I have been watching the Daily Show since Craig Kilborn was the host. I was disappointed when he left and doubted that the new host, some guy named Jon Stewart, would be able to measure up. Well, I've long since left behind those misgivings and watch the show religiously - you know, candles, incense, prayerful attitude. I don't often disagree with Mr. Stewart, but part of his interview the other night with Arianna Huffington stuck in my craw. Follow me below for my transcription of the offending section and my criticism.
The transcription:
AH: So we really have a choice. You know, we can take all this legitimate anger at how we’re screwed up by Wall Street and politicians…
JS: Mmhmm.
AH: …and channel it into the tea party and demonizing each other, or we can take that….
JS (with pained expression): No, but that, that, but also that’s not fair to them. I mean, there are people within that movement that may have (unintelligible), but they’re also trying to come up with solutions within their or…. You may not agree with what they’re saying, but….
AH: Yeah, what I’m saying is that: or we can take that anger and rebuild our communities….
JS: But we should include every(unintelligible), tea party,...
AH: Absolutely…
JS: welcome, everybody, welcome, tea, coffee,…
AH: …tea party, come along Saturday, yeah, if you want to come on the bus, if the…
JS: any beverage, juice (laughter)
AH: if the tea party people want to come on the bus with us, you know, to usher them (?) for the rally,…
JS: ‘cause I think part of the issue is when you separate, oh, they’re tea party people, we’re Huffpo bus people, we’re this people, all that…can’t we all...get a…
AH: Get along?
JS: No, I know that can’t happen, but… (laughter) can’t we at least understand that we’re not enemies, we’re all working towards the same, uh, goal, I would think, it’s just that we may come at it from, from different things. The more we get entrenched in the ideology of it, the less we’ll be able to solve things, yes?
AH: I completely agree with that. That’s why rebuilding communities and helping each other is completely beyond ideology, it’s beyond left and right.
I am not unsympathetic to Jon’s impulse, but he’s wrong on a few points.
First, it is not Arianna who makes an invidious distinction by identifying tea partiers as angry and demonizing. The tea party people have deliberately sought to set themselves apart, have self-identified as angry (August, 2009, town hall meetings, anyone?), and have persistently ramped up the crazy to demonize Obama (Obama as Hitler, Obama as communist African witch doctor, Obama as anti-colonial Kenyan socialist Muslim). The way Stewart cut her off as much as suggested that it was Arianna who was taking an invidious position and unfairly characterizing an entire movement by identifying it with its most extreme elements. But the tea party comprises precisely the most extreme elements of the Republican Party. That’s how they distinguish themselves and set themselves apart from and, allegedly, against the Republican establishment.
He goes on to say that “we’re not enemies.” Really? Jon Stewart may feel no enmity for tea partiers, but I don’t think he can speak for them. If tea partiers do not regard most if not all Democrats, liberals, hippies, kossacks, and non-Fox-bots as their enemies, they’ve got a funny way of showing it: bringing pistols and semi-automatic weapons to speeches, townhall meetings, and rallies; threatening Second Amendment solutions; saying they came unarmed…this time; invoking probably the only Jefferson quote they know, the one about the blood of patriots. We may not choose to see them as our enemies, but that does not mean that they don’t see us as theirs.
Thirdly, “we’re all working towards the same goal”? Really? I don’t think so. I think dengre’s recommended diary yesterday (“Gimme that old time tactic…”) addresses this pretty well. No, their goals are not the same as mine. I do not seek to destroy the government so that the market can be free at last, free at last. I do not chuckle assent when Reagan’s famous nine most terrifying words are repeated. I am not at all convinced that most tea partiers would agree with me that the government has an important role to fill in ensuring a measure of security and equality for all its citizens and that democratic government is an important tool for curbing the excesses of private power and enabling us to consciously shape the kind of society in which we want to live. I do not wish to repeal HCR or financial reform. I do not wish to privatize Social Security, the VA, Medicare, public schools, the EPA, the MSA, or OSHA. On the contrary, I want to make all those programs stronger and more effective, and I believe that anyone who says, “Yes, I agree with you, but we will make them stronger and more effective by privatizing them,” is being disingenuous at best. Privatization in such cases is a stalking horse for destruction.
And "solve things"? Is that really what the tea partiers want to do? The effect of the tea party has been to push the Republican Party further to the right and to treat as treason any Republican collaboration with Democratic colleagues to actually "solve things." I am not at all convinced that tea partiers want to "solve things." Tea party king Jim deMint is threatening to block everything of which he does not approve. That does not evince a desire to "solve things." Dismantle things, yes. Solve them? I'm not sure that's the right verb.
I do not say to Jon Stewart, “Good day, sir!” But I do take issue with his implication in interrupting Arianna last night to defend the tea partiers, and I do disagree with a few of his explicit points.
Now, I’ve got to go watch The Daily Show and get ready for bed.