Bill Moyers interviewed Jon Stewart on April 27. The video is on the Moyers’ great new website. The design is a little graphically loud, but the video quality and site functionality are great.
Jon Stewart is the most trustworthy anchorman in America. This is the man who wrote the textbook, America: A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (two word review: very funny). In this interview, one of the great American journalists interviews the greatest American quasi-journalist. It is interesting to see another side of Stewart.
My favorite parts if you just want the highlights:
BILL MOYERS: Well, what is your thinking about why it is as– the war enters its fifth year, and the President has announced - an extension of tours to 15 months, and they’re going to call up the National Guard. And April was the bloodiest month so far since the war started, and there was one day in April that was the bloodiest day. That people have seen they have no way to get the guys in Washington, and Condoleezza Rice, to listen to them. That there seems a detachment emotionally, and politically in this country from what is happening.
JON STEWART: You know, one of the things that I do think government counts on is that people are busy. And it’s very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country, unless it’s over really crucial– you know, foundational issues. That come sort of sort of a tipping point.
BILL MOYERS: War? War?
JON STEWART: But war that hasn’t affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that’s why they’re so really - here’s the disconnect. It’s sort of this odd and I’ve always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, “We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. “And, so what I’m going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children’s children all suffer. So, what I’m gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad.”
So, there’s a disconnect there between - you’re telling me this is fight of our generation, and you’re going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that’s gonna do it. I’m sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can’t, because he doesn’t have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country’s not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we’re doing and really examine how it is that they’ve been waging this.
Discussing Alberto Gonzales’ recent Congressional testimony, Stewart had this really insightful understanding of Bush’s reaction.:
JON STEWART: For instance, Alberto Gonzales…. He is either a perjurer, or a low-functioning pinhead. And he allowed himself to be portrayed in those hearings as a low-functioning pinhead, rather than give the Congressional Committee charged with oversight, any information as to his decision-making process at the Department of Justice.
And I used to think, “They’re doing this based on a certain arrogance.” And now, I realize that it’s because they believe there is one accountability moment for a President, and that is the four year election. And once you get that election, you’re done.
BILL MOYERS: They’re right, are they not?
JON STEWART: They’re completely not right. The election moment is merely the American public saying, “We’d rather you be President than that guy.” That’s it. The next four years, though, you still have to abide by the oversight process that is there to prevent this kind of bizarre sort of cult-like atmosphere that falls along. I mean, I accept that kind of veil of secrecy around Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, but I don’t accept that around our government.
BILL MOYERS: Tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of words were written about Gonzales’ testimony last week in Congress. And I still don’t think a lot of people get it. And all of the sudden, there on THE DAILY SHOW that evening, you distilled the essence of it.
CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART
JON STEWART: So there it was today, the big fight. Gonzalez v Senate. Are you ready to bumble!
SENATOR: Who’s idea was this?
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I don’t recall specifically
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I don’t recall the-the contents.
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I have no recollection.
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I-I don’t have any recollection.
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I have searched my memory.
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I don’t recall remembering…
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I can only testify as to what I recall.
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: Senator, I don’t recall…
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I don’t recall…
ALBERTO GONZALEZ: I firmly believe that nothing improper occurred.
JON STEWART: After weeks of mock testimony, there you have it, Alberto Gonzales does not know what happened, but he assures you what he doesn’t remember was handled properly.
END CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART
JON STEWART: And by the way, that was all just - that was a game, and he knew it, and the guys on the committee knew it. And for the President to come out after that and say, “Everything I saw there gave me more confidence in him,” that solidified my notion that, “Oh, it’s because what he expected of Gonzalez was” it’s sort of like, do you remember in GOODFELLAS? When Henry Hill got arrested for the first time and Robert DeNiro met him at the courthouse and Henry Hill was really upset, ’cause he thought Robert DeNiro would be really mad at him. And DeNiro comes up to him and he gives him a $100 and he goes, “You got pinched. We all get pinched, but you did it right, you didn’t say nothing.”
BILL MOYERS: Gonzales said nothing.
JON STEWART: Right. And “you went up there and said nothing. You gave them no legal recourse against you, and you made yourself a smart man, a self-made man look like an utter pinhead on national television, and you did it for me.”
politics
posted by:
dan @
29 Apr 2007 21:45
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