"Generation Xers mourning Stewart’s departure ought to be thanking the man who made the awkward comedian’s long tenure of pulling faces while making snide remarks possible; President Bush.
George W. Bush made Jon Stewart. Even Stewart has admitted that his show came into its own when Bush did. A world in which a President Gore spent eight years sonorously lecturing Americans about his love for the trees is also a world in which Jon Stewart would be out there doing pizza commercials.
It was Bush’s victory that took a flailing cable show hosted by an irritating little standup comedian with more neurotic tics than a flea-bitten Woody Allen and turned him into the voice of liberalism. Stewart’s nervous smirk and his passive aggressive mockery became the zeitgeist of urban Democrats nervously responding to Bush’s popularity and the rise of American patriotism after September 11.
The Democratic Party was out of ideas. The politicians who would become some of Bush’s most fevered critics were still following the president’s cues. A newly serious America was confronting a world war.
Stewart’s disingenuousness, veering from ironic detachment to self-righteous hectoring, undermined real sincerity with fake sincerity. The Daily Show’s audience of hipster yuppies cheered their newfound faith in sincere cynicism while the calculated ironic distance of his comedy kept him safe from critics. Even while he attacked the media’s dishonesty, his own routine was the most dishonest of them all..."
Jon Liebowitz had nothing to do with giving us Zero. How can he influence anything when he has no ratings? Hell, last night he got a grand total of 600K viewers in the key demo while a dog eared, worn out rerun episode of the Family Guy got 1.1 million.
The only one to blame for us having Zero is a pathetic GOPe and George Bush himself.
Quote: Frank Cannon wrote in post #3Jon Liebowitz had nothing to do with giving us Zero. How can he influence anything when he has no ratings? Hell, last night he got a grand total of 600K viewers in the key demo while a dog eared, worn out rerun episode of the Family Guy got 1.1 million.
The only one to blame for us having Zero is a pathetic GOPe and George Bush himself.
IMHO it was a collaborative effort: the eGOP. the MSM, and a few others