Numbers Don’t Lie, Does Jon Stewart?
by HollywoodlandIt was contentious and dramatic. On Sunday, June 19, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace grilled funnyman Jon Stewart on his obvious liberal bias and Stewart replied, “… there is not a designed ideological agenda on my part to affect partisan change …”
The exchange got heated when Stewart held that line, telling Wallace, “You can’t understand, because of the world you live in, that there is not a designed, ideological agenda on my part to affect partisan change, because that’s the soup you swim in.”
Well, “designed” or not, Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” mocks the right far more than it does the left, and a survey of the 16 broadcasts since the Wallace-Stewart run-in proves it.
CMI found that Stewart went after Republicans and Fox News (which he labels “conservative”) almost four times as often as liberals and Democrats in just two weeks of shows. However the next eight broadcasts proved that Stewart just couldn’t help but show his true, partisan colors.
Whether he was poking fun at Congresswoman Michele Bachmann for her perceived Waterloo/John Wayne gaffe or calling Fox News a “lying dynasty,” Stewart’s ever-present bias comes awfully close to that of an “ideological, partisan activist.”
Full piece here.
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122 Comments
He goes after both the left and the right for not being liberal enough.
Mr. Stewart's world view is an poorly thought out melange of ACLU / Southern Poverty Law Center catechism combined with a healthy dose of moral relativism and rounded out by gobs and gobs of immaturity and naivete.
Stewart would be more amusing if he would just go ahead and admit he's a liberal. A lot of his stuff really is funny, and we conservatives do need to be able to laugh at ourselves (it's part of what sets us apart from the left). If Stewart would just admit he's a man of the left and enjoys satirizing the right he'd be less self-delusional and more humorous.
Here you go Jon, how about this?
“You, Jon, can’t understand, because of the world YOU live in, that there IS a designed, ideological agenda on [your] part to affect partisan change, because that’s the soup you swim in.”
” Stewart’s ever-present bias comes awfully close to that of an “ideological, partisan activist.”
CLOSE: as in hand grenade.
Gee. You think?
"Thou shalt not lie" nor "Thou shalt not bear false witness" are within his belief system.
If the entirety of the Left would just admit they were rabidly biased and stop with the 'centrist' farce then we could overcome most of the rancor. But their insistence that neo-Marxism and eco-fascism are in some way 'main stream' and 'moderate' poisons the well of discourse, leaving the most rabid partisans ( those being on the Left ) to belch up the proscribed talking points du jour without accountability to facts or history.
I could buy that there is not a designed ideological agenda, just a systemic ideological agenda. In other words that The Daily Show is leftist because Stewart is the host, and Stewart is leftist.
Doesn't necessarily mean Jon is telling the truth and there is not a designed agenda, but his story is plausible.
Yeah, his show was actually good before his "Rally to Restore Sanity" campaign. Since then he has tried to pose as a centrist.
You hit the nail on the head.
True. But I don't think he's observant of his belief system. Or of the truth. Here's the destructive philosophy he follows:
“I am for socialism, disarmament, and, ultimately, for abolishing the state itself…I seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.” (Roger Baldwin, ACLU Founder, Harvard College Class Book, 1905)
Please direct me to these episodes where Stewart is funny. I've watched several and frankly, as a comedian and observer of the contemporary scene, he sucks pondwater.
This is difficult because both sides are telling the truth. What I mean is of course John Stewart has a bias. Of course his show is a skewed view of conservative but when he denies it is by "design" he is not lying.
He does not "consciously" trash them…it is not a conscious effort. He just really believes all conservative are stupid, dumb, boorish, fascist, racist, homophobic etc.
And that is his bias. Bias never knows itself to be bias in the beholder. To the beholder, bias is "truth". Hence Stewart is in fact a biased comedian, but he is not lying when he denies it. To him it is not bias, merely truth.
Someone like Bill Maher in this respect is probably a bit more self aware. He is so extreme that he cannot deny it.
Precisely. If the world really were the way Jon Stewart thinks it is, then the only moral and rational way to behave would be something like what Jon Stewart does. If half the country really were stupid boorish racist fascists bent on evil and greed and the destruction of all that is good, then any politically-oriented comedian worth his salt would practically be *obligated* to mock such people at every turn.
Of course, the only problem is that the world is *not* the way Jon Stewart thinks it is, and he's too far inside the bubble and too emotionally invested in his worldview to be able to see that.
Q: If you locked Jon Stewart and Bill Mahr in a hermetically sealed room with no source of oxygen, who would survive?
