Word: stewart
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...friends are heroic or delusional, they aren't the only ones. Last night The Daily Show played a news clip of a talking head discussing John McCain's medical records and, noting that he seemed in good health, proclaimed that "71 is the new 30." Back to Jon Stewart, who added, "and Dead...
...buddy wrote a report to the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the Trade Center site, insisting on the need for more security in the parking garage. Their recommendations, which would have been expensive, were ignored, according to James B. Stewart's biography of Rescorla, Heart of a Soldier. (The Port Authority did not respond to my requests for comment...
Similarly, Jon Stewart rolls out a daily parade of video clips and responds to them, not with gag lines, but with an arched eyebrow, an expression of mock befuddlement, or mock-angry outburst dripping with sarcasm. Colbert's nightly impersonation of a pompous rightwing pundit, too, is one long wink to the audience - we're all hip to the put-on. David Letterman's Great Moments in Presidential Speeches - maybe the quintessential political satire of the Bush era - don't even need any reaction from the host; the absurdity is there...
Both of them, comedians and candidates, are thrown off their game in these encounters. Ironists like Stewart and Colbert have to do an awkward dance between sobriety and sarcasm when the real goods walk into the studio. Interviewing Obama just before the Pennsylvania primary, Stewart played it straight, before a closing zinger - demanding to know, on behalf of the American people, "Will you pull a bait and switch, sir, and enslave the white race?" Obama's ear-to-ear grin was maybe his least sincere moment of the campaign...
...anything a candidate says seriously when it can be rendered inoperative two nights later with a Letterman Top 10 list. When she was caught making up a story about sniper fire in Bosnia, Clinton's apology was so casually dismissive you might have thought it was just another Jon Stewart bit. And it's probably just a matter of time, once the Rev. Wright resurfaces as an issue in the general election, before Barack Obama really is asked (Stephanopoulos, want to take this one?) whether he intends to enslave the white race...