Posts tagged MSNBC

Image by jacdupree via Flickr

Just before the elec­tion, Jon Stew­art and Stephen Col­bert held a mon­ster rally on the mall. Stew­art dubbed it a “Rally for San­ity” but nobody was sure what to expect… over-​​the-​​top crazi­ness, wicked lam­poon­ing of the right-​​wing, silly polit­i­cal skits? How­ever, it turned out to be just as billed. It was a seri­ous attempt to restore san­ity and even a mea­sure of civil­ity to the national polit­i­cal dis­course. Per­haps the most mem­o­rable line from Stewart’s speech was, “When we amplify every­thing, we hear nothing.”

Some on the left, par­tic­u­larly the com­men­ta­tor lineup at MSNBC, were stung by what they per­ceived as crit­i­cism from Jon Stew­art. Soon after­ward Rachel Mad­dow called him out (though in a fairly low-​​key man­ner) for what she per­ceived as his “unfair­ness,” which resulted in Stew­art call­ing her book­ers and request­ing a one-​​hour sit-​​down to explain his views. It was a fas­ci­nat­ing inter­view.

In essence it boiled down to Stew­art chid­ing the left-​​leaning prime­time MSNBC polit­i­cal lineup for being overly par­ti­san and even mean-​​spirited in some of its crit­i­cisms of the right… and Mad­dow say­ing “but FOX does it first!…and they’re worse”…and Stew­art gen­tly explain­ing (as your mother used to when you had squab­bles at school) that just because you’re being reac­tive doesn’t make it the proper thing to do, and so what if FOX does it, we should be bet­ter than they are…

So what do you all think of Jon Stewart’s lofty vision? I often won­der if it’s nec­es­sary or even wise to ele­vate the dis­course. It seems to me it’s been pretty down and dirty for as long as there’s been pol­i­tics, and some of the polit­i­cal car­toons and broad­sheets from a hun­dred years ago would curl your hair. Canada is a famously polite nation, but the pol­i­tics get down­right vicious here as well. I sus­pect maybe vig­or­ous, no-​​holds-​​barred polit­i­cal dis­course is a sort of cathar­sis for par­ti­san neg­a­tiv­ity, and pos­si­bly even nec­es­sary for a healthy democracy.

Which side is worse when it comes to dirt-​​slinging? And should one side uni­lat­er­ally dis­arm (as Jon Stew­art would pre­fer) in hopes the other will fol­low suit? I think the big prob­lem for both sides lies in the title of my piece. You can try to be nice, you can resolve to be high-​​minded and cour­te­ous and civil… but then some­body threat­ens your lit­tle dog and it just pushes your but­tons, and the war is on. I’d be inter­ested in hear­ing what pushes YOUR but­tons, par­tic­u­larly. Let’s ignore Jon Stew­art for a while and air some of these grievances.

What do peo­ple on the other side do that just dri­ves you nuts? Maybe we’re not even aware of things that induce a hos­tile knee-​​jerk reac­tion in our oppo­si­tion, and if we knew, we’d stop doing it. (Or not… )

Come on, peo­ple. We’re all friends here. For just a lit­tle while…let’s AMPLIFY!!!

Related Arti­cles

• Jon Stew­art To Appear On Rachel Mad­dow Show (lezge​treal​.com)
• Jon Stew­art Explains His Prob­lem With Cable News (observer​.com)
• Rachel Mad­dow & Jon Stew­art Seek Jour­nal­is­tic Soul By Gaz­ing Into Each Other’s Navels (medi​aite​.com)
• The Maddow/​Stewart Inter­view (sec​u​lar​shaw​shank​.word​press​.com)
• Rachel Mad­dow Gets Ambushed By Jon Stew­art [Video] (realestat​era​diousa​.com)
• Rachel Mad­dow Clashes, Civilly, With Jon Stew­art In Hour’s Worth Of Inter­view Excerpts (huff​in​g​ton​post​.com)
• Mad­dow vs. Stew­art: They’re Both Right (athe​istrev​.com)