I'm a big Jon Stewart fan. We're living in crazy times and the Daily Show does a pretty good job of exposing stuff and making you laugh about it. Jon was on Larry King Live the other day. My cable went out so my recording of the show didn't work, but I did just find the transcript. Transcripts rock. I recommend reading the whole transcript cause it's entertaining. Print it out and leave it in the bathroom as reading material. It shouldn't take you more than 20 minutes to read it. Even tho he's a comedian, he's pretty smart and make some really good points. Go read it. You'll thank me for it.
If you aren't going to read the whole thing, at least read some of my selected quotes:
Talking about a Vice President pick for Kerry:
STEWART: It doesn't matter.
KING: What do you mean it doesn't matter?
STEWART: It doesn't matter. Would you vote for vice president.
KING: Should I put...
STEWART: George Bush's father won with Dan Quayle. Tell me that's not an albatross. Was he trying to just like -- you know what I almost think that was, picking Dan Quayle? That was taunting the Democrats, that was saying, I can beat you with this knucklehead. I can beat you with this guy on my back.
I like Edwards.
KING: Dynamic, vital, right? Good campaigner.
STEWART: I said I like. You apparently like-like. You're in love with him.
KING: No, stop it!
STEWART: The thing about Edwards is, the only thing I worry about for Edwards is, he seems untainted by the political process and I believe it may crush his spirit. And that's the only thing they worry about for him.
KING: He's untainted.
STEWART: Yes. I hate to see a boy like that's heart crushed when he gets to be the vice president and he realizes he has to tell Senators to f-off. That is actually a vice presidential duty within the constitution. State funerals.
KING: Break a tie in the Senate.
STEWART: Break a tie in the Senate. And any Senator that you don't like you have to throw him the f-bomb.
KING: What happened to Howard Dean?
STEWART: Oh, he went nutty. He lost it.
KING: That night he just lost it?
STEWART: No. You know, the guy -- he was never going to get to be nominated as president and that one speech was, if not an aberration, at least it was just an example of the lack of discipline.
See, it's very clear with these guys. And you see it with Cheney when he gets caught telling the f-bomb. Their public persona and their private persona. All of this should have been put to rest in terms of the insanity of the leaders when we listened to Nixon's tapes. Do you understand what I'm saying?
Nixon would sit in a room with Kissinger and go, "those Jews." And Kissinger was just sitting there, like, "well sir, there's something I need to tell you." You know what I mean?
When you get a glimpse behind the facade that they put up, they're completely different people and we should stop pretending that they're not and they should have to stop pretending that they are these paragons of virtue and beacons of decency, and somehow be yourself. Cheney honestly is the personification of a grumble. Like when he walks around -- Wilfred Brimley is not that upset at the world. He just literally walks around, "there are things going on. I used to be able to eat cheese burgers and bacon, now I can't have anything else and it's crazy -- f-off!" He's, like, you know?
KING: So are you saying that all politicians hide themselves from us, their real selves? Is that what you're saying?
STEWART: Please tell me you didn't just ask me that.
You are part and part, you know that.
KING: But wait a minute, are saying, therefore, it's impossible for a politician to be great?
STEWART: That is correct. That is correct. Because they are -- you know what it is? They should come out of the closet. It's like gay people. When gay people feel like they have to be closeted and they come out and a huge burden is lifted off their shoulders. Politicians should come out of the closet.
KING: Be honest.
STEWART: I've got news for you, I'm staying married to her just so you won't think I'm a bad man! But, man, I'm the vice president and I'm the president and I want to dance and have parties. Just come out, just unburden yourself and the whole country will be so much less pathological.
Talking about the nature of debate in our country today:
KING: Are we an angrier country?
STEWART: I think that politically we are, but I think in the country, we're not. I think the country is probably more moderate and reasonable in general than the atmosphere has become. There's a conflict economy.
You said it best and it was something just in the break that I think sums up sort of where we've gone with our debate culture which is someone here was saying they had a couple of people talking about "Fahrenheit 9/11" and you said oh, did both sides debate it. And that's what we take for granted.
KING: Did both sides see it?
STEWART: Right. Do both sides see it. And that's what we've done is basically -- conversation in this country, debate in this country is from the right and the left and there's ten different kinds of coke. You're telling me the only two opinions we've got is right and left? Even a graph has a Y axis.
I don't understand how we ended up in this place where it's considered decent news analysis to do an event and then say from the right guy and from the left that guy. Thanks. When did the journalists become a referee? And why doesn't that person have the ability to say, stop lying about that, you know, police it. Be our -- help us!
KING: Also the radio talk shows they're very...
STEWART: Help us! Help us!
War teaches geography!
