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Chris Wallace schools Jon Stewart.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  June 19th, 2011 at 07:19 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

You know, I think that I want Chris Wallace to be in charge of the 2012 debates. He deserves a reward for giving Jon Stewart the business in this one:

The fun really starts at about 5 minutes in: Stewart tried what Ace calls the “Clown Nose On / Clown Nose Off” (after stating, more or less, that conservatives are incapable of understanding liberals’ motivations) and Chris Wallace demonstrated that he was expecting precisely that answer. Because, really, nobody is as smart as they think that they are. As Jon Stewart demonstrates, over and over and over again; his repeated insisting that he wasn’t being ruled by his biases kind of lost power with every counter-example that Wallace put up on the screen. But then, it’s rare on television that people are actually grilled on things.


Watch the whole thing; it’s fifteen minutes of pure political entertainment, and Stewart probably should have quit about eight minutes in. Mostly because Wallace maneuvered him into a position at the end where Stewart himself had to admit that conservatives are routinely attacked – INCLUDING BY HIM – for a variety of things that we, in point of fact, are not actually guilty of. Which would have been… nice… of him to admit, except that nowhere did Stewart actually promise to reform his ways. As Wallace demonstrated at the very end, by cheekily accepting an apology that Stewart did not actually offer. Which is illustrative of Stewart’s pseudo-detached style in general; only, it’s a lot uglier without the laugh track.

So, let Wallace be in charge of the debates; I’d be interested to see what he’d do with them.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: “You.. ah, planning a remake of Amos & Andy?” – In response to Jon Stewart’s imitation of Herman Cain. Jon visibly did not like being treated like a conservative who did the same thing would have been treated; and his response – whether Wallace would have asked the same question about Stewart’s New York voice, or his Chinese Guy voice, fell flat partially because he was definitely stung. But it mostly fell flat because conservatives aren’t actually allowed to do funny Chinese Guy voices, either, without getting raked over the coals for it. Heck, we’re not even allowed to have New York accents.

PPS: I actually like Jon Stewart. But he’s not going to remember this interview fondly.

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  • ohiohistorian

    that the left has. While I seem to gather that he is a liberal, he does a pretty good job of drawing out both sides of many arguments.

    Still, I would not like to leave it to him to moderate the debate. Not sure that he always plays it down the middle. How about Juan Williams?

  • hungarianfalcon

    I think JW is a good example of an objective liberal per se (I’ll define that as a liberal that won’t tell you the sky is orange on a political issue just because it’s in his party’s best interest).

    You said it youself about CW- “you gather that he is a liberal.” If you honestly don’t know for sure what his ideology is, then he’s doing a pretty good job as a journalist. Subsequently, I think it would be a blatantly bad idea to deliberately swap out a neutral moderator for a liberal trying to be neutral unless you are a liberal.

    FWIW, I, too, think CW is left of center but I’m not sure either.

    HF

  • alvin691

    He quoted “numerous” polls saying Fox News viewers are the most mis-informed, but Wallace did not call him on the BS study by WorldPublicOpinion in 2010 and another by the University of Maryland (again, funded by Soros organisations). The questions were OPINION and the answers were liberal based. Examples are about global warming, the affects of stimmulus, etc. The so-called correct answers were all LIBERAL answers or those that agree with the Obama administraion. If you answered that stimulus caused a net decrease of jobs, you were counted as being wrong. If you said that you don’t agree with AGW, again you were wrong.

    Both polls were on the basis snarky and obviously politically drawn

  • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

    I have been a big fan of Mike Wallace, Chris’ father, since I was about 8 years old and was watching him on “60 Minutes.” Mike’s political ideology was and is allegedly conservative, and my understanding was that Ronald Reagan asked Mike to take the position of Press Secretary (Mike turned him down).

    I trust Chris Wallace because I see in him the same integrity that I saw and admired in his father. From my own observation, I have never been able to see any political bias in either man’s conduct in reporting the news or interviewing a political candidate or operative.

  • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

    ‘If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.’

    Basically, if you trust and listen to only one source of information, you are only going to know what that organization wants you to know. My survey to determine which group of viewers is the most informed is simply one question: “What is the difference between a theory and a fact?”

  • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

    Put Chris Wallace in charge of moderating all Presidential Debates for the 2012 election cycle. There would be not a powder-puff question one.

    BTW, I loved Chris’ interview with Bill Clinton where he got BC so mad he turned red and came close to taking a swing at Chris.

  • littlehouse18

    He has a hard time looking CW in the eye, he leans away defensively, he has “little boy’ guilty smiles. Says lack of character all over. He can dish it but he can’t really defend himself because there’s nothing to defend. I get very frustrated when some of my friends consider him balanced.

  • trutexan

    Is that you don’t see what the rest of the public sees. JS did just fine on that interveiw. And when he admitted that conservatives are unjustly accused of being racist and homophobic, he redeemed himself in the eyes of John Q Public. Why don’t you get that? The author of this article wrote it like CW wiped the floor with him. Um… sorry, no. that did not happen. Jon Stewart’s show is on “COMEDY Central”. So everything he does is supposed to be a joke. Yes, there is admittedly truth in what he says at times, and there are extreme lies in what he says at times. But he is a comedian and can get away with it. The other day I saw him have an interview on his show asking an expert why there still aren’t any jobs. That’s a plus for anyone other than Obama if ever I heard one. It wasn’t a conservative message, but he got the point across that what we were promised hasn’t materialized. That’s all he needed to do.

    Fox Network would do well to create their own “Jon Stewart” comedy show and poke fun at all the liberal crap that we conservatives despise. Like the video that ran rampant on the internet when Obama got elected. It was a woman who was sitting at home during the work day cheering at the TV for Obama to win until she heard him say he wanted everyone to have jobs and then she says “Jobs? A job? WHAT? I don’t want no job!” Now THAT was funny! Sure, you would have to do it with a white guy with a mullet but it’s still funny. When will conservatives learn to poke fun at themselves? Jeff Foxworthy and Larry the Cable Guy have made millions at it. We know we can’t dance or play basketball and we’re totally OK with that. But let’s poke fun at the Bunny Huggers or Al Gore or Cas Sunstein. There’s a reason the average bear doesn’t pay attention to Fox News. Because while it might be “right” on, it’s not entertaining to a 15 year old. And 15 year olds are our future. As long as liberals have their attention, we will always be on the defense. It’s time for some Offensive Management.

  • mailabull

    Thanks so much for reiterating exactly what I thought about the interview. My email address is an AOL account and I am now being force fed HuffPost. Their biased review of the stand-off was unsavory and the posters were despicable.

  • aesthete

    Jon Stewart and other libs can’t afford to present their ideology unvarnished: when it comes right down to it, most Americans like the fact that they can be richer (i.e., reduce equality between themselves and their peers) by working harder. Most Americans find war heroics done by the willing appealing, and aren’t repelled by the idea of self-defense. (The extent to which the anti-war movement has found success has depended on how much they could convince Americans that the above statement did not apply to current hostilities.) Generally, Americans prefer strict moral codes (even if they themselves don’t adhere to them) over relativistic ones. Americans don’t like being told what to do by their peers (which is what democratically-determined government action amounts to). Jon Stewart obfuscates more than he educates through his comedy: sometimes he can be funny, but generally he is not accurate or fair in his representations.

    As conservatives, honest truth-telling should be preferable to using antics to detract from the point. Humor in the service of conveying a point is great, but not necessary. Paul Ryan isn’t a particularly amusing guy, but he got more through education than thousands of Hannities could have by being partisan banshees or than we could by having a hypothetical conservative Jon Stewart make fun of Nancy Pelosi.

