Rachel vs. Jon: The think Rachel just isn't getting is...

[Better Today]

that Jon is saying he is from a long line of essentially court jesters. If that's what Rachel wants to be, then fine but is that what she wants to be? He holds up the Smothers Brothers, and Bill Maher, but lets also remember Laugh In and SNL. Jon is like a short, nightly SNL with some political truism and some goofy skits, it's nothing like what Rachel is doing, unless I've misunderstood Rachel all this time.

Edited to add: I watched the whole interview at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/

Edited again to add: And I still love 'em both, but they're just not comparable.

[ClassWarrior]

1. Except the Smothers Brothers and Bill Maher didn't parody the news...

...and SNL's news segment is surrounded by satire -- skit comedians as anchors, fake commercials and the like.

What makes Jon different from what he aspires to be, and like what he claims he isn't, is the fact that his brand of satire looks so much like the latter.

NGU.

[JI7]

2. no, it's Jon who doesn't get it

[mzmolly]

3. Huh? The thing Jon isn't getting is that there is a difference between

reporting news with opinion, and manufacturing news out of thin air.

I'm a huge fan of Stewart and will remain so, but his "all noise is equal" is frustrating. He says that's not what he's saying, but that's what people keep hearing.

[global1]

4. Does Stewart Fall In The Category Of A Will Rogers Or Mort Sahl?......

Both Rogers and Sahl showed their followers the folly of politics. Stewart's contemporaries might be Maher and the Smothers Brothers but political humor goes back much farther than the Smothers Bros.

[Better Today]

8. I agree it goes farther back, hence my opening statement about "court jester"

which is pretty darn far back.

[cynatnite]

5. I still like them both, too. n/t

[Saturday]

6. I don't think Jon Stewart is getting it....

How can you debate and be civil if the other side only wants to have their own reality instead of the real reality. Stewart a couple times on his show has "debated" someone and left complete untruths pass by. The latest was Gov Perry of Texas. A Republican that comes on with just bluster isn't debating or trying to solve problems. They are just using their talking points and need to be called on it not just given a stage to do it. Stewart has provided that stage more than once all the while criticizing others for speaking truth to bluster.

[Better Today]

7. Regarding that, I think he hit the nail when he said that

the sides are all wrong. It isn't Blue vs Red or a party fight to most citizens anymore. He says it's corruption vs no-corruption, I think the sides of our real issues more relate to haves vs have-nots. Either way, I agree that folks need to realize it isn't a Dem vs Repub world anymore, regardless of what the pundits want us to embrace.

[KharmaTrain]

9. Comedy & Satire Are About The Irony

And there's an endless supply of that these days. This is what Jon, Mahrer, Letterman and the others feed off of. Since so much of the hypocrisy and outrageousness comes from the right, it's ripe for the picking...and it looks like some took it a step further, thinking that Stewart had become some Pied Piper of the left. What he said tonight is what he said at his rally as is what he said on Crossfire...he's not anybody's monkey. He's been built up by some to be a political icon...he says he's not. Some here expected his rally to be a Democratic GOTV affair and it wasn't. Under the bus he went.

[Kip Humphrey]

10. What keeps getting overlooked about the Rally is

the 250,000 people who showed up. They didn't show up for Stewart's rant about M$M. They showed up around the message, "Restore Sanity". For me, that showing up was the message of the rally, not anything Jon said. I watched the entire rally and came away inspired by the people, and, admittedly, a little disappointed in Jon's somewhat myopic message that was particular to his circumstance and environment. I mean, when you hold a rally 3 days before the election and don't even urge the 250,000 people who showed up and are standing there before you to vote? Not that Jon's M$M message wasn't and isn't important but the event was so much more than that and Jon failed to recognize and address that moment. Yes, Jon is a court jester but his self-deprecation bellies his power and comes across more as an excuse and a denial of his responsibility invested in him by his millions of fans. Again, the "message" of the rally was and continues to be, 250,000 people showed up, and that is bigger than Jon, Rachel, Keith, Fox, CNN, or any of the media.

[WinkyDink]

11. The SB weren't wishy-washy Rodney Kings. And court jesters spoke truth to power; they didn't

exhort the masses to stop whining.