The Daily Stewart Last Night
If you didn't see Jon Stewart's Monday hosting of The Daily Show last night, his Main Story was about Trump and the MAGOP's final argument before the Mid-Term election. All I'll say is that it is extremely funny. And especially hits a peak when he introduces the "Cartoonishly Evil Generator."
Nothing else is needed.
What I will add is a bonus video from the episode, his interview with author Matthew Cole, who wrote the new book, "Princes and Thieves," a detailed look at Jared Kushner.
I wasn't planning to watch, but it was so fascinating I watched the whole interview, all 26 minutes.
But it wasn't fascinating for the reason you'd likely assume. It was fascinating for two particular reasons --
One, Mr. Cole was completely humorless, which was obvious from the moment he sat down. I don't say that pejoratively, but descriptively. The book and subject were clearly profoundly important to him, and so he was deeply serious and meticulous about everything. And what made that all the more fascinating is that Stewart would periodically toss in quips throughout -- and he never a single laugh back. At most he got maybe two half-smiles. I'm not exaggerating. And again, I don't say this pejoratively. And the interview was never awkward or uncomfortable for it. It came across like Stewart understood -- but that wasn't going to stop him from being himself on a comedy show. (Though I suspect, as a comedian, he also took it as a challenge. "Man, I am getting nothing. But I am going to get him to laugh. Once.” He didn’t. As I said, it was fascinating.)
And second, Stewart's interviewing was absolutely brilliant, at a depth of knowledge and questioning you don't see by professional journalists. And what made this so fascinating is that while he loved the book, he was very open about wanting to believe it all, but wanting there to be more "direct evidence" and not just "This is what I was told by completely trusted sources." And so he asked great, hard, polite questions. To the author's credit, he never took any offense, and in fact would always say, "Fair enough" and "I understand your point."
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