Matt Yglesias has an interesting observation regarding Jon Stewart’s takedown of CNBC:
Comedy Central vs CNBC nicely captures the cultural battle inside the American elite between “creative class” types and the business manager types. Both sides think the other side is composed of idiots, but their side is mistaken.
[digg-reddit-me]Yet again, Jon Stewart asks the questions no one else does and confronts another architect of the War in Iraq, the noted British liberal and former prime minister, Tony Blair.
Tony Blair: None of this is easy…
Jon Stewart: Look I know, and I do appreciate even having the conversation. No one believes they took the decisions lightly. The only point for me is: nineteen people flew into the towers; it seems hard for me to imagine that we could go to war enough to make the world safe enough that nineteen people wouldn’t want to do harm to us. So it seems we need to re-think a strategy that is less military-based and more [unintelligible].
This exchange comes towards the end of the interview with Blair, which overall, I don’t think was not one of Stewart’s best.
But the catharsis that comes when Jon Stewart confronts these powerful men and speaks common sense to these once formidable powers – it’s hard to describe. Somehow, it is as if he is doing more than anyone to hold the men and women who made the disastrous decisions that led to war in some way accountable.
Part 1 2 of interview with Blair
Part 2 1 of interview with Blair
As I wrote about Stewart confronting Douglas Feith earlier this year:
I’m not sure if it should be so cathartic to see one of the planners of this misbegotten gamble scolded by a comedian. But it was.
[digg-reddit-me]Jon Stewart backs the New Yorker and their cover 100% – showing more guts and – that highly valued quality that I’ve been harping on lately – perspective than most journalists or other opinionators. But that apparently is what Jon Stewart is here for.
Jon Stewart issues what Obama’s response should have been:
Barack Obama is in no way upset by this cartoon that depicts him as a Muslim extremist. Because you know who gets upset about cartoons? Muslim extremists, of which Barack Obama is not. It’s just a f****ng cartoon