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Jon Stewart conducts a very fair interview about the bailouts Some right-wing Americans got very upset when Jon Stewart, the TV comedy/news guy, monstered the CNBC “Mad Money” front-man Jim Cramer a few months ago. They had a point; it is clear that at least in some of his shows, Stewart tacks left. But whether unwittingly or otherwise, he was very fair in an interview recently with Peter Schiff – who by the way is possibly running for political office. Mr Schiff is a hard-money capitalist, an attacker of the Fed, of the bailouts of Bush/Obama. I wrote about him a while back. And Schiff used the platform of this very popular show to beat the drum for free markets, sound money, and getting rid of the Fed.
Good for Jon Stewart, at least on this occasion, for giving Schiff a platform.
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Agreed – though it must be added that “dislikes Bush” is almost certainly what qualified Mr. Schiff to appear on the show rather than “has an interesting/informative perspective.” Not that that’s any problem for me: the sooner the public can hear the message that Mr. Bush was in no way a champion of free markets the better. To hear the MSM tell it, America was the closest thing to a lasseiz-faire society the world has ever seen ca. 2006. More free-marketers should leverage Bush-hatred to get invitations to speak in places like this.
I think this is a good sign. There have been a few such lately: the interview in which Lew Rockwell starts teaching Naomi Wolfe about economics (they still have a way to go, but she was receptive and asked intelligent questions), and now this.
Just a slight correction, as Kramer is a huge Democrate right wingers were not the ones objecting, but his fans certainly were. I don’t see Kramer lasting much longer.
The truth has already been irretrievably lost to the mantra, not only of the hard left, but of most of the media too, that laissez faire capitalism and free markets caused the crash.
I know, you know, and I daresay that most Samizdata contributors know that Bush/Brown were both big government interventionists supporting a corrupt crony capitalist system. Unfortunately, this truth will be denied by the left, and inaccessible to the average uninformed and uninterested citizen.
We have just witnessed the creation of a powerful new urban myth.
Peter Schiff is certainly correct in his analysis, but in our increasingly ignorant and ideological society truth is no longer an absolute it is a concensus.
Stewart knows the stars aligned for him.
Another format, another time, another President, and we might never have known Jon’s name. There are huge numbers of able people reaching for the few brass rings in comedy.
He was virtually unknown until he tried smugly mocking news; at first he aimed at the Bush administration and little else.
I always thought he was also ridiculing the pretentious of media anchors and pundits.
It wasn’t an act of astonishing originality. Saturday Night Live has done it for thirty years. MadTV, MTV, and others did variations.
He or his producers and advisers (you never know) realize extreme bias to the left can’t work forever. Or to the right. They have had a nice run catering mostly to the left.
Now he can’t dodge reality, O and the Democrats are making the news and supplying the action in US politics. Either he jabs at them, sometimes vigorously, or his show will fade to nothing.
The point about Jim Cramer is that “Jon Stewart” (why this guy so ashamed of his real name?) never attacked him before Cramer expressed dissent about the policies of Barack Obama.
More seriously the CEO of General Electric (which has had HUNDREDS OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS in debt support from the government) personally went to CNBC to tell the staff to stop dissenting from the wild spending polices of President Obama – and to support the “Green” agenda that G.E. is going to get even more subsidies from.
Silence from the left (including Jon Stewart) about all this Corporate Welfare and corporate brainwashing of the public.
Mainstream media comedy people said their endless attacks on President Bush showed their courage in attacking those in power.
And since the comming to power of Barack Obama they main targets of David Letterman and co have been……..
George Bush – well at least he is ex President.
And Sarah Palin and the Palin children……….
Many comedians see themselves as “libertarian” to some extent. Maher, Stewart, Letterman to name some. They embody much of the socially liberal aspects that many libertarians have, but they are completely Statist when it comes to economic matters. They, just like all Statists, buy hook, line, and sinker that centralized economies will bring about a fairer and happier people. They fail to realize that economic liberty is the FIRST and most important liberty of all, and without it no other free action and behaviour by an individual is possible.
Paul, that’s the first I’ve heard of the CEO of GE ordering CNBC to stop attacking Obama’s policies. Are you certain of that? Can you cite a source; I’d like to read more of the details. Thanks.
Jon Stewart’s like Status Quo – a one chord wonder. I’ll be interested to see how long he can avoid making jokes about Obama.
It is still unfolding, Laird. Here are some randomly selected links. My guesstimate is that GE can’t lie about it because they don’t know what evidence or statements about the alleged meeting are in the public record. Since it was brought up at a shareholders meeting, lying could get them into the sights of the SEC. Therefore they are electing to threaten, intimidate, bludgeon, attack and everything else except issue an explicit denial.
http://minx.cc/?post=288232
http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2009/06/05/finke-ge-nbc-universal-stifling-media-coverage-of-company/
I don’t have time to search up more links but this should get you started.
One more.
http://www.nationalcenter.org/2009/04/her-microphone-was-cut-off-ge.html
For those of us without cable/satellite tv, the interview segment in question:
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=209897&t=01007146184382914537
or via thedailyshow.com:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=230058&title=Peter-Schiff
Jon Stewart interviews are better than most so-called journalists interviews.
I loved that interview he has with the Mad Money guy. he was playing us for suckers.
Brad – agreed. These people, for example, define liberty as their liberty to attack religion – but never as the liberty of people to practice their religion in peace.
There must be no “islands” outside of political control – “evidence Paul, evidence”.
