He's probably afraid of being "Dixie Chicked" or "Bill Mahered". Maybe the focus group marketing weenies have taken over. Either that, or has anyone checked lately to see if a megacorporation has bought out Comedy Central?

I don't think he's afraid or that he lost his groove.  Lately, he's been taking his Conservative/Republican guests to the floor during his interviews:  Bill Bennet, Will Kristol, that weird transgendered-seeming Indian guy who wrote "The Party of Death," and Ken Mehlman.  All with a smile and a laugh.

Man, you guys can bitch about anything. This is by far the most moronic charge of "bias" or "not being liberal enough" that I've ever heard. Now Jon Stewert is anti-liberal? Give me a break. He is hilarious in a way thaqt Colbert is not. While Colbert satirizes the conservative pundit, Stewert often makes concise arguments with his guests on issues of policy, such as his recent interview with Bill Bennet. If you guys want ideological purity on everything you watch, suck it up. Go back to trying to beat Lieberman (which will fail) or some other doomed cause to bitch about. OR, you could focus your energy on things more important that Jon Stewert's...lol...."hackery."

I agree that Stewart's reactions sometimes don't line up with my own, but what about his interview with Bill Bennett two weeks ago.  He tore him a new one on the gay marriage.  Unlike many of his other interviews in the past he did not softball Bennett.

Stewart gets a lot of credit from me for saying things other people on TV or in print would not say for the past 5 years (with the exception of bloggers).  He made one comment that might be construed as not progressive, and he gets called a hack on par with Leno.  That is a little far.  Regardless of whether he is funny or not anymore (I think he is, and Leno isn't),  I don't think he should be held to a standard of absolute ideological purity, considering the constant critique of the foolishness of our government's policies for over five years.  If he had suddenly turned into Rush Limbaugh (a "funny" conservative commentator) call him on that, but it was one segment of one show out of hundreds.

Stewart's opening segments haven't been as good this year, but part of that is Colbert not being one of the correspondents.

On the other hand, he really gave it to William Bennett last week, much more so than any real talking head has ever been able to.  

Come on! This guy is hosting a COMEDY program on a COMEDY network. How easy do you think it is to be dead on funny all the time. I'm a big "liberal" blog reader and lean pretty far left most of the time and some of the stuff I see on this and other sites I think is plain nuts. But I digress most of the time because the overall message is basically coherent and productive. Stewart is trying to reach an audience that is basically apathetic and misinformed and humor is the tool that he uses to do it.

Give the guy a break. Lets not start eating our own now.

Wow Matt, is anyone not a Hack in your book?

Matt, and whoever posted that comment he cited, GET OVER YOURSELVES.  are you kidding me?   Hackery??????  My god, no wonder why we never win, we start criticizing the likes of jon stewart, someone who has consistently called bullshit whenever we would have.  

I like Colbert, but Jon Stewart is by far smarter, he can actually discuss policy, Colbert just impersonates someone who can't talk about policy.  

You guys have got to be kidding. How uniform in your beliefs do you need to be to be accepted as legit and not a "hack?"

I always thought that the progressive argument against GITMO wasn't so much that everyone interned there is innocent, although some of them have turned out to be, but that even terrorists and murders who hate America deserve a fair, transparent trial for the crimes they had committed or were conspiring to committ. From what I heard on NPR, not exactly a puppet of the RNC, those three were top guys in al-qaeda. I'll say it straight up: if you kill innocent people, or plan on it, and then off yourself? No big loss.

Jon Stewart has done a better job making common sense arguments for worker's rights, universal health care and gay rights that any blogger and 99% of "liberal" politicians. He makes those ideas seem rational to people who wouldn't think so otherwise. Back off and go after people who really are hurting freedom and civil liberties and our safety: republicans.

First Joe Lieberman...

then Barack Obama....

now Jon Stewart?!?!

The purpose of Jon Stewart is to entertain, and by most accounts he does a good job.  The fact that he doesn't always deliver snarky humor that you agree with doesn't mean he's "lost his edge."

I am ashamed this is on the front page of MyDD. If you cannot see that there is a huge difference between Jay Leno and John Stewart then I don't know how to even talk to you. You are clearly living with a different worldview.

