Personally I got a lot of "yes, exactly" moments out of this article's focus on Jon Stewart. But I think the article would have been more effective if they had compared Jon Stewart to Keith Olbermann (I'm a fangirl, of course I'd think that) because Keith is intellectual and educated while still using the exact passion and moral outrage they're talking about here.
Scornful criticism of KO from the left is rarely about the facts of his argument. It's almost always about how his yelling and name-calling make the rest of us look silly. This is a thorn in my side, because while it's true emotional arguments are not automatically more correct than intellectual ones, I'm heartily sick of the idea that displaying emotion or being "undignified" - all girly-like - automatically disqualifies you from the conversation.
Jon plays this card all the time, IMO. He has chummy debates with Bill O'Reilly and Mike Huckabee, thereby validating their bizarre opinions and making them appear reasonable, all because they make a show of being entertaining enough to be on The Daily Show. Meanwhile KO, who is much smarter and more thoughtful then O'Reilly and Huckabee, will probably never appear on TDS because his displays of emotion make Jon uncomfortable.
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Date: 2011-10-27 04:04 am (UTC)Scornful criticism of KO from the left is rarely about the facts of his argument. It's almost always about how his yelling and name-calling make the rest of us look silly. This is a thorn in my side, because while it's true emotional arguments are not automatically more correct than intellectual ones, I'm heartily sick of the idea that displaying emotion or being "undignified" - all girly-like - automatically disqualifies you from the conversation.
Jon plays this card all the time, IMO. He has chummy debates with Bill O'Reilly and Mike Huckabee, thereby validating their bizarre opinions and making them appear reasonable, all because they make a show of being entertaining enough to be on The Daily Show. Meanwhile KO, who is much smarter and more thoughtful then O'Reilly and Huckabee, will probably never appear on TDS because his displays of emotion make Jon uncomfortable.