"Democrats never once mentioned Arnold Palmer's cock. Never once. Yet focus group after focus group said, you got anything on Arnold Palmer's cock? If not, can you at least stand there and sway to 'Ave Maria' for, like, an hour? Can you at least do that? But it's a delight to hear about why it happened from so many people who were so wrong about what was going to happen...."
That made me laugh out loud, but don't let it make you think Stewart mainly takes sideswipes at Trump. He does not. Watch the whole thing.
If you're at all skeptical about whether Tim Walz has been presented to us as America's Dad or you just want to experience some good, old fashioned sad laughing watch this:
ComedyCentral.com had been home to clips from every episode of The Daily Show since 1999, and the entire run of The Colbert Report, but as of Wednesday morning, the site is gone.
"But Mr. Adams’s mismanagement of the crisis made it clear he never had a workable strategy to deal with it. Last May, for example, the mayor opened a flagship welcome center for migrants in the old Roosevelt Hotel in Midtown Manhattan. Since then, he has allowed the building, two blocks from Grand Central Terminal, to deteriorate in plain sight. Some ground-floor windows are blacked out, and mattresses hang from a huge metal trash receptacle in the street. Mopeds block one sidewalk, and graffiti defaces the side of the building near Grand Central...."
Mayor Adams makes a notable appearance in this "Daily Show" segment (which is long but really good, going after multiple targets, not just Republicans):
"'... much to his wife’s chagrin.'... [I]n 2004 when Biden was considering getting into the race to challenge John Kerry[, d]uring a meeting when aides were begging him to jump in, Jill walked into the room wearing a halter top with the word 'No' scrawled on her stomach. Biden followed that sexy veto.... Some — including Jill — might find the 81-year-old Golden President’s frisky comments about the first lady cringey.
But at least he is celebrating sensuality. Conservatives seem determined to stamp it out."
Writes Maureen Dowd, in "Sex and the Capital City" (NYT). She's quoting and drawing on a book by New York Times White House correspondent Katie Rogers, "American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, From Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden."
There's doing and there's talking. Do, but you needn't talk about it, and you certainly don't need to get high-profile columnists to celebrate you for "celebrating sensuality"... whatever that is. Does it include that hair-smelling stuff?
Says Jon Stewart, on "The Daily Show" last night, responding to critics who accused him of "bothsidesism" for aiming some of his humor at Biden:
The test is whether Stewart can stand up to these critics or whether he will take direction from them. He makes a joke of apologizing to them and offering them a fresh slab of the kind of comedy they demand — he goes after Tucker Carlson. Fine. That was well done. But I don't want Stewart cowed by his critics, and I hope as last night's show proceeded, he made fun of some Democrats too. I can't tell you whether he did or not, because they didn't put the whole show on YouTube as they did last week, and I don't currently have the Paramount streaming service. I was considering subscribing just to get this show. I still am. I want what's going to make Democrats get haughtily indignant and say "bothsidesism."
"... that he popularized: so-called clapter comedy, a phrase that has been credited to [Seth] Meyers which describes the kind of jokes that, instead of making audiences laugh, elicit applause by pandering to their preëxisting beliefs. Stewart resorted to such lines at least occasionally during his tenure; in the Trump era, the tactic exploded. The use of clapter as a crutch, and a general ethos against 'punching down' among moral-minded standups, has rendered much of today’s political comedy predictable...."
I like the way he's still got exactly the same style — same intonations, same attitude, same laughing at himself. This is "The Daily Show" as I know it, and I've pretty much avoided all the hosts who replaced Stewart after he'd gone. I think this is great, but he's only doing Mondays, so it won't be habit-forming.
But Jon Stewart is 61. He was born in 1962. He's a BOOMER!
Boomers, Boomers, Boomers. We were born to dominate the culture forever. I say "forever," because without us... well, it's all always been about us. What is anything without us?
Generation X is and was always in our shadow. Eventually, we'll pass on, but it will be too late for them. The Millennials — The Generation Created by Us, the Boomers — have always overshadowed Gen X, and as the Boomers vacate cultural space The Millennials will seize it as their rightful entitlement.