A: Who cares?
Article title: "Numbers Don't Lie, Does Jon Stewart?"
To answer that question with another question:
"Is his mouth open?"
You've got nothing on Stewart — he tears you to pieces on a nightly basis with substance and fact. The best you can do is to say "ahhh haaa!! You ARE a liberal!!" Ummm… duh?
Please do keep up. We'll even slow down the lesson so you can get your peabrains into the same collective huddle and form a thought.
Clown nose on / Clown nose off.
It must be fun to assume everyone here is some kind of idiot or somehow less intelligent than you.
Roger Baldwin….. didn't follow those morales either. I'm simplistic… I peg folks and pretty much know where they are coming from… through all the fluff.
I'm gonna let you in a little secret you might not be able to comprehend. This is not the Yahoo messaging boards. Unless you have facts backed with links, cause it is the digital world, you will never be taken seriously. Now if all you can do is resort to name calling without facts, then I say you are par for course with our paid liberal trolls that try to do nothing but incite hatred. It's either fortunate or un-fortunate, depends on each individuals viewpoint, that we don't resort to left-wing ailinsky tactics. We will leave that to the unions; until blood is drawn and you will feel the wrath of the American people!
You misspelled your name , it should have a ' GON ' in front of it …
Which is why it works so well with his audience it's sad that anyone even gives him the time of day when it comes to politics in his own words "I'm just a comedian!". What a cop out…
lol, your funny, you should write jokes for obama.
You cannot spell Leibowitz without "lie" so it is part of his nature.
i don't think it will get it.
That's pretty funny.
both, thier brains opperate on feces, both have an endless supply of that crap.
When one surrounds themselves with like minded robot sycophants that becomes their 'little world'. Can you imagine the nuts he talks to to believe he is the 'moderate' one? He can not help it neither can Barack. That is why they will either fail or destroy the country in 2012.
"Substance and fact". Is that what you far-left sheep are calling misinformation and lies now?
Well said sheapdog. You beat me to it.
Are you really an STD? Thanks for sharing. Both you and Jonboy wouldn't know a REAL fact, troll, if it was printed in huge block letters on the side of the truck that ran over your toes. Now go be a good boy and run along, Momma's calling. Moochie wants you to eat your Obama peas.
"Mr. Stewart" is a comedian, and one of the best at that. If conservatives had even an inkling of a sense of humor not only would they be able to see how ridiculous their actions are, they wouldn't be so vilified.
He absolutely hit the nail on the head, the very same nail that Jon Stewart hit when saying those exact words to Wallace. If you think that's wit, read anything by Oscar Wilde.
I didn't he wasn't I'm saying is he uses his status as a comedian to snipe at people on the right and then justifies anything he says that's out of line or over the line by saying he's just a comedian.
It must be even more fun to live in a fantasy world where you think that was a good comeback. Intelligence can be measured in many ways, but common sense and logic have only one. Is it reasonable to think that conservatives are actually serving you, or the corporations that pay them to pass legislation that suits their agenda?
So you're saying that if I take every single second from the broadcasts of the Fox News corp and post it online to tally how many anti-liberal comments are made versus anti-conservative ones, you'll look at it and actually say to yourself, "Hey maybe I was wrong about the points Stewart made?" I find that pretty far fetched. Your opinion won't be swayed no matter how many documents and links are thrown in your face. That's why as long as Fox News exists (and hopefully considering this recent phone hacking scandal it won't be much longer) this world will be a far worse place to live in.
Hey you're not funny, you probably already write jokes for Bill O'Reilly.
It wasn't a comeback… it was a comment.
What's more, conservatives do not "serve" me… in fact, conservatives and libertarians don't want anyone to serve us. That's the point.
So, let me get this straight…. because conservatives have no "sense of humor" they can't appreciate the comedic genius of Mr. Stewart and it also causes them to be seen as puppy strangling baby punchers?
You are really throwing the misinformation card out when defending Fox News? Go to the site and then open your mind.
foxnewslies.net
To answer that question with yet another question: "Did you eat paint chips as a child?"
The guy is desperately flailing at anything who either disagrees with Stewart or doesn't much care for Stewart.
I think it is safe to say that the guy is himself Jon Stewart… clown nose on, of course.
According to the last presidential election, Only 46% of the country are stupid boorish racist fascists bent on evil and greed and the destruction of all that is good. So hooray for the majority!
Wow that was a great job there copying and pasting that quote from above, I've bet you've even got the keyboard shortcuts for those memorized! And who says conservatives can't learn anything new?
