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Maddow: I think that you think of it differently, but I think a lot of people who watch your show and who watch cable news think of what we do as not that different. Even if you’re not launching it in the same way, it’s being received in the same way, and the barriers between what’s actually happening on cable news and what you’re satirizing were not seen as being that different; does that worry you?

Stewart: “It doesn’t worry me...there has been a form of me around forever, a comedian who, with political and social context, criticizes them from a haughty and ultimately feckless perch...the box that I’m in has always existed [my immediate thought was “yes, the court jester”]. The box that you’re talking about I think is new. So I do think, if that’s moving more toward me, that’s okay. But I really feel like I’m on pretty solid ground with the footsteps of my ancestors, I don’t happen if the Smothers Brothers don’t happen...those guys all paved a way for what I do.

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Stewart (about his rally): The intention is to say that we’ve all bought into that the conflict in this country is left and right...and all the news networks have bought into that. CNN kind of started it, they had the idea that the fight in Washington is Republicans/Democrats, so why don’t we isolate that, and we’ll stand back here and Democrats and Republicans will go at it....and what it does is amplifies a division that I actually don’t think is the right fight...But if what you’re asking me is, do I believe that...no. But what I do believe is that both sides have their way of shutting down debate. And the news networks have allowed these two sides to become the fight in the country. And I think the fight in the country is corruption versus not corruption, extremist versus regular folks.

Maddow: But what’s the leftie way of shutting down?

[he spoke about a clip with a woman holding up a sign saying Bush was a war criminal at a meeting]

Stewart: Okay, you’ve said that Bush is a war criminal. That may be technically true. In my world, the war criminal is Pol Pot. Again, we have to define our terms. And I think that’s such an incendiary charge that, when you put it into a conversation—-well, maybe technically he is—-but it feels like a conversation stopper, not a conversation starter....I would be surprised then that Barack Obama didn’t fall into that rubric. Extraordinary rendition still goes on. There are things that are going on which come under the same definitions, is it as clear cut as “yeah, waterboarding? Did I do that? Yeah, sure, happy to do it again.” Well, FDR interned 120,000 Japanese Americans. Is he a war criminal? If you say he’s a war criminal, that’s kind of an incendiary thing, and that kind of a conversation ender. So I view it as something that is done for emotional impact, something that should be discussed, but in a way that takes into context other Presidents, what war really is, others that have been accused of war crimes, what they are, is George Bush Saddam Hussein? My problem is that it’s become tribal, and if you have 24-hour networks that focus, their job is to highlight the conflict between two side, or...I don’t think that’s the main conflict in our society. That was the point of the rally, to deflate the idea that-—that’s a real conflict, red and blue, but I feel there’s a bigger difference between people who have kids and people who don’t have kids.


Maddow: I see your point, but it’s not being done with the same authority...the Second Amendment thing? That’s being done by people who are running for office...

Stewart: But how did you handle town hall meetings when people interrupted, with the same level of dismissiveness? [going back to the woman with the sign] Or did you handle it with “what’s going on here?” “Who are these angry people?”

Maddow: Well, my coverage about that was about it being organized...

Stewart: But your coverage of it was to delegitimize it, that it was actually not real, that it was Astroturf.

Maddow: No. My coverage of it was to ay that “this is a widespread political tactic”

Steart: Would you say that the block of coverage on MSNBC was dismissive of the woman who stands up and says Bush is a war criminal, or the people at the town hall? Do you think they were viewed through the same prism?

Maddow: I think that they were viewed with a proportional...[THERE. See where she’s not hearing him?] Because I think that Code Pink is like 12 people, whereas literally half of Indiana says they identify with the Tea Party...

Stewart: Again, they SAY they identify with the Tea Party, what does that mean? Identify how? Identify with the idea that they like smaller government? Or identify with yelling in a town hall?

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Stewart: You’re one great voice, but I’m a climate scientist...I study weather patterns. Networks are not meant to be viewed in aggregate, but there is an aggregate, there is an effect. I’m one 22-minute show, when I say ... that is not then reinforced through the next person, it’s not a relay. And there is an amplifying effect to the relay.

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We have a tendency to grant amnesty to people we agree with and to overly-demonize people we don’t. Everyone does it, we do it. But Bill Clinton, if he were a Republican, would be strung up. But they like him. Clarence Thomas was accused of kind of the same thing...sexual harassment. But everybody jumps into “But that was fabricated, the Clinton thing...but the Clarence Thomas thing really happened, and they were so mean to that lady... But it all comes from the perspective of defending you guy and defending your turf. But what I’m saying is let’s stop just defending team mates, but get an organization with the kind of heart and the kind of teamwork, and the intelligence you guys have and look at it from a slightly different perspective, such as not necessarily “we’re sane, they’re crazy”, but “corruption is everywhere, but the left and the right aren’t the only things that matter...

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Stewart: Didn’t you hate when the Republicans use the phrase Democrat, as in The DemocRAT Party? Or, when you spoke out against the war, there was the subtle undertone of “You’re un-American.” Well, I think tat what also comes out sometimes, from the other side, is Teabagger. Now that’s I think, derogatory, and I don’t think anybody would mistake it for anything other than that. And it’s been used on this network quite frequently, by hosts, buy guests

Maddow: You don’t think it’s funny, that they were calling “Tea bat the White House before it Tea Bags you”?

Stewart: I think it was funny for a day.

Maddow: Funny enough to play the John Waters’ clip of the tea bagging thing...

Stewart: For a day. Probably wouldn’t have fun with it with guests and things for months....you made hay of it, you made more hay of it than...

Maddow: Took the joke too far.

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