On His Biggest Test Thus Far, Jon Stewart Failed Embarrassingly

For someone who has made a name for himself by criticizing the media’s role (or lack thereof) in political affairs, Jon Stewart could be provided no better moment to highlight the complicity of every mainstream news company with the corporate-military elite than the reported death of Osama bin Laden. From the special announcement from the president (during which he recited the ending of the Pledge of Allegiance), to the James-Bond-esque narrative of the covert operation, to the fetishization of the weaponry and tactics, the major news providers have served up a feast of satire-worthy material on a silver platter. Yet, Stewart chose to ignore this golden opportunity and instead join the jingoistic and patriarchical orgy, offering not sober critical commentary but an embarrassing contribution to the national pep rally.

“I am way too close to this whole episode to be rational about this,” Jon Stewart said last Monday night, prefacing what became a shamefully chauvinistic, misogynistic, and hawkish on-air outburst in which he not only apologized for the military interventions he has made a living critiquing but celebrated their violence in puerile jubilation, complete with a graphic depicting Florida as America’s erect penis with testicles descending into the Gulf of Mexico. Indeed, rationalism was nowhere to be found in such an ignominious and irresponsible display. The question, then, arises: why say anything that you know to be irrational to such a large and credulous audience?

For the Daily Show, a “news” outlet that prides itself on shining a light on the complicity and hypocrisy of other “news” outlets, to subject its viewers to such a humiliating parade of machismo and eye-roll-inducing anachronistic catchphrases (“we’re back, baby!”) is, while not disillusioning (Stewart has no real responsibility for the content, since he’s “just a comedian,” after all) wholeheartedly disappointing. What a sad day when a satirist becomes as deplorable as the subject of the satire.

As to the expression “we’re back, baby!” several questions jump to mind. First, who’s “we”? I for one have been barely scraping by with little savings and scant health insurance since earning a master’s degree in 2006. I didn’t vote for any of these wars, I didn’t vote to fund the military (as if that were up for vote!), and I have no access to making political decisions on any level sufficient to slow or radically alter the global empire, let alone dismantle it. Yes, I do benefit from the global empire, which affords me a gasoline-based infrastructure, air conditioning, and bananas in January, but I, like 99% of Americans, have no stake in decision-making concerning actions that affect humans and other animals quite negatively, such as offshore drilling, the production of chemical pesticides, and factory farming—just to name a few.

“We” are back? When were “we,” the 99% of us who are wage-slave bullet fodder, winning? And now that Bin Laden is reportedly dead, I suppose I should celebrate the return to the great and prosperous ‘90s, when corporations were deregulated, military interventions were being launched in the Middle East and Eastern Europe, the World Trade Organization was bankrupting Latin America, and the US earned the glorious distinction of being the industrialized nation with the highest percentage of its population in prison?

And for that matter, is the US global empire really “back”? Or, is it the more likely case that this episode is one of many last gasps of an empire dwindling in coherence, sputtering, as it were, on drying oil fields? Many, including University of Texas journalism professor Robert Jensen, think the latter. In a recent interview with Alex Doherty of the New Left Project, Jensen contextualizes the corporate media / corporate government response to bin Laden’s alleged death: “So, any action by the empire-in-decline that rekindles notions of old glory and power is likely to be very popular and lead to that jingoism. The trajectory of the United States is clear—a failing economy can be masked temporarily by continued violence, but a large military cannot alone sustain an empire.”

“Last night was a good night—not just for New York or D.C.—but for human people,” Jon Stewart said during this shameful episode. Well, as a human person, I, for one, fail to see how the extrajudicial nighttime murder of a foreign dissident never formally charged with any crime is good for me or anyone else. Call me punctilious, but I refuse to say “hooray” for global empire, especially one carried out in my name. The killing of one more person doesn’t really help anyone, since none of the root causes of this cycle of violence and repression have been eliminated; ongoing wars are still needed to secure raw materials for the oil-based empire; and since guerrilla tactics give dissidents the greatest advantage, terrorism against military and civilian targets will only continue, leading to more military build-up on the part of the US, and so on ad infinitum.

So, I shall not revel in the death of one suspected terrorist. Rather, I will hold my celebration for a point when people like bin Laden are irrelevant or, better yet, don’t exist in the first place, both because there is no cause to fight against global military repression and because there is no need to invoke superstitious illusions to ameliorate real suffering. As for Jon Stewart, he should worry about appearing on any other show, lest the host give him a taste of his own medicine. Even for someone who’s not a “serious journalist,” watching oneself fawn over the military-corporate elite’s prowess in an elaborate rape metaphor (what do we suppose the US is to do with its erect Florida?) must (or at least should) be humiliating.

Reposted with permission from Deemable.