False Equivelency Rules the Air

[SemiCharmedQuark]

Yesterday Colbert said the birthers were motivated by racism.

Today the Daily Show reports it is just opportunism and that Obama is doing the same thing by scaring seniors about Ryans medicare proposal. Also made a joke about Obama as Urkel causing 10% unemployment.

Yes, I know, TDS is a comedy show, but I'm still pretty disgusted.

[PoliticalTiger]

(04-29-2011 12:58 AM)SemiCharmedQuark Wrote:  Yesterday Colbert said the birthers were motivated by racism.

Today the Daily Show reports it is just opportunism and that Obama is doing the same thing by scaring seniors about Ryans medicare proposal. Also made a joke about Obama as Urkel causing 10% unemployment.

Yes, I know, TDS is a comedy show, but I'm still pretty disgusted.

I've pretty much given up on Jon Stewart and TDS. I think Jon Stewart has let his ego get the better of him and two things a rich white man like Jon Stewart will never have to worry about is racism or Medicare!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

(04-29-2011 01:16 AM)PoliticalTiger Wrote:  

(04-29-2011 12:58 AM)SemiCharmedQuark Wrote:  Yesterday Colbert said the birthers were motivated by racism.

Today the Daily Show reports it is just opportunism and that Obama is doing the same thing by scaring seniors about Ryans medicare proposal. Also made a joke about Obama as Urkel causing 10% unemployment.

Yes, I know, TDS is a comedy show, but I'm still pretty disgusted.

I've pretty much given up on Jon Stewart and TDS. I think Jon Stewart has let his ego get the better of him and two things a rich white man like Jon Stewart will never have to worry about is racism or Medicare!

This was actually Larry Wilmore

[nofurylike]

i never liked him from the beginning. then i started to have hope for him, with the shrub stuff. now i find it was all just comedy fodder then, just waiting for the next in line.


greed n ego'll do it every time.

[kahuna]

(04-29-2011 01:52 AM)nofurylike Wrote:  i never liked him from the beginning. then i started to have hope for him, with the shrub stuff. now i find it was all just comedy fodder then, just waiting for the next in line.


greed n ego'll do it every time.

Ditto. I've never liked Stewart either. I thought his going on Crossfire and calling them out ON THEIR OWN SHOW, was incredibly pompous, rude and pretentious. I never cared for Stewart from that point.

At least on Crossfire, both sides were heard. I didn't have a problem with the show. I liked it and was sad when it was cancelled.

[CTLawGuy]

Stewart's job is the same as any other media person's: to glue as many eyes to the screen as possible. A little inaccuracy in the service of that goal, is ok to these people.

[Julie]

To be honest Jon is somewhat getting on my nerves with this fair and balanced bullshit. Colbert is proving to be the better of the two on several levels IMO.

Julie

[Velleity]

Jon Stewart is not our problem. Our problem is that the crazies on the right are far more effective at moving the markers to the right than the leftist crazies, who aren't effective at much of anything.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

(04-29-2011 06:32 AM)Velleity Wrote:  Jon Stewart is not our problem. Our problem is that the crazies on the right are far more effective at moving the markers to the right than the leftist crazies, who aren't effective at much of anything.

No, I don't think a show on Comedy Central is a problem. I do however think comparing scaring old people by saying that the president is an illegal black Kenyan is to scaring old people by telling them that seniors in the future will face a 6000 dollar deficit in medical coverage is odious. One is a lie and one is the absolute truth.

I don't think my neighbor's idiotic Republican rantings are of any consequence either, but I do get annoyed by them. Likewise, I am annoyed that TDS has come to believe it must be in the middle at all times, regardless of the truth.

[Cha]

(04-29-2011 06:52 AM)SemiCharmedQuark Wrote:  

(04-29-2011 06:32 AM)Velleity Wrote:  Jon Stewart is not our problem. Our problem is that the crazies on the right are far more effective at moving the markers to the right than the leftist crazies, who aren't effective at much of anything.

No, I don't think a show on Comedy Central is a problem. I do however think comparing scaring old people by saying that the president is an illegal black Kenyan is to scaring old people by telling them that seniors in the future will face a 6000 dollar deficit in medical coverage is odious. One is a lie and one is the absolute truth.

I don't think my neighbor's idiotic Republican rantings are of any consequence either, but I do get annoyed by them. Likewise, I am annoyed that TDS has come to believe it must be in the middle at all times, regardless of the truth.

Exactly! I don't like the fucking framing..it's damn lie. Why is pointing out facts "scaring" people?

I always liked Jon's show during the bush years..all they had to do was repeat what was said and they had a show..now it seems like at times they have to make up shit.

[There Is No Spoon]

He had a hilarious show the other day about how idiotic it is to look at the primary numbers this early in the game. Clinton was less than 1% this early on in the primary polling.

BTW, we also add to the problem by pulling out 2 - 4 minutes of what he says every week and making it sound like that's all he's said - that's all he's about. That's just not true - pulling out just the part we disagree with and implying that's all there is is another form of bad reporting.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

(04-29-2011 07:06 AM)There Is No Spoon Wrote:  He had a hilarious show the other day about how idiotic it is to look at the primary numbers this early in the game. Clinton was less than 1% this early on in the primary polling.