  • jeffreywturner

    Stewart definitely struggled to make the case that the New York Times was not biased. Also, I don’t think I have ever heard him admit that the mainstream media is populated with liberals. Now, sure he didn’t admit that they were biased in their coverage, but it is a big step to even get a liberal to admit what he did.

  • rightwingmom52

    The 6/8 show with Andrew Breitbart as guest that focused on Weinergate was one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. They poke a lot of fun at liberals, but conservatives get their fair share, as well as people and situations that are just plain stupid, regardless of political persuasion.

    Watching 5x’s a week can get a little tiresome, but I watch for certain guests and have caught some laugh out loud shows that were much more entertaining than anything I’ve ever seen on Jon Stewart.

  • Martin Knight

    … the fiction that FOX viewers were the most misinformed of all news consumers.

    I think letting that slide was a big mistake.

  • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

    have vocabularies that would make a sailor blush. HuffPo is most definitely on my NSFW list (along with DailyKOS and FireDogLake).

  • http://www4.webng.com/rickbull/lostlucky/ rickbull

    Everyone outside the small minority of the population who are liberal knows that those surveys are crap. If you watch CBS News exclusively, then you don’t even know Herman Cain’s name, much less that he’s running for President on the GOP ticket.

  • aesthete

    Particularly TV’s Andy Levy. Hard to catch unless you look it up on Hulu, though — it plays way too late for me to watch it on Fox.

  • belcatar

    Stewart is in the same position as everyone else on the left: their ideas didn’t work. Not only did they not work, but they did much, much more harm than good. There’s only so much Hope’nChange people can stomach, and it’s mostly worn out its welcome.

    Jon Stewart got famous by pointing out all the flaws and problems in the Bush Administration. Lucky for him, there was a lot to work with. But he knows which side his bread is buttered on, so he has to keep poking fun at politics without alienating the liberal base that fuels his ratings. Making fun of Obama with the same kind of material he used against Herman Cain would no doubt upset many of his viewers.

    I think Jon Stewart actually did very well in that interview. If he were a boxer, everyone would admire how he ducked, bobbed and weaved as Chris Wallace threw punch after punch, even though Stewart was injured and exhausted. He used the tried and true “present company excepted” tactic to save face, and it saved him from having to own up to how wrong he’s been about Fox, and especially about President Obama.

  • aesthete

    Most of the people who watch that clip are likely to be Fox viewers themselves; most people don’t see themselves as stupid (and the vast majority won’t change their opinion of themselves on the basis of a snotty TV show host’s opinion). Great way for Jon Stewart to throw away his credibility — but then, Stewart was playing to his frankly ignorant base, not the Fox viewers.

  • aesthete
  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    You’re perfectly welcome to use it.

    Moe Lane

    PS: “We know we can?t dance or play basketball and we?re totally OK with that.”

    Since when did being/becoming a conservative mean that you had to give up your spatial awareness and/or physical dexterity? I dance perfectly [OK, reasonably] well, thank you.

  • augusta

    That was rather shocking to me – that Mr. Smarty-pants Stewart cited those particular polls {“numerous” my fanny) as if they had merit. I’ve always known he was a doctrinaire Lefty, but I was still surprised that he would not only accept the obviously opinion-based polls as a solid barometer, but that he would throw them out there in a panicky attempt to bolster his weak point. A poll that declares all who disagree with Timothy Geithner, and other left wing ‘experts’, uninformed, is not only not credible – it’s downright silly. If the Cato Institute, the Heritage Foundation and experts from the Bush Administration had administered a poll to ABC, NBC, and CBS viewers to determine political acumen – and it was all financed by the Koch Brothers, I doubt Stewart and friends would trust in the veracity of the poll’s findings. In fact, they’d likely throw a hissy fit. The poll[s] was a tool to help lend credence to the omnipresent FOX News derangement on the Left, and nothing more. And Stewart has exposed himself, disappointingly, as just one more of the deranged doctrinaires. Jon – you don’t need a slanted poll to see that there are no conservatives employed at any of the other major networks and that FOX has as many liberals as conservatives in its employ.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    …that’s making me disagree with you on how well Jon Stewart did there. He didn’t like that remark; worse for him, he showed that he didn’t like that remark. I don’t think that he took it well, and I don’t think that he recovered quite quickly enough.