Now, let me cherry-pick from news articles about the return of Jon Stewart to "The Daily Show":
"[Hasan] Minhaj described his work as 'the dynamic range that theatre and storytelling and comedy allow you to explore.' Does that mean audiences should expect his words onstage to stringently hew to the facts on the ground? The slipperiness of memoir finds a new dimension when it’s played for laughs in front of a crowd...."
Their fondness for each other may have robbed viewers of any meaningful debate. The two each squeezed in their differing talking points on Donald Trump, but the chat felt a lot like a photo opportunity with both holding back any serious jabs. Franken even reiterated his belief that Graham was the funniest person he had met in Washington. The extended version of their conversation, available only online, had slightly more meat, but no fireworks.
Most interesting to me was something that wasn't a joke — before becoming a stand-up comedian, she worked for the NSA for 7 years. I had to look it up to make sure it was not a joke. Wikipedia:
Would calling someone “crazy” or “unhinged” contribute to the kind of stigmas that makes people afraid to seek help?...
“It’s definitely OK to find humor in the challenging experiences people face,” [said Meredith Goldberg-Morse, senior manager of social impact at MTV Entertainment Group]. “But when you’re doing that, it’s important to be mindful of not sending the message that the person managing the condition is the punchline of the joke.”
Notice that there are 2 different phenomena under discussion here: 1. Actual mental health conditions, and 2. The use of mental-health language to insult or mock. These 2 things are interrelated, because caring about people with actual mental health conditions seems to be the main reason to think you ought to refrain from using mental-health language to insult or mock.
I can think of some other reasons: 1. It's stale and unimaginative to just call the people you don't agree with "crazy." 2. It's inaccurate (you're not diagnosing a disorder). 3. It's a way to avoid making specific and substantive arguments. 4. It's hypocritical (because you yourself sound crazy when you endlessly call other people crazy). 5. It's part of the problem of winding people up about everything (which is why I stopped watching "The Daily Show" years ago).
30 years ago, when he was mayor of Burlington, Vermont and did a public-access TV show.
Hilarious footage in here. Watch the whole thing. I like when he says to a kid "I think you're dumb" and when a kid says to him, "Okay, well, I better get going."
The Daily Mail reports (with a clip showing the comic riff: "Africa won the World Cup. I get it, they have to say it's the French team. But look at those guys. You don't get that tan by hanging out in the south of France, my friends").
French former reality TV star Martin Medus... said: 'You're a f****** racist. Those people are French and p***** to always be reminded of their background. They fight hard to tell people they are proud French people and yet you disrespect them calling them African. Are the Lakers an African team?'
Elise Frank added: 'So basically, Trevor, all the African-Americans in the US are just Africans, right? Know that as a french of Algerian, German and Spanish descent, I find it insulting. We are all french, we are one people. Ask the players,they'll tell you they're proud frenchmen!'
One man said: 'This is so racist to think that because they are black they are not French. They claimed their love of France. You denied them the right to be French? Is this what you want to deliver to all afro americans also? 98% of the players were born in France. Only two players were born in Africa, but they came at the age of two. So they've grown up in France.'
"... the conservative, undercover operation that has tried to infiltrate and expose liberal bias among news organizations and community organizers? What Cohen does is not all that different... To giggle at and delight in Cohen’s pranks is to believe that you can have it both ways: that you can be horrified at the collapse of truth and democracy, and then laugh at a guy who seeks to undermine whatever remains of trust. As watchably galling as Cohen’s techniques may be, America in 2018 doesn’t really seem like the right time or place for it."
By the way, the commenters at WaPo are strongly resisting the comparison of this comedy show to the Project Veritas sting operations. The key argument is that Cohen presents his footage as a network comedy show. He just wants laughs. Project Veritas presents its footage as internet video, for the purpose of affecting real-world policy. But (I would add) there is a side effect of humor in some of the Project Veritas video, and Sacha Baron Cohen does have a political viewpoint and does intend to undermine the power of the politicians he targets.
No one — not Stuever or his commenters — mentions "The Daily Show." A few years ago, we continually heard the observation that Americans are getting their news from that comedy show. A satire was the primary source of factual information and opinion spin. The line between showbiz and journalism was blurred long ago. I mean, look at how the WaPo commenters are willing to call Project Veritas "journalism"! It used to be critiqued as not journalism at all, as if it really were more of a comedy show.
