Political scene feeling jabs from comic Jon Stewart

By Howard Kurtz
The Washington Post

CONRAD MULCAHY / AP Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., left, appears on Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Aug. 24.

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Night after night, "The Daily Show" host lampoons President Bush as a tongue-tied bumbler, Donald Rumsfeld as a mad ranter who resembles "Pete the crazy guy outside my apartment," the war in Iraq as a giant "Mess O' Potamia," and the reporters who cover the presidential race as self-important clods.

Such sharp-edged skewering has turned the Comedy Central funnyman into a cultural phenomenon who, despite his protestations, seems to be having some undefined, irony-drenched influence on how the campaign is perceived. He's been on the cover of Newsweek and now graces the cover of Rolling Stone. His "America (The Book)" is the nation's top seller. He has analyzed the media as Ted Koppel's guest, dissected the party conventions as Tom Brokaw's expert at NBC News, and ripped into his hosts on CNN's "Crossfire" for presiding over "theater" and "partisan hackery."

"There's a difference between making a point and having an agenda," Stewart said. "We don't have an agenda to change the political system. We have a more selfish agenda, to entertain ourselves. We feel a frustration with the way politics are handled and the way politics are handled within the media."

Stewart, 41, has said he plans to vote for John Kerry, who made one of his few television talk-show appearances in recent months on "The Daily Show." That might come as little surprise to viewers who have watched Stewart relentlessly mock Bush while poking gentle fun at Kerry's ponderous speaking style.

All of which means "the Jon Stewart backlash should start right about now," said Ana Marie Cox, also known as Web satirist Wonkette. "Stewart has pretty much painted a target on his chest with his 'Crossfire' appearance. To say his is just a comedy show is a cop-out in a way. He's gotten so much power. So many people look to him that you can't really be the kid in the back throwing spitballs."

With a program that more than doubles the audience of MSNBC's "Hardball" with 1.2 million viewers — many in the hard-to-reach younger generation — Stewart's comedic spitballs are leaving their mark.

He disputes the notion that younger viewers turn to him for news, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center backs him up. "Daily Show" fans are more knowledgeable about current events than those of other comedy shows, the center found, rivaling newspaper readers and network-news viewers.

"It's not fake news," Stewart said. "We are not newsmen, but it's jokes about real news. We don't make anything up, other than the fact we're not actually standing in Baghdad. ... The appeal of doing the show is that it's cathartic."

Stewart provides an ideal venue for politicians — especially Democrats — looking to demonstrate hipness. Kerry gladly appeared because Stewart "has got a big audience that is different from the audience that watches 'Meet the Press' or 'Nightline,' " spokesman Joe Lockhart said. "Jon Stewart has a huge following on college campuses," and the format is "not as confrontational" as on hard-news shows.

Little wonder, then, that John Edwards announced his candidacy on "The Daily Show." Or that Stewart's guests have included President Clinton, former Sen. Bob Dole, former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, Bush adviser Karen Hughes and Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie. Stewart can tell sex jokes one minute and have a serious foreign-policy discussion with Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria the next.
 
"When I listen to Jon, he really is profoundly concerned and angry about real issues," Koppel said. "He is to television news what a really great editorial cartoonist is to a newspaper."

CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, who has interviewed Stewart and appeared on "The Daily Show," is another fan. "There's no doubt he's an important fact of life in this current political environment," Blitzer said. "Off camera, he's a very politically aware news junkie."

Stewart's humor is fueled by anger. He's the guy at home "yelling at the TV," he says. Ben Karlin, the show's executive producer, says staffers come to morning meetings ticked off about various outrages and spend the day honing their insults into lighter material.

Stewart, who has called the Iraq war a mistake, is more likely than Jay Leno or David Letterman to ridicule Bush while going easy on Kerry, the Project for Excellence in Journalism found. "He's an outstanding comedian, but clearly he does comedy from the Democratic-left perspective," Republican strategist Mike Murphy said. "A lot of people who watch Stewart and howl at the jokes already have their minds made up in the presidential race."

The secret of Stewart's appeal is that he mocks the conventions of journalism, with self-aggrandizing correspondents such as Stephen Colbert and Rob Corddry standing in front of phony backdrops or making faces while interviewing unsuspecting citizens. Stewart uses video clips to highlight the absurdity of political spinners and media talking heads.

After playing a clip of Bush hitting Kerry on taxes by saying "the rich hire lawyers and accountants for a reason, to stick you with the tab," Stewart said, "Let me get this straight: Don't tax the rich because they'll get out if it? So your policy is, tax the hardworking people because they're dumb-asses and they'll never figure it out?"

"Politics is funny, hilarious and stupid," said Jeff Jarvis, who oversees Conde Nast's online publications and maintains a blog called BuzzMachine.com. "But do you get that sense from networks and daily newspapers? Not really — we get pompous about it. Stewart brings the humor back to it. He calls politicians bozos. And then he went over the next line on 'Crossfire' and called media guys bozos."

Stewart's Oct. 15 scolding of "Crossfire" co-hosts Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala — and his calling Carlson a four-letter name — was one of those weird, awkward, riveting TV moments that more than 670,000 people downloaded from cnetnews.com within days. Stewart said the program is "hurting America" by encouraging partisans to yell at each other.

Said Carlson: "Jon Stewart is a talented comedian, and all of a sudden he wants to be Kathleen Hall Jamieson," the University of Pennsylvania author and media analyst.

"There are things wrong with cable shout-shows, definitely. There are things wrong with 'Crossfire.' What bothered me was the pomposity and sanctimony, the notion that we're the problem. He doesn't understand the role of shows like ours in the media food chain. Not only was he not funny, he was not interesting. Banal."

Stewart is somewhat stunned by the reaction: "Imagine being criticized for going on 'Crossfire' and expressing an opinion, and it wasn't an opinion that held to the left-right roles they're accustomed to scripting. I'm far more comfortable in my role as comedian. It was only a moment of honest frustration. I probably should have been more delicate."

But he is fed up with a process in which "people who are giving talking points come on these shows and are questioned by people on the other talking-pointed side. 'Crossfire' is the crack cocaine, the purest distillation of it."

Some journalists have rallied to his defense. "Jon Stewart never said he was going to renounce his standing as a smart guy who went to William and Mary, and as a sharp social critic," said NBC anchor Brian Williams, a past "Daily Show" guest who says "the din of our media" is a worthy target for criticism.

Stewart, who is especially popular with the journalists he ridicules, disappointed some of them by joking his way through much of the Kerry interview. "Is it true that every time I use ketchup your wife gets a nickel?" he asked.

He offered this explanation to Fox's Bill O'Reilly: "I am very uncomfortable going more than a couple of minutes without a laugh because the same weakness that drove me into comedy also informs my show."