I rarely find myself a fan of Jon Stewart these days. I've taken more than a few shots at him on this blog, and even more whenever Mrs. Copious and I get on the subject. But when Jon Stewart is right, like he is in the video below, he's right, and he should get credit for it. Especially from me.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| South Park Death Threats | ||||
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As someone who got his own fatwa/death threat card punched long before 9/11, when I was involved with the paperback publication of Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses, I appreciate what he's done here more than I can express as I sit with my first coffee of the morning and write this post. And hearing him make the distinction between "basically decent human beings" he disagrees with and who are "at worst, worthy adversaries" (like Bernie Goldberg and Fox News) and the real enemy is something I've waited a long time to hear from him.
Your invitation to dinner at our home is hereby reinstated, Jon, because for once, that f-bomb tag line of yours was truly deserved by its target.
RELATED: "Today, Jon Stewart—Free Speech Warrior—Is My Hero"
UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit and Left Coast Rebel readers!
ALSO RELATED: Diana West says the media left Trey Parker and Matt Stone "out to dry." David Harsanyi takes issue with "Cowardly Central." Several websites are supporting "Everybody Draw Mohammed Day," while Ann Althouse makes a good-faith case against it.
8 comments:
I agree. But it must vex him to no end that his liberal friends are silent on this issue but his tea party adversaries (and Fox) are vocal in their condemnation.
It's one thing to condemn this obvious evil. It is another to condemn the silent evil of complicity and non-action that allows evil to fester.
And I was waiting for them to show a picture of Mohammed. But we are far to gone for that.
I disagree that Stewart deserves any particular praise here. The veiled threats here were of the feeblest nature, not some credible threat of imminent violence. Nobody of any degree of sanity supports them. It takes no great courage to attack the people making them.
The real issue here is that his parent network has repeatedly proven itself willing to self-censor based on such feeble threats. There are always those willing to threaten free speech, but free speech isn't restricted on those threats. It's restricted due to the reaction to those threats. Comedy Central has shown itself to be a collective of cowards, willing to cede control of what it shows on its own network to whoever's willing to threaten it during any particular week. *That* is what Stewart should be criticizing.
linked copiously over at LCR....
I liked the Stewart piece, but it was still lame. Coming from a leftist though, it was better than expected.
LCR referred me over, nice job. Stewart does get it right every now and then. I will add you to my blog roll!
I only give Stewart half props. Because all the way to the end, he never dropped the clown schtick. When he's really opposed to something, and unafraid to be so, he drops the clown schtick.
Now if he had wrapped it up with a profanity chanting muezzin rather than a gospel group, then I would have said he had guts. Instead for all his talk he completely wimped out at the end and instead picked on the safe Christians again.
Yup Stewart was a wimp. But now Chris Muir deserves a medal!
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