A Different Take On The Maddow/Stewart Interview

[lame54]

Flame Away

http://www.salon.com/news/rally_to_restore_sanity/?story=/ent/tv/2010/11/12/maddow_stewart_sanity

FRIDAY, NOV 12, 2010 08:40 ET
Rachel Maddow's must-see Jon Stewart interview
In a thrilling face-off, "The Daily Show" star talks with the MSNBC host about news, rallies, Bush and more.
BY MARY ELIZABETH WILIAMS

Ah, so that's what intelligent, reasonable discourse looks like. Haven't seen too much of it these days – almost didn't recognize it. But on "Rachel Maddow" Thursday, professional "conflictonator" Jon Stewart went head to head with the MSNBC host, and the result was a dizzyingly terrific Rally to Restore Sanity built for two...

...He was at times maddeningly indulgent, granting reasonable doubt to George Bush for our ongoing nightmare in Iraq and Afghanistan by asking, "What is their intention? Is it to save American lives?" He questioned how helpful it is "if the place you start is 'he’s an evil man who lied to us'… I do think he believes Sadaam was dangerous." And he told liberal America, to its intense discomfort, "You have to examine your own orthodoxy."

Maddow, meanwhile, was engagingly pugnacious throughout, telling Stewart in no uncertain terms, for example, that Bush’s much justified torture strategy was "wrong for the country and he shouldn't have been doing it" and "I'm happy to scream it." But she also insisted, "I feel like we're doing the same thing. We both have a commitment to not lying, to telling the truth where we see it." Bring on the unironic truthiness!

In the end, there was no shouting, zero cutting of microphones. Instead, there was Stewart, telling Maddow in utter sincerity "I like you." Undeniably, in many ways they're the different sides of the same coin. They're two bright, funny hyperintelligent people who do best when they're sparring – and yowsa, they're fun to watch. And Stewart's explanation that the Rally "was to articulate an intangible feeling that people are having and bring it into focus" seems in many ways a very Maddow thing to say...

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[sally cat]

1. People who have shows seems to have other people who have shows as guests too often.

[mrdmk]

2. Good one, except for one thing... Why is that?

Please, in your humble opinion what is the reason for this phenomenon!