Jon Stewart, Torture Advocate John Yoo, and the American Media Today

Perusing through the daily blog posts at the Liberal “American Prospect,” one sees that they don’t get many comments, typically. Whether that is a good or bad thing, is not suggested here. But one very recent post that DID get a lot of commentary was on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show interview with former Bush Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo.

Several of the comments were interesting, to say the least. A few examples:

Sadly, this blog post says more about the American Prospect and Adam Serwer than Jon Stewart. Very disappointing. How about the Prospect doing an in-depth profile and interview with Yoo in your next issue, and doing a better “job” than Stewart could in 8 minutes on a comedy show?
Posted by: Kay Leigh Hagan January 12, 2010 4:26 PM

True that.   At the same time, the Daily Show reaches millions; the American Prospect reaches a small, very largely self selected group that on average is likely going to be highly skeptical of Yohn Yoo’s theories. Thus, instead, how about the American Prospect do an in depth profile interview as suggested in the comment above, and work on turning it into mainstream news?

I think that giving John Stewart a pass because he is “just a comedian” is a bit of an unfair double-standard. When he makes a good point, we don’t give him less credit because he is “just a comedian”. Take Glen Beck for example. He says the most insane things you can imagine, but then qualifies it by saying he’s just a clown, etc, and that you shouldn’t listen to him. At no point does he really expect anyone to not take him seriously. I think it is the same with John Stewart.
Posted by mike January 12, 2010 5:50 PM

Stewart is more than just a comedian. He covers timely news events, and news interviews, all while doing so with, humor, insight, and often additional knowledge.  On the other hand — and often underestimated by those who dismiss Beck as obviously “full of it” — Beck has one of the most popular radio talk shows in America; a news punditry show, with an occasionally funny weird twist, not comedy.  Beck also has a daily news punditry show on “Fox News,” a 24 hour, round the clock news channel – and the most watched cable news channel in America.  Stewart  has a daily comedy show on the 24 hour, round the clock comedy channel.

Stewart may or may not have done a good job going toe to toe with John Yoo on the Constitution.But it’s not like he wildly mislead viewers. He just failed to do a much better job asking, following up on, and getting answers to, tough questions, than most others in the media.  This next comment however, right or wrong, suggests he still did a better job than the general media.

Stewart did a much better job with Yoo than any other so called journalist. Let’s see Yoo on Face The Nation or The Situation room, compare and contrast.
Posted by: John D’oh January 12, 2010 3:38 PM

He asked more than Congress or the Obama Administration has asked.Stewart isn’t a lawyer. And a comedy show isn’t the kind of place where you can try to pin down a slippery and practiced opponent. That’s better done in a court of law.
Posted by: clbrune January 12, 2010 3:41 PM

I agree with most of the people here saying that Jon Stewart is a comedian and that it’s a failure of real news channels that we rely on him so much to get to the real answers. I disagree when the author says the Jon didn’t question Yoo when he said that the outlines of torture had never been addressed by the US – he tried to get Yoo to clarify that multiple times. Yoo did what a lot of politicians do which is broadly acknowledge the questions without really answering them. I’ve definitely see Jon be more combative in interviews however so I’ll give you that.
Posted by: Susan January 12, 2010 3:48 PM

Another echoed this a bit further:

Cripes, people! You can’t expect Stewart to be a one-person truth squad for the nation! He can’t do it alone! As long as network window dressing like the George Stephanopolis’s and the Chuck Todd’s of the world fail to do their job the media will continue to fail us all. We need gutty, intellecutally curious journalists to challenge this sort of thing. What we get is “Herb Tarlek” with a microphone.
Posted by: Mark B January 12, 2010 3:22 PM

A vibrant democracy can not rely upon a one person truth squad. It needs a robust Fourth Estate to serve as a mainstream, non polarizing, non insular, non self selecting, check upon misinformation, group-think, rhetoric run amuck, and government. But for the past ten years (perhaps even fifteen, ever since Glenn Beck’s “Fox” came on the scene), America has been seeing less and less of that, and more and more simple stenographic copying of what people in, or with, power (or microphones), are saying.

Using the specific media examples given in the last comment, here are some facts and context behind former Major Rudy Giuliani’s appearance as a terrorism expert last week with Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America, from some random, unknown, and likely audience self selecting blog.

Here is what you get from watching Stephanopoulos himself conducting that interview.[Also note, Giuliani spends most of the time, as if he is one of the writers for the hit Fox TV counter-terrorism series"24," talking about how 30 hours is nothing for an interrogation, and what one "typically gets" out of "30 hours." Perhap's its just me, but, depending upon what led up to it, I'm thinking I could get a lot of information out of Giuliani, or even a caught red handed terrorism suspect, in probably ten hours of total actual questioning.  But there is nothing from the interview to suggest that all questioning of Abdulmutallab has ceased. And if Giuliana has inside information that this is so, he does not share it.]

Here is what you learn about John McCain’s foreign policy expertise during the 2008 Presidential election, from that same random, unknown, blog. Here is what you get from listening to the media and NBC’s Chuck Todd on John McCain.

Jon Stewart, comedian; and in the form of comedy and satire, occasional savior of truth.

But while close, in some eyes, to a one man truth squad for the nation, no match for John Yoo: Apologist for and proponent of state sanctioned torture, and primover behind the theory of Executive Unilateral Discretion regardless of existing Statute or Bill or Rights, in the Executive’s unilateral view of “national security.”