    Not that it’s going to wreck his career or anything. But it’s interesting to see where Stewart’s vulnerable.

  • grandma

    I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jon Stewart squirm in his seat.

  • Doc Holliday

    Chris and Juan are honest people, so they would be better than MSM. But Juan is a proud liberal advocate, Chris is a newsman.

  • Doc Holliday

    he does try to take some shots at the left from time to time. His audience sits on its hands when he does this, they expect a Daily Kos rally every night. That is Stewart’s fault, if he wants to seem semi fair, he needs to act semi fair and get a new audience.

  • Doc Holliday

    those with a job get moved to the front of the line.

  • charlesmartel

    When your only defense is “Whoa, hey – you think that’s racist? You should see my impression of a Chinaman…” you know you’re in trouble.

  • averagevoterdotcom

    and manipulator. Watch his afirmative body language when answering NO to Wallce saying that he wants to be a political player.

  • 4dees

    Jon Stewart is actually a quite likable guy / comedian. However, he has the typical Hollywood ego issue, and when Chris Wallace expertly pointed out how wrong Stewart was / is to a national audience, Stewart didn’t like it one bit. Just can’t admit that very possibly he’s wrong. I thought Chris did an excellent interview, as always, and yes, let’s put him in charge of the presidential debates!!

  • rightwingmom52

    We DVR the episodes and then watch based on guests or discussion topics. Gutfeld’s a hoot. Some of my favorite frequent guests are Ann Coulter, Jedediah Bila, Jesse Joyce, Imogen Lloyd Webber, Mike Baker, Dana Vachon, Jill Dobson and Brooke Goldstein. I don’t always agree with them, but they’re some of the funniest and most thoughtful. If you didn’t see the recent episode about Weiner with Breitbart as guest, it’s worth watching, but here’s 4 minutes of one of the funniest exchanges I’ve ever seen.

  • trutexan

    I was on a rant and didn’t stop to scroll up. My bad. Won’t happen again.

    I thought about this topic when I woke at 2:30AM and again today. Jon Stewart nearly took over that interview and CW looked a little on the defensive himself when he accurately accused JS of filibustering. He put him back in his place quickly and did a good job of it. It takes a true professional to successfully put somebody like JS in his place with just one word. But the average person who doesn’t know that John Boehner is the Speaker of the House (as evidenced by Hannity’s Man on the Street segment) then they don’t know that JS tells so many lies under the guise of comedy. When JS states so emphatically that FoxNews has the most misinformed audience, those rubes believe him and it becomes part of a he-said/she-said that they then dismiss because they are too lazy to investigate. …And then they go pull the lever for Obama because he’s “cool”. And to make matters worse, conservatives are having fewer babies than the left. And as long as we keep that up, we’re fighting a losing battle.

    Re: reaching another audience – Has anyone watched Saturday AM cartoons lately or caught any episodes on Sesame Street, Disney, Nick, or Cartoon Network? Those shows/networks hugely spout “green”, gay, bunny hugging, energy is bad, anti-capitalist, anti-war-at-all-costs, messages. Conservatives need to make being a Conservative Cool and we need to start with the kiddos. It all started going downhill when some activist group was successful at pulling the Pink Panther cartoon off the TV because it had the most violence of all cartoons. (Like parents weren’t able to tell their kids it’s make-believe.) And the nail in the coffin was the death of Mr. Rogers and Sesame Street making Oscar the Grouch “nice”. Fox needs a channel for kids with wholesome, entertaining, and funny cartoons. How about a sit-com with a 12 year old entrepreneur who fights city hall and wins when they make him get a permit for his lawn mowing business, babysits, runs a lemonade stand, etc. Most of the material needed is on Drudge. I might be over-simplifying this, but the average bear is pretty simple. I heard Bill Bennett quote a philosopher once, “It’s not so much what the children are taught, but who teaches the children.” The liberals learned this and that’s why they dominate the teaching field. To save the country, we need to turn the tables and we need to start young. Not to be all talk and no action, as a member of the DAR, I’m starting a Junior American Citizens effort at my local elementary school in the fall. My mother did it and now I feel the calling as well.

