Jon Stewart
I have no real opinion on Jon Stewart other than that I think he’s occasionally funny but more often than not kind of tiresome. This is in large part because I’m a man of the right and feel as though Stewart rose to prominence by being a one-trick pony: “Bush is stupid, Cheney is evil, and the Republicans are racists: Here’s a clever quip that shows one of those facts to be true.” I can see how that would appeal to a certain percentage of people. It just doesn’t do anything for me.
The way people react to him often cracks me up, however. For example, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry wrote a nice little post about the nature of commentary on the Internet and the importance of patriotism that was bound to kick up all manners of controversy because a.) the idea of defending one’s country is anathema to certain people and b.) he dared to defend Jonah Goldberg, a/k/a history’s greatest monster. He compounded his problem by daring to compare Jonah Goldberg to Jon Stewart in the comments, which prompted this reply:
Jonah Goldberg and Jon Stewart couldn’t be more un-alike.
Stewart is funny, smart, witty, charming, and self-deprecating.
As PEG mocks a little later, “He also poops unicorns and spits rainbows.” I mean, c’mon. Can’t we all agree that the Jon Stewart worship is just a bit much. I get that he’s the patron saint of 20-something progressives, but it’s all quite silly. It made me think of something from Chuck Klosterman’s (excellent) new collection of essays, in which Mr. Klosterman questions why Americans laugh so much:
In New York, you get used to people pretending to laugh. … Watch The Daily Show in an apartment full of young progressives and you’ll hear them consciously (and unconvincingly) over-laugh at every joke that’s delivered, mostly to assure everyone else that they’re appropriately informed and predictably leftist.
This is funny because it is true. Watching liberals watch The Daily Show used to be far more entertaining than watching The Daily Show itself. I wonder if that’s still true in the age of Obama…