I don't think I've read anything on the front page of MyDD that was more wrong that this. I'm simply amazed that somebody could have watched Jon Stewart for this long and understood him so poorly.

Americans can't understand irony.  

I heard the joke you quote here, and I interpreted it as a very scathing critique of the GB concentration camp, and a calling into question of the very guilt your friend wished Stewart would call into question.  And I laughed so hard that my wife walked in from the other room to see what was going on.

Personally, I think Stewart is far better than Colbert.  I liked Colbert more when he was a segment on Stewart and still think he is better in 5 minutets than 30.  But he's very different, now, in the sense that he is playing a full character of the Faux pundit.

And...I think John Stewart's first question to Ken Mehlman was,  "So...why do you think Karl Rove wasn't convicted?"  

I think Stewart still has it...big time.

I don't know. I'm scared to comment after that recent post. Am I being serious enough by saying that Stewart still serves a very important function here and we ought not to dismiss him quite so quickly? After all, he is one of the few (only?) media sources that really offer a lot of real thinking instead of spin.

Are my days still numbered????

This is ridiculous post. Just because some idiot wrote an email with horrendous grammar and poor spelling criticizing John Stewart does not make our favorite pundit fair game for bashing.

i haven't really noticed it.  He's honest and doesn't hold back.  Did he kowtow to Bill Bennett?????  Come'on..........

Waste of space.

Steward is funny and not anyone's hack.

Relax.

Wrong.

Dead wrong my friend.  This coming from someone who is fairly harsh about media that has jumped the shark.  

Fonzie literally jumping the shark.

Enos leaving the Dukes.

Law & Order, the reality show thingee

Jerome leaving MyDD

Whatev!

Everyone on the Left has to be wa-a-a-a-ay FAR, FAR to the left or they're useless?

No wonder our Dem politicians don't know what to say, how to say it, and haven't won many elections!

Keep up the good work.

I am so ashamed of Matt's post. Before someone outside the blogging community uses it to smear us for being rigid extremist ideologues... can we get it removed?

I must come to the defense of Jon Stewart. Anyone who stayed up late enough last night to see him eviscerate the Chair of the Republican Party, Ken Mehlman, would feel that, while the jokes about the suicides at Gitmo were off, he is STILL one very funny guy. For God sake, he asked Mehlman how it feels to be the guy whose job it is to pour perfume on the turd field (or something like that). And the audience was with him all the way, as he knew it would be. Pitch perfect.

I can't possibly imagine anyone posting here would come up with

he doesn't seem like a good guy anymore.  He just seems like a weenie.

It's satire, folks. Has to be. I mean - come on! He's paying us the compliment of being able to tell when he's impersonating a guy talking out of his ass.

And - let me say - that is a great impersonation.

Rofl this stuff cracks me up.  Make one bad vote, and you're a GOP-Sellout.  Tell one bad joke, and you're a turncoat, GOP plant.  Give me a break.

THIS IS BULL!!

What a pathetic post.  No even the little bit insightful.  If you think Stewart's been a little off his game, that's one thing - but hackery?  He's a FAKE NEWSCASTER - and as it happens, the only one who held Bennet, Kristol, and last night Mehlman, out to dry.  Look at the buzz around the net when he calls bullshit on these guys.  Hackery?  I think not.

This is an embarassing post.  The grammar, the spelling, the claims made with no evidence.  And on  MYDD.com?  Wow, how low the mighty have fallen.

You are taking Jon Stewart far too seriously.

http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/06/14/pe rhaps-some-chanel-instead/

I always watch Jon Stewart because he is funny, smart and tough on the right. But to be honest, he is consistently bigoted when it comes to Arabs. The Guantanamo Bay joke is just one example. It is too bad, because liberal American Jews are among our most committed patriots right now. Understandable? Yes perhaps, but I wish this blind spot would go away.

I've lurked here for a couple years now, but I've never felt the need to comment until now...

WHAT??  Jon Stewart is a hack?  His jokes have devolved?  Have you even watched the show lately or do you just get your information from your friend's text messages?

