Monday, October 18, 2004

blinded by the right? blinded by the site(meter)?

Not that Ann is getting Really Out There in her unrelenting quest to maintain the fickle affections of the InstaPundit faithful, but now she equates Jon-Stewart-being-serious to Alanis Morissette. Despite his obvious intellect and informedness, Stewart is supposed to know that his place is as just a comedian, and serious commentary about the issues of the day is to be left to Tucker Carlson, Paul Begala, and us professors-cum-bloggers. Who does Jon Stewart think he is, using an appearance on CNN to be anything other than Tucker Carlson's monkey?

Anyway, Ann seems all excited about how Matt Drudge (Matt Drudge, Ann?) is reporting that Stewart lost viewers between August and September, as she takes this as evidence that--despite various other indicators of Stewart's continued A-list-ascendance--he's lately been turning off more viewers than just her.

Here's a trivia question: When did the supposedly-wiltingly-popular Daily Show with Jon Stewart record its biggest audience ever? Answer: Right here in October, following one of the presidential debates. (Not that you'd ever get a skewed view of reality from relying on Matt Drudge as a primary news source.)

Ann, you used to write stuff I disagreed with but that I read because it was careful rumination on issues of the day. I know you've got way more readers now than you did back then, but please-please don't let yourself turn into--to borrow the phrase that Tucker Carlson used with Jon Stewart in their recent exchange--another InstaPunditButtBoy. Halloween is scary enough without you using the season to continue a costume change into Ann Coulter Althouse.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Stewart may have a political agenda, but even those on the right have to admit that their candidate is significantly easier to ridicule than the ever-serious Kerry. If they'd only quit picking cowboys and smirkers to run for office, maybe late night comedians could give more equal time to the "other side." It seems that Clinton (annoyingly, from my perspective) got his share of punches. Kerry would be tougher. But there is the other issue of what balance MUST we expect from people like Stewart. My answer: none.

Anonymous said...

There is a terrible double standard in the view espoused by Althouse and Tucker Carlson. First they critisize Stewart because he fails to poke fun at Kerry & Bush equally and ask the "tough questions," suggesting that his work plays an important role (a role akin to Carlson's) in the persuasion machine. Then they turn around and critisize Stewart for speaking seriously about the impact that the "dishonest arguments" made by pundits who claim to be journalists, claiming that real discourse is their territory, not his.

Anonymous said...

don't you have a trailer toilet to clean or something, jeremy ;?
-- jon

Anonymous said...

I googled Althouse a long time ago and she was just as conservative then as she is now. The difference being she was just pretending to be moderate/undecided in the early days of her blog. She was violently outed as a conservative and removed the comments from her site. Too bad. The guessing game was fun. Let's hope she doesn't turn into the new Coulter.