For example – the silence of the television comics over the persecution of the Roman Catholic Church in Connecticut. First demands that Catholic Church being organized “democratically”, then when priests and Bishops spoke out against this, the State authorities started to make threats about “lobbying” from the Church.
The left (including the “liberal” left) are totalitarians – they will leave nothing outside politics. And the television comics are silent about such threats to what is left of liberty (indeed they may even regard such statism as expanding liberty – by destroying “reactionary institutions” such as churches and traditional familes and …..).
Laird:
The CEO of GE going to tell CNBC (and so on) what to do was all over the Cavuto show (Your World) and the O’Reilly Factor.
No denials.
Still I must now speak in defence of Jon Stewart’s show.
The mocking of the New York Times was good.
Talking of the (soon to be bankrupt) New York Times……
Glenn Beck (some time ago) responded to people who kept telephoning his radio show with the “FEMA is building concentration camps” story, with a big effort to expose the story as nonsense. He even got a man in from “Popular Mechanics” (the same magazine that exposed the lies of the 9/11 “Truthers” – such as the “Bush was behind 9/11” man who just murdered a guard at the museum in Washington) on to his television show to expose the FEMA story as nonsense.
And Paul Krugman had an article in yesterday’s New York Times to say that Glenn Beck (in reality the person who has attacked the “FEMA is building concentration camps” story more than anyone else) was “telling his viewers that Obama had ordered FEMA to build concentration camps”.
Paul Krugman does not just lie – he tells the exact opposite of the truth (on this and on just about everything else).
And he denounces “spreading hatred” whilst (for years) expressing fanatical hatred for all nonleftists. For example sneering at anyone who opposed the “Paradox of Thrift” and the other (also totally false) theories of “mainstream economics”.
And for his nonarguments and blatent lies – Paul Krugman gets awarded the Nobel Prize.
This should tell people all they need to know about the academic/media elite.
I’ll be interested to see how long he can avoid making jokes about Obama.
I assume that you don’t watch the Daily Show much then?
Jim Cramer was the fall guy for a series of well aimed missiles at the hypocrisy of the NBC establishment, which included CNBC, MSNBC and NBC. He’s still making fun of MSNBC which, last time I checked, was relatively left wing for a US network.
Paul: Is he ashamed of his real name? The equity rules on stage names are pretty strict, and he makes no secret of his background. A quick googling suggests that there are rather a lot of Jon Liebowitz’s out there.
You may be right about the name thing Daveon – “Jon Stewart” does seem a bit bashful about his real name, but it could really be not the name but the background (socialist – childhood hero Norman Thomas) that the man is not wildly upfront about (although, yes, he has mentioned it when asked).
Jokes against Barack Obama – more that David Letterman does (i.e. none) it is true. I suspect that Jon Stewart does not buy into this “there-is-no-God-and-his-name-is-Obama” stuff. He dislikes personality cults – and so will try and deflate them, even whilst supporting the basic line of policy.
Of course, there were socialist critics of the Machine back in Chicago – not all socialists there signed on with the Bill Ayers (charitable foundations, Community Organizations and so on) faction that got into bed with the Machine. “The Case Against Barack Obama” makes clear that not all the anti corruption people in Chicago were from the right (far from it).
However, what is this “relatively left wing for a American network” stuff?
MSNBC is far left and has been for years.
And most American networks are on the left – although ABC has a few nonleftists (such as John Stossel).
Even Fox News has many leftists working for it (check the financial contributions made to the Obama campaign) although it is has nonleftists like Bill O’Reilly (his politics are so all over the place he can not really be put into any box), formally fairly quiet conservatives like Neil Cavuto (someone who really went open about his political opinions at the time of TARP – which so disgusted him that he opposed not only Bush, but also the head of News International on the matter) and, now, the semi libertarian Glenn Beck.
Glenn Beck does seem to really irritate the left – perhaps because of his long history of opposing various Bush policies (so they can not say “Bush stooge” about him).
The recent lies by Paul Krugman in the New York Times were a good example of the death-to-Glenn-Beck mantra
Krugman even claimed that Beck told his viewers that “FEMA is building concentration camps” – whereas in reality Beck opposed that internet story more than anyone else has. Attacking radio callers who brought it up – and even running a several week long attack on the people behind the story (bringing in people from Popular Mechanics to expose the story as nonsense – by the way the same magazine that exposed the “Bush was behind 9/11” “truther” trash such as the one that just murdered a guard at the Washington museum).
To claim that the radio and television man who has attacked the “FEMA concentration camps” story more than anyone else, as a supporter of the story is, well, desperate dishonesty – even by the standards of the scum who make up the New York Times.
In fact it is MSNBC level dishonesty.
For those who do not know, Barack and Michelle Obama were part of the corrupt faction of the Chicago socialists.
They did all they could to support the Machine – even against fellow socialists who wanted to oppose the corruption, which both Barack and Michelle Obama benefitted from both politically and financially.
Oh I forgot to mention…….
Barack Obama just fired the Inspector General – in violation of a 30 days notice and only with specific cause statute than then Senator Obama supported into law only last year (i.e. as a campaign move).
The Insepector General was fired after he started to investigate the financial corruption of Mayor Johnson of Sacramento, a long time Obama crony who has been stealing from taxpayers via one of these “public service” organizations Obama loves so much.
I wonder if Jon Stewart will run with this story (he might – as it is about personal corruption rather than attack on socialism as such). I doubt the mainstream “media cult” (as opposed to media corps) will cover he story.
Remember Barack Obama is not just a far left person with a Marxist background – he is also just a bad, criminal, guy. He should be in prison.