yeah. I think Keith and Rachel and folks like that give us a better chance at getting to the truth of the matter. Are they perfect or unbiased? No! But when Jon dumps on Rachel, or Keith in the same way he dumped on Tucker & Paul, I think his sensitivities are dulled to the point that he can't accurately detect the difference.

And. This. Is. Because...

Jon Stewart watches too much TV. It's part of his job and he could never have built such an excellent, cutting-edge, satire show if he didn't. But what Jon Stewart wants, or purports to want, is Perfect TV. I think it's not too hard to detect that he has come to detest the whole thing. TV News, News Talk, Politics. Who can blame him?

But that idealized TV-as-empowerment thing- that's just not going to happen. All TV (in this sense) is advertising, and advertising is selling something. I don't know what to make of a comedian who wishes the thing he derided for a living less worthy of derision but that's life, and the angle he's working.

PB

[Brickbat]

1. DU watches too much TV.

[Poll_Blind]

2. I think you could sort of make a proportional comparision to how much...

...play people give it (his criticisms), versus how much of it (TV News, Newstalk, etc.) they consume.

PB