Jon Stewart, Avatar of Progressive Culture : Dorothy Rabinowitz
http://www.wsj.com/articles/jon-stewart-avatar-of-progressive-culture-1438903270
There was never any mistaking the aura of confident superiority from the host of ‘The Daily Show.’
It comes as no surprise that the end of Jon Stewart’s reign at Comedy Central should occasion a flow of testimonials fit for a revered leader. All that’s missing are the floral tributes in the streets. Long before word of Mr. Stewart’s departure was in the air, the reverential status he enjoyed as combination show host, news commentator and disseminator of all the latest in received wisdom was clear to all. Some of this week’s testaments, recorded in a New York Times piece Wednesday, sum the tone up nicely.
Lena Dunham, the writer and creator of the series “Girls,” explains that Jon Stewart was “where I got my news. Watching Jon—an avowed defender of women’s rights, civil rights, all the democratic ideals I hold dear, really . . .” Watching had kept her amused, inspired and above all aware “in a time when picking up the newspaper was just not gonna happen.”
From Jon Stewart, his way of looking at things, his selection of facts, Ms. Dunham is telling us, she got her view of the world and what was happening in it without need of recourse to other sources. It is impossible to know what happens now to those, like Ms. Dunham, bereft of the monastically sheltered temple of instruction provided by Mr. Stewart and “The Daily Show.”
Ricky Gervais, the creator of “The Office,” testifies to Mr. Stewart’s larger powers. His audience is, he declares, “the sharpest, cleverest, most tuned in comedy audience of any show I’ve been on anywhere in the world, and that’s because of the culture Jon has nurtured.” There we have matters plainly put: Jon Stewart as the nurturer of a culture.
Just as the terrifying implication of this thought sinks in—a culture comprised of the audience for “The Daily Show”—Mr. Gervais elaborates. Sounding faintly like one of his own archetypal “Office” creations— Michael Scott, purveyor extraordinaire of philosophies for success—Mr. Gervais explains: “If you’re smart from the beginning, you get people who like smart stuff, and you can do even smarter stuff.”
Otherwise, there was never any mistaking the aura of confident superiority that emanated from the host of “The Daily Show,” a certitude that warmed the hearts of audiences grateful to be in on the smart stuff. His very way of exploding the f-word into any thought, or lack of one, at regular intervals must have seemed an integral part of the smartness and integrity of which Mr. Stewart’s devotees were so happy to be a part.
Here was a star who represented all right-minded values, all the tenets of progressive-left faith, but one who could, on occasion, appear endearingly skeptical of all sides. A comedian alert to the potential of the ludicrous, Mr. Stewart made a bit of news in June when he lashed out at the New York Times for a piece of journalism so strange, it was hard to believe it wasn’t a hoax. The hit piece on Florida Republican Marco Rubio was, of course, no hoax but a seriously proffered work of investigative journalism. The subject: Sen. and Mrs. Rubio’s total of 17 traffic violations since 1997. Of these 13 were committed by Mrs. Rubio, whereas Sen. Rubio had been guilty of four. The number of his minor infractions since 1997 added up, roughly, to one every four years. The prominent piece about this criminal record evoked howls from most of the sane world, including Mr. Stewart.
It was a reaction that got some notice because it stood out. Because most of Mr. Stewart’s eviscerations, most of the show’s objects of scorn, belong indisputably to the world far from the salons of the progressive left—targets drawn from the world of Republicans, from conservatives, from people who don’t view George W. Bush and team as criminal warmongers.
In the history of “The Daily Show,” there is no interview more fascinating than the 2010 one in which Mr. Stewart confronts guest John Yoo, the former deputy assistant attorney general in the Bush administration and legal adviser on interrogation techniques.
Mr. Stewart begins, characteristically cordial, confident of his position—which is mainly that the work defining legal interrogation techniques was itself a kind of immorality. He had not counted on his guest’s humor and poise, or the patience with which the imperturbable Mr. Yoo can explain, again and again, as though to an interested if slightly slow student, all the nuances of the issue. Mr. Stewart begins to look increasingly wan and disconcerted as it dawns on him that he’s lost any chance of prevailing. He doesn’t believe in demonizing the other side—it’s all too easy for people to do that these days, he tells his guest as the interview rolls to an end.
Since demonizing the other side has so long been a specialty of “The Daily Show,” this comment notwithstanding, it has come as no great surprise to see, in the final days of the show, the ratcheting up of precisely that demonization: of Republicans, of Congress itself, of all who oppose the nuclear deal with Iran. The concerns of the Obama White House, which so frequently coincide with those of Mr. Stewart, have never been more intense than they are now as congressional opposition to the deal remains firm, as polls show a majority of Americans of similar mind.
Mr. Stewart is on the case. Students getting all their news and views on world affairs from “The Daily Show” have by now seen the show’s special correspondent Hasan Minhaj’s April 7 riff about what Republicans in Congress would like American negotiators to do to their Iranian counterparts—namely, go in with guns blazing and blast them all to hell, which Mr. Minhaj acts out at stupefying length.
Still, this was nothing compared with Mr. Stewart’s screaming mockery directed at opponents of the deal like Lindsey Graham, depicted as a crazed primitive from the old South—and nothing to the scorn heaped on members of Congress, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, or any official of note who has raised reasons to worry over an Iran that will have the bomb in 10 or 15 years.
No one watching this July 22 episode, listening to Mr. Stewart’s smug dismissal of fears about Iran’s intentions as the product of malignant subverters of the Obama White House’s supreme diplomatic accomplishment—is likely to have found anything comic in it. For students long enrolled in the Jon Stewart school of political education, it would all seem entirely familiar.
Ms. Rabinowitz is a member of the Journal’s editorial board.
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