Last night Jon Stewart opened The Daily Show with a commentary (video below) on how his announcement that’s he’s leaving did not go unnoticed. He took particular umbrage at Megyn Kelly of Fox News for saying that “he was not a force for good,” and that “in his later years he got a little nasty.” But surprisingly the part that bothered him was “in his later years.” He then insisted that he still has “four to five productive years left,” but eventually he would hit “the last four or five angry confused years, or as they are sometimes referred to, the Fox News viewer demo years.”
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Then Stewart played clips of Fox Newsers accusing him of ignoring facts to offer nothing but “sarcasm, insults and dishonest editing.” (Sounds like watching Fox News). Once again Kelly was highlighted alleging that Stewart had “no foothold on the facts.” That spurred Stewart to challenge Fox News to a “Lie Off,” a contest that guarantees a victory for Fox News. He then played a six second Vine video that contained 50 Fox News lies. PolitiFact reviewed all of the lies in Stewart’s Vine video and agreed that every single one of them was false (eleven of them Pants On Fire). However, that evidence, as Stewart noted, would have no impact on Fox’s twisted perception of reality because…
“You see…Something of a conventional wisdom about this show has taken hold on the right. A thought that they’ve become so comfortable with that they don’t feel the need to offer evidence to support it. That we lie and distort things all the time to make them look bad.”
Stewart marveled at the suggestion by Rush Limbaugh that he “poisoned the Republican brand,” and after showing hilarious clips of how Limbaugh represented that brand asked “How do you poison a cyanide factory?” Then, challenging the notion that Fox cares about the truth, Stewart stated something that has been obvious for years, that “What matters to the right is discrediting anything that they believe harms their side. That’s their prime directive.”
Despite the conventional “wisdom” that Stewart mentioned, conservative media has often recognized the many times that Stewart’s wit was aimed at President Obama or other Democrats and liberals. Fox News has trumpeted those segments dozens of times. (News Corpse has documented them here and here). Nevertheless, they suffer a peculiar sort of amnesia that causes them to forget his even-handedness whenever they feel like bashing him again over some new perceived slight.
While conservatives may be celebrating the sunset of the Stewart Era on cable TV, they are forgetting that he will be replaced by somebody, and it will probably not be Dennis Miller or Sarah Palin or some other right-wing clown. There is a reason that there aren’t any conservative comedians (or any funny ones). Their world view is inherently humorless. It is consumed by fear and hatred and worship of the privileged. Jokes about the homeless, or sick folks without health insurance, are only funny to the ignorant, the sadistic, and the GOP (or Greedy One Percent), who are only aware of their own selfish concerns.
That’s why Fox News suffices as a comedy channel for conservatives. It’s as close as they can get to it. But liberals also find humor in some of the ridiculous and embarrassing statements that tumble from the tongues of Fox’s personalities. They also learn things from Stewart and gain insight from his well-informed satire. That’s why you hear many of them say that they get their news from Comedy Central and their comedy from Fox News.
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Nobody who can read without moving their lips, and can count down backwards form ten to zero without making a mistake watches Faux Noise.
many people like someone telling them what they want to hear – that is kind of normal – blind to reality but normal. You folks here aren’t any different. I’m sure if Fox News had a liberal bias, you would probably be watching it happily.
it’s not about a right or left leaning bias. it’s about telling the truth. true that can be verified and is not just opinion. Fox news has, for the longest time decided that it’s viewers don’t really care about the truth, not as much as they care about having their ideas reinforced. When you viewers stop being concerned about the truth you no longer care either. Say whatever you think those viewers want to hear. So, again , it’s not about a left/right bias, it’s about telling the truth, and if you can’t see that then you are clearly part of the that problem that only wants to hear and believe lies.
Exactly, like when Fox News’ resident bimbo Anna Kooiman proclaimed that Obama was donating money to a Muslim cultural museum, which of course was false, because anyone with half a brain would think that, for Obama, doing such a thing would be political suicide, whether or not you agree with his politics. But no, she reports it, supposedly without verifying it HERSELF, because she was eager to please her boss Roger Ailes by attempting to smear and discredit Obama, whether or not the story had any merit. When caught, she then offers a lame sort-of apology, just enough so that it doesn’t appear that she is groveling to the liberals, and dumbly blames the fact-checkers at Fox. Knowing that she would never be hired anywhere else, she has no choice but to pass on deliberate falsehoods to her viewers. Therefore I believe she deliberately and knowingly lied, not caring for the truth so much as trying to please Ailes, for whom we all know the ends justify the means. This to me is why Fox News deserves no respect: They believe their viewers are dumb and abuse their trust every single day.
the comment was directed at the opening comment as they choose to talk down to others being they are soooo much smarter. I don’t personally feel insulted as I don’t watch fox news – as I’ve said before. The enlightened opening comment is typical idiocy from those here who actually believe they are superior to all others that don’t agree with their world view.
This Stewart segment gives us a brilliant narrative of the Republican demand of ideological purity in the party. The right-wing agenda can not be challenged by anyone, least of all anyone who applies critical thinking to their Party-line. The Republican party is as dogmatic as any religion. No surprise then when we see the party is overwhelmingly religious. And not the old kind of main-stream Protestant brand(s). We are talking fundamentalist, fire and brimstone, Jesus Camp-kind of religion. This kind of old-time religion is undemocratic and anti-freedom by its very nature.