Saturday, January 19, 2008

Jon Stewart, in bad faith,

does what it takes to make conservatives look bad. In Jonah Goldberg's case, that meant extending a planned 6 minute interview to 18 minutes, then cutting it down to 6 1/2 minutes which made Jonah Goldberg look like a "wingnut", aka a right wing nut.

Stewart, before the edited segment aired, told the audience they had cut 18 minutes down to 6 1/2, and apologized for it looking "choppy as hell". Stewart then called Goldberg the next day to apologize. Goldberg said he told Stewart he liked Stewart personally, and he took Stewart at his word that his intentions were good, yet, Goldberg asserted: objectively, he had gotten screwed by the extended interview + editing process.

Jonah Goldberg is a pundit who understands the ins and outs of liberalism and conservatism extremely well. He is someone who will not allow himself to be bullied by interlocutors. And he is clued in to the latest happenings in politics and culture. All this meant Stewart was forced to go 18 minutes to make Jonah Goldberg look like a wingnut. This Stewart did. Jon Stewart is a trooper.

from an interview the following day:
Jonah Goldberg:
Jon Stewart has a gift for trying to make conservatives look stupid, and doing these sort of debating tactics kind of interview questions, and I wasn't standing for it, and I kept pushing back, and so, every time I'd push back it seemed to annoy him even more, and finally he just kept saying things like "I don't even understand what you're saying", which I don't think is true... I think he just couldn't get around the argument I was making, and it just kept making him madder and madder and madder, until it just got out of hand, and that's why we went for 18 minutes for a 6 minute interview.
Andrew Wilkow:
It seems to be the nouveau tactic for left wing pundits and op ed writers to use sarcasm as a stand in for actual debate. Jon Stewart is somebody that wants to be taken seriously when it's convenient, but... when somebody is winning the debate, all of a sudden he's back to being a comedian, and he's sort of like when a wrestler grabs the rope.
Jonah:
I think thats right. It should tell us something that the most effective spokesmen of liberalism in the last 10 years have basically been actors and comedians who get to have it both ways. When they get push back... all of a sudden they say "Well you're the serious writer, I'm just a comedian." I mean, that's been Al Franken's schtick for years.... Jeanine Garafalo did it. Michael Moore. Basically Jon Stewart.
[...]
I don't mind using sarcasm... but there's gotta be something to it more than merely sarcasm. You've gotta make an argument. You've gotta marshall evidence and facts. And that is not something you hear members of the other side do in these kinds of things - even though they call themselves members of the "reality based community" and all this stuff.
Hot Air:
Liberal Fascism is of course the title of Jonah’s book. Explaining the nuance of that title’s meaning to Jon Stewart is the Mother of All Uphill Tasks.
The 6 1/2 minutes, if you want to see it. Goldberg looks like a twit. He is not.

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