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Tuesday, May 13th, 2008

Oh, so THAT’S what journalism looks like!

It happened again: I saw a piece on TV last night that gave me hope for the Fourth Estate. Last time, it was an investigative report. This time, it was an interview. Both times, it was on The Daily Show.

Jon Stewart interviewed Doug Feith last night for over 20 minutes. I only saw the ten miniutes that aired but…

I was stunned by how good Jon Stewart was in that interview. He was polite and respectful, and he didn’t play stupid “gotcha” games. (I admire his self control, too: I probably would have punched Feith in the face. I think a fair punishment would be one punch for every 100 soldiers who’ve died in Iraq minus one for every single WMD found there: I calculate that at about 40 punches.)

But without violence and without yelling or cutting off Feith’s mike, Stewart hit the big issues that really matter. He hit them hard and stayed on them and came back to them when Feith contradicted earlier statements. He brought in other quotes from administration officials for context, and he called Feith out on all of his bullshit.

I agree with Athenae over at First Draft (linked above): Stewarts’s use of metaphor and comparison framed the issues in clear, concrete terms that everyone can understand instead of relying on vacuous phrases and meaningless soundbites. He made it personal, too, with statements like “I feel like I was lied to” and “No, I clearly remember what was going on in the run up to the war, and I’m pretty sure most Americans do, too.” He was an excellent spokesman for the American people– even though he never crowned himself as such (like the “real” political pundits do).

In short, Stewart was absolutely fucking brilliant. I haven’t seen an interview like that since…well, Stewart’s interview of Josh Bolton, actually.

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