This is easily the worst post I've read at MyDD on several levels that have already been commented about here.  I'd go so far as to wonder if Matt isn't becoming a hack.  So sad, I certainly hope he gets his groove back soon.

He is a commedian for pity's sake.  OMG.  One joke and he is a "hack".  Please, it takes years of tireless work to become a hack!

Ahem!  A moment of silence please! We need to say grace before we sit down and eat our own.

The amount of vitriol you spew against those who agree with you 90+% is incredible. I really wonder sometimes if you are working for the other side. You just take the few times someone says something you personally thing is wrong and blow it up to be a huge issue.

Why don't you just come out and say it? And while you are at it look up hack in the dictionary. Where is the pattern of hackery? All I can see is that you bring up one instance and then express subjective invectives about Stewart's softening.

It's clear to me you don't believe in the central tenants of CTG. I see no way that your constant whining about liberal personalities not being good enough on specific instances fits into party building.

Leading with a complaint about a joke (which Matt apparently didn't get) on the Daily Show?  I guess Bush really is bouncing if we're returning to the circular firing squad method of liberal analysis.  

If you want to sound like a "weenie" just start talking about how the people at GITMO are not guilty of anything.

Now I agree 100% that the situation we have created is not good.   I agree there should be some sort of due process.  BUT I think the average American has very little sympathy for the people there.    Right or wrong, that is the fact.

I think a better talking point is that these are dangerous people down there, but even though they are dangerous we have to develop a long plan to deal with them in a just way - a way that doesn't damage the United States credibility as a supporter of human rights.

Talking about how those at GITMO are not guilty plays into the hands of those that would paint liberals as weak, or wanting to make the war on terror a police action.

...with handing out '1' ratings on this thread to those disagreeing with Matt's post?

I'd riposte with '3's to the same guys - except that, one, that would be really childish, and, two, I'm too bone idle.

Ain't democracy grand?

I think the high from Yarly Kos is having an effect on some of you. I watch the Daily Show pretty much every night, and while its not always gut splittingly funny its miles away more consistently on target than just about any other comedy show on tv, save Colbert perhaps. But so what? You try being funny 4 nights a week for months at a time. It isn't easy. That the Daily Show has been such a pinnacle of political comedy for the last few years has only served to raise the bar and increase expectations because we know how good it can be. If they seem to be in a little slump cut them some slack. Please. They are our friends. Jon Stewart is a good guy and is still funny. Get off your freakin high horses. Besides, as already mentioned, did you seem him tear Bill Bennet a new one. Or how about that tool Ramesh Ponnuru. Who the hell else is going to to call these people on their BS it on television?

"I don't know what to think about the suicides. What do you think when the people who killed themselves are people who tried to kill us."

Gitmo is a disgrace. That does not make the prisoners there innocent.

As Jon Stewart, I'm conflicted in hearing that persons who probably have taken innocent life have killed themselves.

But, do I just swallow the info from the Defense Department that claims they are all "al Qaeda" and were super-bad?  Nah, they've lied to me so much I look at everything coming from the Executive Branch as suspect. But what is beyond dispute is that terrorists exist and some of them blow things up and kill people. I don't find it hard to believe that many of the prisoners in Gitmo are just such people.

Jon Stewart is no hack and to criticize him over this is ridiculous unless it's part of some clever plan to give cover to Stewart from the left while simultaneously painting MyDD as reactionary and sympathetic to terrorists.

If the three who killed themselves had ever taken an innocent life they can rot in hell.

Of all the things I could say about this post, the most fundamental is that Matt needs to re-read Chris's post from last night about MyDD being for discussion of serious politics, and then hang his head in shame.

"obvi that steven colbert is 10 x smarter and funnier than jon stewart"?  God.  Matt, you're better than this.

This post is a complete joke.  Matt, did you even watch last night or did you just rely on a shitty email before accusing Jon Stewart of "hackery"?

Did someone forget to read the Gospel of Bowers?

"Do not consider MyDD a place for random, open discussion of the latest news and current events."

