The Billiken's Bluff

There’s something funny going on here.

I realized it this weekend when I scanned Al Gore’s latest rant about how American democracy is being dismantled, given at some media conference in New York. Nothing new there, really – we already knew Al Gore lost all faith in American democracy the day it rejected his personal bid for executive power and prompted the former Veep to grow a beard like Ron Burgundy when he is jobless and demoralized and wandering around San Diego with a carton of milk.

I’m not posting to hate on Al. But I do want to take a look at one point he was trying to make. Though served as an appetizer on a platter of Gore whackjobbery, Gore’s point strikes me as valid enough: he thinks journalists should take their jobs more seriously, and that there should be “a distinction between news and entertainment.” Sounds good.

But he added:

This was the point made by Jon Stewart, the brilliant host of "The Daily Show," when he visited CNN's "Crossfire.”

Slow that Mustang down, Sally. Now we all know that everyone finds Jon Stewart to be funny and adorable and wants him to bear their children and be the next head of the U.N., etc. But you could be the Treasurer of the National Jon Stewart Fan Club (you can’t really – Gore already has that position) and still recognize the inherent contradiction in Gore’s statement. Not too mention a queasy feeling when a politician still trying to be president finds it necessary to perform verbal sex acts on a comedian whilst delivering a sermon on the evils of the modern media.

If you still needed the disclaimer, I personally don’t have much of a stomach for Jon Stewart anymore. He’s a talented comedian and I’m sure he’s still funny. But he’s not funny enough to be endured in every capacity he asserts himself in.

To understand my hatred for Jon Stewart, you have to understand my love of the Daily Show. I was one of the original fans who caught the first episode when it aired on Comedy Central and talked it up in school the next day. The humor behind Daily – as it survives through the work of other comedians on the show – was originally a parody of the self-serving egos and over-the-top personalities of news anchors and their news teams. In that sense, the cast was led perfectly by Craig Kilborn, who self-mockingly played the sort of arrogant character that he shows up as in Old School. As Kilborn’s successor host of the new Daily Show, Jon Stewart also plays the role of a self-glorifying egomaniac. It’s just that he’s not in on the joke.

What else but a hyper-inflated ego can explain Stewart’s absurd appearance on Crossfire (much lauded here on Billiken), where Jon Stewart was invited as a guest and proceeded to lecture Tucker Carlson on how to be a journalist, dictating that Tucker needed to take his role as a news talk show co-host more seriously?

Hu?

Stewart defended his kettle’s right to call the teapot black here by saying that because he was on comedy central, he could be as biased, exaggerated, fake, and downright silly as he wanted to when reporting the news. Seems fair. How can we be expected to take Stewart seriously, given that he appears on a show before puppets making crank phone calls?

Here’s the problem. We ARE being asked to take Stewart seriously. Every day. He comes on CNN and lectures journalists on how to do their jobs. I see him on C-SPAN doing these panels where he sermonizes on what the media should be like. He does book tours and interviews talking about politicians and the news and expounding on his problems with the administration. He is mentioned CONSTANTLY in the news as a legitimate media figure and is offered to us as an authority on the modern American media.


And now a presidential candidate has his head so far up the man’s backside that we can’t see if he still has that lumberjack beard or not.

Even bigger problem. People ARE taking him seriously. You hear kids all the time admit that they only get their news from the Daily Show. You hear people like Idle blogger A-Wood saying “turn off everything but the Daily Show,” suggesting that it is the only media voice out there keeping it real. Keeping it real, of course, by keeping it fake.

Stewart cannot be blamed for this alone. He’s a funny guy and has every right to make a career of fake news and political comedy. It is not his fault that high school and college age kids out there are too lazy to seek news elsewhere, and find out what is happening in Iraq through Jon Stewart’s jokes. But I find it real hard to accept him as some kind of prophet because he tells us that the line between the media and entertainment should not be blurred when he is the one, through every media appearance and arrogant lecture, who is trying hardest to blur it.


If Jon Stewart cannot make an entertaining fake news show from which people actually end up getting their news, why do Tucker Carlson and James Carville not have the right to make a news show as entertaining as they see fit? I find Carville at least as funny as Stewart, and Carlson wears a freaking bow-tie. A bow-tie, people. By what standard are we responsible for taking him seriously, but give a free pass for Stewart to do what he wants and then lecture others to do the opposite? Because they are on CNN? So was Stewart. At least Stewart wears a tie.

Jon Stewart may very well be “brilliant,” as Gore assures us. But if so, why do we have to keep hearing it from politicians? It is a little disconcerting that Stewart lectures conservatives like kindergarteners, then has ridiculous figures like Gore on his show and asks them such hard-hitting questions as “So what is wrong with these Republicans, anyway? Is it just that they’re evil?” (Gore didn’t confirm or deny that theory).

It is easy to understand Stewart’s appeal to Gore. Remember that many political analysts opined that the cast of Saturday Nigh Live actually moved poll numbers by emphasizing Gore’s sighing and overly aggressive manner in the debates, depicting him memorably as a jerk to Bush’s likeable frat boy. The new Al Gore doesn’t intend to be on the receiving end of harsh parodies this time around. And though he masquerades as a champion of press and speech freedoms, Gore has an unabashed hatred - clear in this speech - of the fact that conservatives like Rush Limbaugh are legally allowed to voice opinions on the radio, or that newscasters on Fox News can serve news marinated in a conservative sauce instead of doused in the usual liberal flavor.

So who better to suck up to than the media’s new most powerful fake-news anchor (that people get their news from), who we’re not supposed to take seriously (but is brilliant and asked his opinion on every news channel)?

And when Americans are turning to Fox instead of trusting Dan Rather and the New York Times for real news, what better market for liberals to corner than fake news (from which people get their real news)?

Jon Stewart’s politics have nothing to do with my complaint. I’ll laugh at the Bush-is-dumb-joke as much as the guy next to me, if its at all original. I even concede that he and Al Gore have a point about seriousness and professionalism in the media.

But it’s not decline of the news media that really upsets me. It’s the decline of the comedy.

Watching Al Gore and Jon Stewart publicly exchange body fluids is an excruciating experience for the truly Daily Show fan. There was a time when comedians made a point through the genius of parody and satire – the cast of the Daily Show was making their hilarious critique of the news media when Stewart was still making those cheese-ball sappy romance movies.

Humor is a matter of taste, and I would stop myself before I tried to convince anyone that Jon Stewart – though he has his moments – is the least funny guy on the show. Not that that’s a huge insult. But let’s just say I’m really looking forward to the premier of the Colbert Report (debuting right after).

It’s fine with me that people get a kick out of the Daily Show. Even I still manage to. I just feel that somewhere between poking fun at reporters and lecturing them, the show lost something. Somewhere between making fun of Al Gore and teaming up with him, the comedy got cheapened.

Somewhere between being the Daily Show and becoming the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the show got hijacked by an ego that dwarfs any the show originally set out to poke fun of. Of all people, Al Gore got the last laugh.