The line between seriousness and comedy — between journalism and entertainment — is just completely blurred now. The idea that it should be sharpened up... is that some kind of joke? I couldn't tell you, because the line between joking and sobriety is gone.
It's funny how not funny that is today, but I want to call attention to is the strange level of awareness/unawareness that seems to have prevailed at NBC. I suspect this little sketch grew out of the inside joke that Matt Lauer was a problem. There's something awfully creepy about the way the women on the couch play along and act delighted about the fun of it all.
And notice the lines given to Lauer, who is put in the female role in the encounter:
“I’m upset for a couple of reasons. One, that he denied it. I mean, why deny it? I mean, if you do it, own up to it. And secondly, since it happened, he hasn’t called, he hasn’t written. Nothing."
The interviewer prompts: "That may be the worst part of all." And Lauer says meaningfully (in a manner clearly intended to question the integrity of women who complain about sexual harassment): "The abandonment."
[L]ooking back through today’s lens, this whole argument was miscast. The wrongdoing at issue was... a high-profile exemplar of a widespread social problem: men’s abuse of workplace power for sexual gain. It was and is a striking example of a genre of misconduct that society has a strong interest in stamping out. That alone should have been enough to have pressured Clinton out of office....
I think the key to understanding what Bill Clinton did wrong is equality in the workplace. So Yglesias is right to stress Clinton's use of "the power of the Oval Office" and "men’s abuse of workplace power," but the point shouldn't be that Bill Clinton or some other powerful man achieved "seduction" or "sexual gain." Rather the problem is that the workplace conditions are unequal because of sex. That's why it doesn't matter that Monica Lewinsky was happy and enthusiastic about her love affair with the President. One woman got special access to the President, but other women did not, and the workplace for men had nothing to do with sex.
What Yglesias wrote suggests a more wide-ranging critique of sex — that it's a "social problem" that men can use power that they've acquired in their careers to attract women. I personally believe a woman is better off with a sexual partner who's close to her age and not significantly more powerful economically or politically, and I may privately think less of some men who use their economic or political power to get relatively easy access to a young or naive woman who is — even in her own self-interest — eager to use a man to advance her own condition in life. But I'm not going to call that a "serious social problem" or say "society has a strong interest in stamping out" that sort of thing, especially when the idea is to remove a man from a position of power he's worked hard to attain.
Maybe Yglesias didn't mean to suggest all that. But it's a little funny, as a thought experiment, to think of all the politicians who seem to be part of the "serious social problem" by having spouses they "seduced" when there was a big power differential. I know he's not in Congress anymore, but should Dennis Kucinich have been expelled for getting a beautiful woman 30 years his junior to marry him?
I wanted to find a good video to go with that last question, and look at this incredibly sexist "Daily Show" clip I found (from 10 years ago):
... that when I said that might push people toward Trump, Meade said — quite seriously — that he believed they were secretly pro-Trump.
I really don't know how "The Late Show" can have become this bad. Stewart's reliance on yelling, laughing faux-helplessly at his own jokes, and saying the words "bullshit" and "fucking" seemed really pathetic, and I think both men knew the material was awful.
And I don't know why a network show that needs ratings would offer comedy that automatically writes off half of its potential audience. What's worse is that even for the people they are trying to reach — the Trump haters — it is bad comedy. Yelling, dirty words, desperation... that's what you resort to when there are no real jokes to deliver.
And the late-night tradition used to take into account that the viewers were getting ready to go to sleep. There was a certain sweetness, a niceness. At one point Stewart does a little bit that references Johnny Carson — he holds a paper up to his forehead Carnac-style — and it just made me sad at the loss of Johnny. I longed for a make-late-night-great-again champion. I'd thought that's what Stephen Colbert was going to be.
And what was Jon Stewart doing with a dead animal on his head? I know it was a comic impression of Trump's hair, but Stewart's post-Daily-Show way of life has been a big animal-rescue facility, a sanctuary premised on an utterly unironic love for animals.
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