Watching Jon Stewart

That was almost uncomfortable near the end. Like watching a snuff movie.

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Agreed.

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I only caught it about 2/3rds of the way through and wondered what horrible manbaby had been thrust upon Jon Stewart. Afterwards I googled him up and sure enough, platinum-grade bastard. can’t wait for the extended interview to pop up!

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Also this just confirmed for me (along with the John Yoo interview) that Stewart is just too nice an interview sometimes. I mean even when he’s being forceful like with this one, he looked so crestfallen and apologetic at the end. He was genuinely sorry the interview wasn’t more “fair,” as if that applies to a debate in which one participant simply makes the same logically flawed argument again and again.

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Honestly I felt bad for the guy by the end. While Jon is an incredibly intelligent and sharp interviewer, I could see him giving the highlight of his point then diverting to a different point before letting Marc have a chance to respond.

I know as an entertainer he has to make sure they hit all the highlights of Marc’s completely stupid argument but watching it from a strictly analytical perspective, Marc really got walked over and managed to take it with a fairly respectable amount of composure, all things considered.

It still doesn’t make his point in any way valid or defensible. I would just have liked Jon give Marc a little more rope and let him hang himself rather than do all the work himself.

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The guy he had on Monday night, Harry Markopolos, was a pretty unlikeable too, albeit for more benevolent reasons. You’d think a guy who tried to act as whistleblower for the hedge fund fraud would be an easy sell, but I think he lost everyone around when he claimed that Madoff would have had his family hunted down and killed. The sad thing was just how hard Stewart was trying to save Markopolos from himself throughout.

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Dan: While Jon is an incredibly intelligent and sharp interviewer, I could see him giving the highlight of his point then diverting to a different point before letting Marc have a chance to respond.

Did you see the same interview I did? Thiessen would rarely stop talking, often going from one point he wanted to make to another without giving Stewart a chance to respond. And then he’d complain that he was the one not getting a chance to speak.

Stewart got his turns, but usually only by having to interrupt Thiessen’s streams.

And at the end, with his “You mean I won’t get to make my points on the air?” crap, Stewart should have just said “OK, we’ll just end the interview right here then.” and denied Thiessen any more time.

Let me guess, “WATB” was originally created to refer to Thiessen.

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Watching the extended interview online… yeah, I have to generally agree the guy is a dick. The whole ‘shouting over one another’ bits got a little annoying, to be honest, but.. from what I can tell, the thrust of his argument is that rule of law is less important than containment of perceived threats. He might not put it that way, but that does seem to be more or less the gist of it.

Likely, there’s more to it than that, although I am perhaps giving him too much credit. Certainly he didn’t seem to have any faith whatsoever that should Guantanamo prisoners be charged and tried that they would be guilty, which is curious to say the least. But when it comes down to it, the debate is not a new one; freedom versus security. What rights are you willing to sacrifice – not just for yourself, but notably for others – in order to increase your sense of, but perhaps not actual security?

In the end, I suspect the best answer you can give such people is that if you wish to feel truly secure, you must first foster an environment in which that feels like a good thing; if you give up what you stand for in order to remain standing, one might argue you’ve missed the point.

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I sort of felt like Stewart was trying to avoid a repeat of the John Yoo interview. Stewart’s indicated that he was disappointed about being unable to really illustrate how specious Yoo’s arguments actually are, and I thought he was a little more aggressive this time around on this related topic. I couldn’t believe that Thiessen actually whined on-camera about losing the argument. Great interview by Stewart, it’s always a joy to watch his rational and informed debate style.

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He literally talked for two minutes about how he wasn’t able to get any points out on the air because Jon “talked right through” him…

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I wish that Stewart (or anyone for that matter) would answer the statement that “We know they are dangerous” or “We know they are guilty” with “How do you know? Have you seen any evidence?”

I’m with MarvinAndroid above in agreeing that his entire argument was “They’re guilty because they were accused”.

Frankly, I’d love to see Obama just have a bunch of these morons rounded up, declare them “enemy combatants” and throw them in Gitmo and see how that goes. I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t be all “They’re guilty because they were accused” then, now would they.

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Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon. Jon.

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