3
" And this, this, is their genius. Conservatives are not looking to make education more rigorous and informative, or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan, ideological, conservative viewpoint. "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
6
" But the point is: On the right, they’re pretending that our “truthfulness” is what’s really important to them. Which, ironically, is not true. What matters to them is discrediting anything that they believe harms their side. That is their prime directive. And unlike Kirk, they fuckin’ stick with it. They don’t just drop the protocol any time they feel like humping a green girl in a unitard. [video clip of Captain Kirk, pursuing a green girl in a unitard]
And this, this, is their genius. Conservatives are not looking to make education more rigorous and informative, or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan, ideological, conservative viewpoint.
~ Jon Stewart "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
7
" Bullshit is everywhere.” (...) Then there’s the more pernicious bullshit… It comes in three flavors: Making bad things sound good… “Patriot Act.” Because “Are You Scared Enough to Let Me Look at All Your Phone Records Act” doesn’t sell… Number two: hiding bad things under mountains of bullshit. “Hey, a handful of billionaires can’t buy our elections, right?” “Of course not. They can only pour unlimited, anonymous cash into a 501( c)( 4) if 50 percent is devoted to ‘issue education’”… And finally, my favorite: the bullshit of infinite possibility… “We cannot take action on climate change until everyone in the world agrees gay marriage vaccines won’t cause our children to marry goats who are coming for our guns. Until then, I say we teach the controversy.”
So I say to you, friends: The best defense against bullshit is vigilance. So if you smell something, say something.
~Jon Stewart "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
8
" It’s very easy to figure out Trump’s ideology. He’s not racist and sexist to this incredible degree. He’s Trumpist. He views the world through the prism of, “How do they view Trump?” If you view Trump positively, you’re good people. “Putin, hey, he likes the Trump, I like the Putin.” That’s all he is. His doctrine is the Trump Doctrine. If another country is nice to him, he will be nice to that country. If the country thinks he’s an idiot, “Fuck them. That’s a pussy country. They don’t know shit about anything. That country changed its name from a Jewish name. "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
9
" One day before he left, Jon called me into his office and he had a pair of shoes and he said, “What do you think of these shoes?” And I said, “Oh, they’re good shoes.” He said, “What size are you?” I said, “I’m a size eleven.” He said, “I’m a size eight.” And he said, “Will these fit you?” And I said, “No.” And he said, “Don’t let anyone ever tell you, you can’t fill my shoes. You’re not meant to fill them.”
~ TREVOR NOAH "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
13
" Stephen Colbert: [sitting to Stewart’s right at the anchor desk] Actually, Jon, we’re not quite done.
Jon Stewart: [rolling away from Colbert on his chair and nearly toppling off the riser] Don’t do this.
Stephen Colbert: [rolling after Stewart and grabbing him by the arm] No—you can’t stop anyone, because they don’t work for you anymore! Huge mistake!
Jon Stewart: Please don’t do this.
Stephen Colbert: Here’s the thing: You said to me and to many other people here years ago never to thank you, because we owe you nothing.
Jon Stewart: [quietly] That’s right.
Stephen Colbert: It’s one of the few times I’ve known you to be dead wrong… We owe you because we learned from you, by example, how to do a show with intention, with clarity. How to treat people with respect. You are infuriatingly good at your job, okay? [Stewart covers his eyes, which appear to be filled with tears] And all of us who were lucky enough to work with you—and you can edit this out later—for sixteen years are better at our jobs because we got to watch you do yours. And we are better people for having known you… Personally, I do not know how this son of a poor, Appalachian turd miner—I do not know what I would do if you hadn’t brought me on this show. I’d be back in those hills, mining turds with Pappy!
Jon—and it’s almost over—I know you are not asking for this, but on behalf of so many people whose lives you changed over the past sixteen years, thank you. And now, I believe your line—correct me if I’m wrong—is “We’ll be right back. "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
14
" That was perfect, because Tracey knows Jon better than anybody, and what he might really want, and what he’s capable of saying he wants. Plus, also, I think in the back of both my head and Stephen’s was, if Jon is really pissed afterward, we can say, “Hey, Tracey said it was okay!”
STEPHEN COLBERT: Find somebody to throw under the bus—that’s the first rule of show business. "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
16
" Stewart, with the help of his incredibly astute staff, was combining reporting with commentary, pointing a finger at stupidity and hollowness, and devising a creative hand grenade. All of it had political purpose and direction. It wasn’t strictly ideological, although he’s obviously left of center. And he was fearless, not in the sense that anybody was going to make him a political prisoner. But he punched up. He punched up, and the shots landed.
I don’t think the world is any more absurd now than it’s ever been, or more tragic, or more beautiful. But Jon took advantage of these new ways of seeing the world and took out his magic marker and drew circles around the idiocy. He set out to be a working comedian, and he ended up an invaluable patriot. He wants his country to be better, more decent, and to think harder.
~ DAVID REMNICK, editor in chief, the New Yorker "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
19
" The outlandish 2000 election and Bush’s victory had come along at the perfect time, helping Stewart, the correspondents, and the writers sharpen The Daily Show’s tone of bemused mockery. The next world-changing events would have just as big an effect—and a late-night, basic cable comedy show would become an unlikely outlet for mourning, an antidote to anxiety, and gradually a center of principled, patriotic dissent. "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
20
" Bush, it will go down in history, it’s unbelievable that guy was president. Unbelievable. I’m sure, I’m 100 percent sure, in one hundred years, in one thousand years if society’s still standing, they’re going to say, “That guy was president? Like, what?” I know that to be a fact. RORY "
― , The Daily Show (The Audiobook): An Oral History as Told by Jon Stewart, the Correspondents, Staff and Guests
