Softball

I suppose it goes without saying this bird is a devoted "Daily Show" fan, and I think Jon Stewart is a good interviewer. But even at that, some of them are not going to be gems. Back in like 1999 he interviewed two of the Spice Girls, and they told him "we don't think you're funny." (Yes, well, who's still got a career? You guys or Jon? Hint: calling yourself "Baby Spice" puts a ceiling on how old you can get and still be popular. So does having no talent and a gimmicky public persona.)

So, on Tuesday, Jon interviewed Chris Matthews, he of "Hardball" fame, who, surprisingly if you take the title of his show seriously, did not show up prepared to play hardball. I wish I could link to the video on YouTube, but Viacom won't let me. Copyright and all.

If you missed this, Matthews was promoting his new book, the thesis of which is that you should live your life as if it's a constant political campaign. Pretend to listen to people, "attack" people where you see an opening, go around buttering people up insincerely, whatever. Jon felt, I think correctly, that this was a terrible idea, and wanted to debate the issue with Matthews.

Matthews was plainly caught totally off guard, thereby proving that he has never watched Jon's appearance on "Crossfire" from a few years ago. Carlson and Begala, on that occasion, clearly thought Jon would show up, be nice to them, clown around, and everyone would be chummy and nothing bad would happen. Instead, Jon was highly critical of the show ("you're hurting America," he said), and Carlson and Begala were sort of left stammering defenses of their show, which was canceled a few months later (it seems to be widely assumed that Jon played a role in that).

So how Chris Matthews could go on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart's home turf, and expect to be allowed to talk drivel and have Jon just sit there and go "that's very interesting, and I'm so honored you're here," is an interesting question. So here's what I think.

I think Matthews lives in Beltway Land. He's part of that social circle of Beltway media and political types, and generally it's a very close-knit circle. Generally when one of them has a book to promote, the others are more than happy to help, in exchange for the same favor the next time they have something to promote. It's a happy family, a bit of a mutual-admiration society. I really really don't think that's how politics and media--especially media--ought to work, but it's clear that most of the time it does.

And actually, that's what I like about Jon Stewart. It's clear that he thinks, and says what he thinks, and values his freedom to do so more highly than he does Chris Matthews's approval or the social harmony of the D.C. cocktail circuit. That this would amaze someone like Chris Matthews just goes to show how badly we need Jon.

The most ironic thing was that one of Matthews's protestations (along with comparing Jon to Zell Miller, the completely unhinged then-senator who challenged Matthews to a duel on the air in 2004) involved claiming that he had wrongly assumed Jon would not be afraid of him. This strikes me as exactly backwards. I think he assumed Jon would be afraid of him, or at least afraid not to be deferential to him. In fact, Jon was fearless, and said things that, in Chris Matthews's world, you're not supposed to say. In Chris Matthews's world, if you're in good standing with the establishment, you should be able to promote your book without anyone disagreeing with anything in it.

I don't want to live in that world. I'm glad Jon doesn't either.