CALLER: ...What I'd like to say is actually a question, do you think we should have ever went into Iraq?
STEWART: We were talking about that earlier. You know, it's an interesting question, because I'm not a pacifist in any stretch of the imagination. As a matter of fact, I like bombing countries.
KING: You do?
STEWART: Well, just purely for the knowledge of geography. It's just fascinating to learn about these countries.
KING: And you do learn a lot more when you bomb them.
STEWART: Absolutely. I didn't know Kabul was the capital of Afghanistan until we started bombing it. And I thought to myself what a great fact. If we would haven't gone to war there, I certainly wouldn't have known that. And I think, for the kids today, it's important for them to learn geography. And I think, in an as violent a way as possible.
But I very much was for the war in Afghanistan and I thought I was excited about that and there was a moment in time where we were so rallied around the president and he had such an opportunity for greatness, and unfortunately his politics became a laboratory for an ideology that they're espousing and I think he lost people in that respect.
On Fahrenheit 9/11:
STEWART: ...I'm always happy when people bring their point of view out and try to get it across. I don't agree with everything in it and it's a great piece of editorial filmmaking.
KING: He's good at what he does.
STEWART: He's very good at what he does. And it's not for everybody, but I think I very much root for, especially now in the sort of atmosphere of -- there's sort of this weird hierarchy of retorts that the people in power have gone to. One was they just tell you, there's weapons of mass destruction there and then we find out that they're not so they switch the rationale which is, we're going to liberate the people. When you argue that, the next thing is we're in a war. People really shouldn't talk a lot when they're in a war.
So anybody that is just pushing the debate out into the fore I'm applauding of that.
On God:
STEWART: Very angry. Loves the Americans. Very big. Wants us to have bigger cars. Wants us to have bigger cars and as a little goof on us has only made a finite supply of oil. It's very -- he's very funny. He's a trickster. Here's another little joke he did. He promised three different religions they were the chosen ones, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and then, funny, follow me, he put their holiest sites all in the same place. And then he backed away and he just wants to see who wants it more. That's what this is about. This is God going, hey, show me something, people.
On Gay Marriage (he said something similar on his show and it's my favorite summary of the issue):
STEWART: Same-sex marriage is a very difficult situation and I was freaked out by it too. You know that.
KING: Why?
STEWART: Well, until I found out that it wasn't mandatory, because I love my wife and I'd hate to have to leave her for a dude. So I didn't want that.
KING: You thought it was mandatory.
STEWART: You never know. I don't know what -- they said the gay marriage and people got upset, so I figured, well clearly this means that there's a law being passed that we all now have to be gay.
KING: Oh, I see.
STEWART: Once it was explained to me that only gay people, I seem much more comfortable with it. It doesn't seem like such a big deal anymore.
KING: You think it will be [a campaign] issue?
STEWART: Oh, I think, they'll try to make it an issue. It's one of those wonderful red herrings that people throw into elections like as though that will in any way be crushing the culture. It's like the 10 Commandments Issue. That's another one that's culturally divisive and societally meaningless. Putting the 10 commandments in the school and that way kids won't shoot each other, because they'll come with an AK-47 and go, thou shall not kill. You know, I really have got to look at this thing.
On the Bush Administration and the Torture scandal:
STEWART: ...So [Vice President Dick Cheney is] on [Neil Cavuto's show] and he's talking about how he's not really apologetic about ...[saying the f-bomb in the Senate]. What are we talking about? The torture.
KING: Torture, but you switched to Neil Cavuto['s interview with the Vice President].
STEWART: He was very upset, because someone impugned his integrity and they love to throw that bravado up when you impugn your integrity, but there's a great deal of evidence that we need to examine a little bit further that maybe -- there's this sense of how dare you question them. And that is the thing that I almost find more appalling than the decisions that they make. Because I can accept incompetence, but I cannot accept self-righteous incompetence. That's the difficulty.
On news reporters...
STEWART: I believe -- I believe what's happened is they've all become part of the same organism and no longer see themselves as an another. And by no longer being an other you have a stake, a sort of in the symbiosis of it and I think that's where the difficulty came. The idea, that they fear loss of access or promotion. Journalist have become stars. And your stardom is about who you can get, and by getting the right person you allow yourself to keep advancing and therefore, you can never -- then the power -- the paradigm has switched.
TV was better than the politicians in 1960. When it first came out and the politicians didn't know how to manipulate it. It was the Nixon-Kennedy debate. And Nixon went, I look great, what do you mean? I'm a little sweaty and pasty, but what's that going to matter?
And then politicians learned it how to manipulate the medium and manipulate new cycle and TV has never caught up, but they don't want to because they have no jeopardy. They're working for themselves instead of working for us anymore. I don't mean that in a bad way.