;P

There's the rub. That nagging little concept called "rule of law"

James B. Staab, "`With the Stroke of a Pen': President Bush Cannot Unilaterally Establish Military Commissions", Journal of the Institute of Justice and International Studies: Papers from the March 2003 Counter-Terrorism & Civil Liberties Conference, Central Missouri State University, 3, pp. 53-65 [as numbered]. ISSN 1-538-7909.

Referring to Ex parte Milligan,71 U.S. 2 (1866), Staab cites the stirring and unquestionably strong reaffirmation of the Constitution by Justice Davis:

There have been numerous citations of Ex parte Quirin, 317 U.S. 1 (1942) as well as Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763 (1950) as cases which the present court could utilize as precedents - Staab points out, however:

Citing Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, 343 U.S. 579 (1952) Staab also makes a convincing separation of powers argument, arguing that only Congress can establish military commissions.

Staab further cites the eloquent defense of Justice Davis in Milligan:

Whatever happened to "innocent until proven guilty"?

They hate us for our freedoms?

Staab closes with:

If I recall correctly, at this time, the progress of the military commissions has been suspended. Hundreds of detainees have not been through even that constitutionally flawed procedure.

A Man for All Seasons (1966)

Innocent until proven guilty? I should hope so. For all our sakes.

This reminds me of Maron's bit on getting heckled by the true believers.

Jon Stewart is your savior - your beacon of reason and goodness in the political universe and now you're disappointed that he's "off his game" (at least in your pure, true mind).  

Get over yourself.  

Did you ever pause to think how pathetic it is that we have to look to Stewart and KO and Colbert to expose the hypocrisy?  Two comedians and the really good Sportscenter guy?

Where is our Misty Mountain Hop?

Clearly, based on his fans in this thread.

Look, Stewart has writers. He doesn't make up every bit on his show.

If you pay attention, you see that some of his material is pedestrian. It's not that funny. The reasoning isn't that sharp. It's not that entertaining. It's usually mixed in with better jokes and so we let it pass.

All these excuses that we want to make: That he's a comedian - so lay off, that he's funnier than 90% of everyone ever in the whole world - so lay off, these excuses don't make the lame jokes any funnier.

I attribute the weak jokes to his writers, but wherever they come from, they are there and pretending Stewart can do no wrong is really silly.

Stewart attacks Democrats constantly. Sometimes it's deserved, sometimes not, but Stewart's principle is to leave no one above criticism. So why is Stewart himself above criticism.

Indefinite detention without charge is serious shit. Some people, like Matt, don't think it's a fit topic for an easy joke. I saw the the bit as Stewart's ironic commentary on how other medias are treating the topic. But if the bit didn't work for you, then it's basically a "there were these three dead Arabs" joke.

Anyway, don't worship your entertainers.

What is the relevance of posting a friend's email (poorly written, btw) and tossing an inaccurate critique of Stewart's brand of comedy on this site, anyway?  Mr. Stoller is terribly misguided on what Stewart does on his show.  Stewart's comedy is not about being the cool liberal guy you hang out with and agree with- it's about cutting through the bullshit talking points that everyone repeats to actually engage (surprise) both sides!  His left-leaning stance is an offshoot of a reaction to the ridiculous hypocrisy on the right, moreso than a genuine super-liberal philosophy.  Independent critical thought is prized on his show about a lock-step agreement with talking points from Democrats, I'd wager.

His interviews and commentary is directed to get the actual facts and passions which underlie the news tidbits.  That is why he eviscerated Bennett, Ramesh Ponnuru (book guy), Tucker Carlson, and even took Dean to task for still lacking a coherent message.  Did you see the pamphlets that Dean had??  That is supposed to win us office?  Good god...we desperately need Stewart to friggen wake these office holders up and talk straight for once.  And that is why he was relatively light on Mehlman, because he honestly wanted to know Mehlman's opinion, and (surprise!) Mehlman gave it (on camera!).

Having a conservative opinion, right or wrong, doesn't make you evil, just as having a liberal opinion makes you good- it makes you opinionated.  Refusing to actually discuss why you have the opinion makes you a hypocrite.  Taking people to task for simply not agreeing with you just adds to the noise machine that keeps Americans ignorant.