I've never heard of you, where do you do stand up?
What's brown, black and white and looks good on Jon Stewart? A rabid wolverine.
If that's not the pot calling the kettle black, I have no clue what is.
Show me in my post where I said anything about FNC.
2 can play your silly game PebbleBoy http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=138269 http://www.redstate.com/barrypopik/2010/10/29/msn... http://cnnlies.blogspot.com/
He's done some very funny pieces making fun of Obama, but that doesn't change the fact that he still mocks the right far more than the left.
Wait, you want to use a site that can only find a "lie" per week on average or less, as opposed to the daily nonsense that comes from the other networks? Sounds like Fox News is the most reliable news source, then.
No, but I did live under power lines.
If "conservatives" don't want Jon Stewart to make fun of them, maybe they should quit handing him so much free material.
So funny! So original! AND a GREAT arguement!
Stewart is funny. He is also a RABID leftist.
So in your world view this 46% is in fact boorish racist fascists bent on evil, greed and the destruction of all that is good? That's your view of this country and your fellow citizens?
You don't appear very smart when you think only one side of the aisle is being backed by corporations and swayed by paid lobbyists.
Ok, I don't really want this to happen to him, but it sure made me laugh! Thanks edog.
One doesn't have to be a comedian to recognize bad comedy when one sees it.
Jon Stewart = Rotten jaws. Anagrams never lie.
Yer a dolt. Stewart is as funny as a bloody haemorhoid.
Weak troll is weak.
*lol* The usual b*llsh*t from Lefties. Do try to be a little original or you won't last long here.
Like anyone cares what a Soros-funded Leftist propaganda site says.
Except that the "material" is only "funny" to liberals. Weird how that works, huh?
I was referring to Stewart as a comedian, I write, myself.
Thanks. But I don't need a survey to point out the obvious.
Jon Stewart is a turd repository. Or is that suppository?
He's not even funny. I guess libs will laugh at anything.
But some people are funnier after pot.
Ideological, partisan activist.? You mean ideological, partisan hack.
Anyone who talks about Jon Stewart & 'serious political debate' in the same breath are completely clueless.
Fast forward to 1:40 in this clip http://www.breitbart.tv/jon-stewart-apologizes-fo...
In his "apology" to Chris Wallace, Jon says "I apologize for my mistake…to not do so would be irresponsible and if I were to continue to make such mistakes…and misstatements…and not correct them…especially if each and every one of those misstatements happened to go in one…very particular direction…on the political spectrum…that would undermine the very integrity and credibility that I work so hard to pretend to care about."
So…there you have it.
His entire premise…his entire 'schtick'…his job…the job he gets paid to do at Comedy Central…is based on making people laugh and making his viewers THINK that he truly 'cares' about political direction…when in fact…in his own words…he is "pretending to care about".
Those are his words, not mine.
Watch the clip.
Liberals are paid to post here? Get real.
Quotes like " We will leave that to the unions; until blood is drawn and you will feel the wrath of the American people" are priceless. Just seeing how melodramatic and wingnutty some of you get is its own reward.
Not much different than a Koch Brothers funded Righty propaganda site.
Hey, thanks for shining the light on that. We just had absolutely no idea that Stewart was a comedian who will always go for the laugh.
conformers demand you to conform
At least conservatives are smart enough to know that not everyone agrees with their views. Liberals own so much of pop culture and the media, that its possible they don't even realize a good chunk (1/3) of the country doesn't agree with them. That's why they start with the assumption that EVERYTHING the right does is crazy, stupid, or evil.
Oooh. Ouch that stung…I guess…nameless Koch Brothers-funded sites are scary.
What the idiot trolls here and Stewart himself, fails to realize is that we don't care about the jokes he is making at the expense of the conservatives in this country–we know he hates us. It is the fact that he just lies about being a Leftist. It's like Bill Maher pretending to be a Libertarian when he is a clearly your run-of-the-mill statist–in love with big government.
Why do these guys feel they need to disavow their very clear political beliefs? Is it because they know how sophomoric these beliefs are on some level? Is it because they feel tainted by the knuckleheads who worship them?
Soros has given his minions their talking points memo, which includes the complete denial of being leftist. They are pushing the idea that liberalism is the norm and conservatism is extreme.
It is not any less true just because I used his words against him. All I did, using his words, is to point out that which everyone is guilty of at some point in their lives and that is projection. Ever since Obama became president, however, liberals have been particularly guilty of projection, especially regarding racism.
It's not bias. It's just that the right is 4 times more mockable than the left.
