Dog On Fire

Here's a question nobody is asking: what is Jon Stewart lying about?

Last week and through even today, all the best news and information sites have been following the Brian-Williams-is-such-a-fucking-liar stories. What followed was a lot of white-hot media autofellatio, undertaken with all the extreme depths and heights of both vigor and loathing one can only inspire in oneself. I can only imagine the simultaneous sanctimony and heartbreak of those covering the "story" for only being able to spit out a six-month suspension without pay. I don't know what they could have expected though. Given their whiplash mood-swings, the only thing that seemed to have been able to satiate all of their complicated needs would have been a public flaying-alive followed by the erection of an enormous statue to his sainted memory where media types could gather and shake their heads slowly at the way he was hounded to death by "Them." There would be such a funeral procession. And really great ratings.

So BriWi sidesteps getting fired for a long-term pattern of publicly proclaiming things he knew to be untrue--the polar and diametric opposite of his position description--in favor of a vacation where he has to somehow get by on the tens of millions of dollars he's already been paid. And then just like a week later, "coincidentally," Jon Stewart announces that he's totally leaving his position at "The Daily Show." No bullshit hiatus like Williams or like Stewart's own self-imposed one a year or so ago so he could go make that one movie nobody saw about, I think, faloodeh.* He's gonzo. For realsy this time. Never to be seen again! You know, in September maybe. Or later. Who can say really?

All I'm saying is Brian Williams, an actual news person, tells giant and easily controvertible porkies and gets a largely self-imposed slap on the wrist. Imagine what Jon Stewart would have had to have done in order to be thrown off his own show, one on which he is also the executive producer and on which he has told you, like lots of times, that he is specifically not a journalist. Whatever it is, it's so bad, he's been forced to trot out the "I want to spend more time with my family" bullshit cover story, the same line male politicians deploy right after they've been caught fisting rentboys two at a time during spring break in Mazatlan. And those are people forced by the strictures of their job expectations to present themselves as dignified. Jon Stewart is an entertainer. I'm glad he wasn't specific as to why. I doubt I could have stomached it.

Whatever the reason is, just like Brian Williams, the media looked into the dark reflective glass and saw themselves and felt the same stirring in their down-belows. The result was exactly what one would expect from a key-party where the only requirement for entry was that everyone had to share the same set of grandparents. What's more interesting than media writing about media? In the age of clickbait internet news, that also means of course the reflex contrarian bullshit points of faux diffidence about how Stewart leaving is actually good and/or how we shouldn't care as much as we do anyway (or at least we should start caring less right after the site-visit meter registers you presence).**

I don't really want to know what it really was that chased Jon Stewart out. I want to remember him as he was. On the show I mean. Because he didn't actually die. I need the memories intact because I'm starting to feeling a little abandoned. So much media turnover. Brian Williams. Dave Letterman. Stephen Colbert. Craig Ferguson. Last week a personal favorite, Andrew Sullivan. Now Jon...

But somehow we can't shake Rush Limbaugh, media herpes.

Hopefully when the Jon Stewart Scandal comes out, it won't be so damaging it will take "The Daily Show" down with it. Someone else will sit at the Lucite Desk of Verity and dish out our calm. And we will resist at first. Remember, Jon Stewart was not the first host of that show, it was smarmy smirk-face misogynist Craig Kilborn. I like to think the transition will be like Doctor Who. We'll all hate the new person at first, right up until we love him/her so much we have to recontextualize the last guy as someone who maybe wasn't all that good.


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*Aside to America: MISTAKE! Frozen noodles in kindergarten paste, smells like flowers, I know. But somehow? Delicious.

**Seriously, this one started with "I don’t watch 'The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.' In fact, I don’t watch any late-night television." The "I Don't Really Watch TV" Guy always has the strongest opinions about TV, 100% of which he can go fuck himself with. All that tells me is that the editor assigned the story to the wrong person.