BTW, we also add to the problem by pulling out 2 - 4 minutes of what he says every week and making it sound like that's all he's said - that's all he's about. That's just not true - pulling out just the part we disagree with and implying that's all there is is another form of bad reporting.

Which is why I didn't say "I HATE JON STEWART!!!!!!11" or "I HATE LARRY WILMORE' But I *do* hate the absolutely false idea that telling the truth about Paul Ryan's medicare plan is in any way shape or form akin to Birtherism. And he *does* do this a lot: false equivocation to put himself in the middle. He had a whole rally around it.

[There Is No Spoon]

(04-29-2011 07:27 AM)SemiCharmedQuark Wrote:  

(04-29-2011 07:06 AM)There Is No Spoon Wrote:  He had a hilarious show the other day about how idiotic it is to look at the primary numbers this early in the game. Clinton was less than 1% this early on in the primary polling.

BTW, we also add to the problem by pulling out 2 - 4 minutes of what he says every week and making it sound like that's all he's said - that's all he's about. That's just not true - pulling out just the part we disagree with and implying that's all there is is another form of bad reporting.

Which is why I didn't say "I HATE JON STEWART!!!!!!11" or "I HATE LARRY WILMORE' But I *do* hate the absolutely false idea that telling the truth about Paul Ryan's medicare plan is in any way shape or form akin to Birtherism. And he *does* do this a lot: false equivocation to put himself in the middle. He had a whole rally around it.

I agree - I despise when he plays that "false equivalency" game - it's almost as if he feels like he needs to preserve some of his audience on the right

Oh, and I wasn't specifically calling you out for "bad reporting" - it was more of a general statement whereas this happens all the time on both sides of the aisle. I apologize for making it seem like I was calling out your post more than any other. It's just something I think we should keep in mind when we criticize those who occasionally throw the "other side" a bone. Not all of his criticism of the right is fair either, so - you know what I mean...

[RoyGBiv]

(04-29-2011 08:39 AM)There Is No Spoon Wrote:  I agree - I despise when he plays that "false equivalency" game - it's almost as if he feels like he needs to preserve some of his audience on the right

If you go back and watch him from before he was on Comedy Central and really pay attention to it, this is his act. Always has been. He's the "sane man in the room" who looks around and decides everyone else is crazy. It's a standard comedy trope, and he does it rather well.

But, It's one of the reasons I don't watch him much. I think he's funny in the clips I see occasionally, but the act gets old when it doesn't change. I couldn't even watch Laurel & Hardy five days a week for ten years, and I LOVE Laurel & Hardy.

He's a good satirist when he's not doing his act, but he's usually doing his act.

[There Is No Spoon]

(04-29-2011 08:49 AM)RoyGBiv Wrote:  

(04-29-2011 08:39 AM)There Is No Spoon Wrote:  I agree - I despise when he plays that "false equivalency" game - it's almost as if he feels like he needs to preserve some of his audience on the right

If you go back and watch him from before he was on Comedy Central and really pay attention to it, this is his act. Always has been. He's the "sane man in the room" who looks around and decides everyone else is crazy. It's a standard comedy trope, and he does it rather well.

But, It's one of the reasons I don't watch him much. I think he's funny in the clips I see occasionally, but the act gets old when it doesn't change. I couldn't even watch Laurel & Hardy five days a week for ten years, and I LOVE Laurel & Hardy.

He's a good satirist when he's not doing his act, but he's usually doing his act.

Yes, and there's that - and I do get it. Colbert does something similar using a different method that's much more obvious. I'm somewhere in the ambivalent region on TDS at this time. I don't watch it as much as I used to; but it's not that his act has changed, it's that his material has changed now that Obama is President. Call me a partisan if you wish - but I really don't find his act as funny whereas we already have the Professional Left doing his act and thinking they're being intelligent critics. The right doesn't have that so when Bush was President, it was the only place to see good political satire. Now it's just a boring repetition of the idiocy put forth daily by the neanderthals of the Professional Left.

[Cha]

(04-29-2011 07:27 AM)SemiCharmedQuark Wrote:  

(04-29-2011 07:06 AM)There Is No Spoon Wrote:  He had a hilarious show the other day about how idiotic it is to look at the primary numbers this early in the game. Clinton was less than 1% this early on in the primary polling.

BTW, we also add to the problem by pulling out 2 - 4 minutes of what he says every week and making it sound like that's all he's said - that's all he's about. That's just not true - pulling out just the part we disagree with and implying that's all there is is another form of bad reporting.

Which is why I didn't say "I HATE JON STEWART!!!!!!11" or "I HATE LARRY WILMORE' But I *do* hate the absolutely false idea that telling the truth about Paul Ryan's medicare plan is in any way shape or form akin to Birtherism. And he *does* do this a lot: false equivocation to put himself in the middle. He had a whole rally around it.

Yeah, that may be a small part but it's a huge stupid lie.

[RoyGBiv]

Having just emerged from a discussion elsewhere on this topic and having reviewed this entire thread again, I'm just going to say this and then bow out of this discussion.

We sometimes get worked up about the wrong things and the wrong people. The people who watch Stewart are the choir. He didn't make them. He panders to them, just like every other entertainer out there, including the ones you may like. It's kinda their job.

And it's fine to criticize him for it. I'm not suggesting otherwise. But sometimes the rhetoric I see just goes off the charts.