It's funny to anyone with an education.
So anyone who disagrees with liberals doesn't have an education?
I'm sure you'd like to believe that pathetic self-serving fantasy.
Tell it to Thomas Sowell.
Stewart KNOWS there is a bias! Stewart is a liberal…therefore, Stewart is a liar. Ask yourself, have you ever met or watched or listened to a liberal that did not purposefully lie to get what they wanted? Speaking for myself, the answer is no. And this includes the liberals in my family. Liberals lie…that's just the way it is. And much like middle eastern terrorists, they justify it by saying they are doing the "greater good" by lying. Accept it and move on.
Hear hear!
Are you saying that with the clown nose on or with the clown nose off?
All news media outlets bend the truth to suit their own agenda, It's how they get their ratings, But Fox is by far the most egregious. Everyone's a hipocrite. And all of this BS won't end until we become a true democracy, and end this outdated and abused system we have today.
I'm no leftie. In fact, i'm starting a new party right here right now, let's call it the "Common Sense" party, where we use logic and reason to solve our nations problems and quit letting Congress act like it's your average clicquey high school. Party systems only lead to bickering and infighting, and when one party is purposefully allowing inaction to damage the reputation of another, everyone ends off in a far worse place.
You're right, i'm being a bit too general. Almost everybody is racist to some extent. I believe a vast majority of people to be boorish. Evil is too relative a term to accurately define. As for greed and the destruction of all that is good, I'd just say that would probably be the wealthiest top 1% of our nation, as they are too greedy to allow the Bush tax cuts to expire, which alone would eliminate the deficit.
Got it: 1 error every 1-4 weeks is worse than more than one error per day.
Oh, and you want to throw out our current form of government (and probably the constitution with it) so that we can have mob rule.
Unoriginal commentator is…. I forget the rest.
If you believe that about the Bush tax cuts you are buying into some kind of Obama's "new math", but then we knew you weren't that smart to start with so it's really no surprise.
Technically it's called majority rule, where the people (not elected officials) vote. The way I see it, it's pretty hard for a corporation to convince an entire country to vote for any law that strips them of their rights or takes advantage of them in some way. I'm all for the Constitution by the way, it's just that some people use semantics to misuse it.
So you think it's ok for the largest corporations in the world to pay absolutely no taxes at all? Closing the loopholes set up by those tax cuts will most assuredly take a huge chunk out of the deficit. I don't see how you guys can't understand that the only way we can get out of debt like this is to raise taxes and cut spending. I for one, would more than happily pay a bit more in taxes if it means we citizens are taken care of.
Ok JimBob, I'm assuming from your name you are more the "Blue Collar Comedy" fan. What is funny to you? Also, use your spell check.
If that's your argument how do you explain the popularity of Tyler Perry and Carlos Mencia?
Well at least Democrats have the decency to not be glaringly obvious about it. I will refer to the recent labor disputes in Wisconsin for that point.
Unfortunately, the majority pay 0 taxes. Therefor, the majority have an economic incentive to see "the rich" pay higher taxes, to their own benefit. With majority rule, those who are generating the least gain the ability to take from those who are generating the most, via taxation. Since government never grows wealth, that means we would be discouraging the wealth producers from producing, and encouraging those who are least adept at producing wealth to be less productive.
Short-term self-interest would be very likely to result in long-term poverty for all. When there is no more wealth to give to the majority, will they restrain themselves from mob behavior? We've seen what happens when the free ride ends in Greece and Britain. France is a good model, as well. I have more faith in historical precedent than in my fellow man.
That is the point. He IS just a comedian. A comedian on a comedy show. A comedian on a comedy show on Comedy Central. People watch it to be entertained and laugh. A lot of comedy is saying something outrageous or unexpected. Sometimes the very act of crossing the line is in fact the reason a bit is funny. Comedians have been pushing boundaries since the days of Lenny Bruce and the world is better for it.
Nope I'm just a guy who's killing time at work by trying to convince people to be more logical.
Some people just have bad taste. That's the way of the world.
The majority pay zero taxes because they don't make enough money to be taxed. They live from paycheck to paycheck and whatever the government may support them with. If working conditions and wages were improved they might make enough to owe taxes one day. In the meantime, the wealthy also use whatever means (bush tax cut loopholes) possible to pay the least amount of taxes possible, which leaves the shrinking middle class left to be the only ones actually pulling their weight. Unless you are a millionaire, why defend what is going on?
See, that's what I love; makes me smile. Crazy statements that have nothing at all to do with the subject.
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