    I’ve never even heard of RedEye – I don’t stay up that late. I’ll DVR it. Thanks.

    Paula Priesse does a great job poking fun at the left.
    http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Paula-Priesse/256566055895?sk=photos

  • lineholder

    I think it is a great idea for conservatives to take more initiative in developing clubs and/or associations that can teach young people conservative, free market principles.

    They’re going to need them.

  • trutexan

    In my “I’m up in the middle of the night” thoughts, I wondered “Now why is Jon Stewart on Fox with Chris Wallace when he knows the majority of the viewers are going to think he’s full of it?”

    Easy. Because he can get his message across to the most-watched network audience in the country. That…and he’s a narcissist. Yes, Jon, I used to date a comedian, stand backstage, party with you people, and yes you all are narcissists. It’s the nature of your business. Those who make it big are the absolute worst.

    It’s the same reason the unions are trying to agree with Right to Work states. Infiltration.

    Jon Stewart is a sneaky, under-handed, lying, say-whatever-will-get people-to-like-me snake.

    Dear Fox, do not EVER give him air time again.

  • bojangles88

    JS is in the same vain as Twain. Why is this interview the edited version. You all realize JS does not report or inform he actually makes jokes about the news, his show is a fake news broadcast.

  • Martin Knight

    You do not let things like that stand. Ever.

    First of all, with the internet, YouTube, blogs, etc. and not even counting his legion of fans, it certainly is not only FOX News viewers who are going to see that clip. Lots and lots of other people are going to see that clip and see Jon Stewart make that allegation with the force and confidence of someone stating objective fact.

    And they’re going to see Chris Wallace, an actual employee of FOX News, give the allegation the full weight of truth because he let it stand with no objection. Alan Simpson may not have been the most Republican of Republicans but he was right on the money; “An allegation unchallenged is an allegation believed.”

    Letting it stand unchallenged (i.e. BushLied, Katrina, etc.) in the belief that no one is going to believe it is exactly what killed the Bush Presidency. And if every single FOX News anchor is going to let allegations like Stewart’s stand because they believe somehow that most watchers are FOX viewers already, that would be the death knell of FOX.

  • aesthete
  • blooch

    for that. if only because the lefties drink from that well so often. But it’s a hard one to refute quickly and convincingly when you’re dealing with a lying clown.

    Wallace might have said something along the lines of, “Jon, I could have commissioned some very dubious polls gratuitously smearing the intelligence of your viewers, but I’m much more interested in what makes *you* tick.. ” If he had tried force Daly to actually cite a source or poll question to back up the assertion, Daly would have quickly slipped the clown nose back on.

    Besides, Wallace shredded him with the “Amos ‘n Andy” barb. He could have twisted that dagger in further, by insisting that Daly perform more of the ethnic voices of which he was so obviously proud. Daly would have pouted and refused, to which Wallace could have gently replied, “But you’re a comedian, Jon…c’mon, make me laugh.” I know. I know…here we go with the hypothetical dialogue again.

    Maybe he should have hit Daly much harder while he had him.. It’s not like Daly will ever stick his head back in that meat-grinder. Buit I think Daly was planning to play the picador to Wallace’s angry wounded bull, and instead, Daly came off as the angry, wounded clown being calmly maneuvered around the ring.