Wow, I have changed my view of Jon Stewart from your interview...........Anyone who even remotely stands up for FOX News......in my mind has been changed by the amount of money they are making. I've erased The Daily Show from my DVR (not Colbert). I can't believe the horse@!$%# he was trying to sell!! Was that really Jon Stewart. What really made me turn off is when he sucked up to Jerry Sienfeld. I never thought he was funny. Larry David was the genius behind that show and Curb Your Enthusiasm was a thousand times more funny. I guess I've been laughing my ass off at Jon's writers all these years!

I watch your show and John Stewart's show. However, I think he is dead wrong about fox when he says fox is idealogical and not partisan. No John, Fox is partisan. They indeed are the propaganda wing of the republican party. The purposely pick news stories which not only try to prove their point, (the republican line), but they also choose stories to embarrass the democrats. I used to listen to fox, maybe 5 years ago, but I could not stand to be constantly lied to, and manipulated. MSNBC, it seems to me, is at least trying to find the truth. Thus a major difference. Fox makes up stories, like the Bill Clinton team leaving the whitehouse a mess. Or they will have a headline, "Is Barack Obama a Muslim". How about the real news. There is no real equivalent about the MSNBC mentioning Bush breaking international law and possibly braking international law, and Fox calling Obama a child molester. No equivalence. It is basicly an insult to compare Rachel Maddow's intellectual audience, with the Fox following of knuckle dragging mouthbreathers. Fox rules on fear and base level emotions, not withstanding xenophobia. MSNBC, not including Scarborough, at least tries to bring enlighenment. O'Reilly's charisma is more than matched by Maddow's intellect and truth seeking.

Where exactly is the overlap between what Jon Stewart does on The Daily Show and what Rachel Maddow does on her show?

If Jon was on MSNBC, nothing. If Rachel was on Comedy Central, nothing. The point Jon makes is the aggregate of one show after one show, one passionate commentator after another passionate commentator. That's the point.

I do wish to say one more comment. When MSNBC let go of Phil Donahue, around the time of the start of the Iraqi war, I did not turn on MSNBC for 3 years, and I wrote them to tell them how upset I was at that move and how I would boycott the station for quite some time. The republican party, despite their shallow policies have been working on all fronts to take control of this country for the last thirty years in a very organized, "think tank" driven fashion, with a few very wealthy conservative funding the entire movement. Why the press does not do a better expose on these issues is disturbing. Either the press it significantly controlled by these interests, or there is serious coercion stopping real news from coming to the fore.

He's full of crap if he thinks he's not on "the playing field". I would even argue that he's a bigger player than Maddow.

Hey, they're all out to make advertising dollars........nothing wrong with that in my opinion. But I swear to God I think that all the news networks got together and decided; " hey Fox News, you say some complete horse@!$%# that will be completely believed by dumbass middle America (who will buy rubber dog@!$%# if you produce a slick infomercial) and we'll make fun of you for being idiots.....and everyone will get hire ratings!" They're all on the same team!

I am unsure why I am reading these questions here. It appears to me that both Rachel and Jon have an interest in preserving a difference between the approach of a trained journalist and the approach of a comic. Ok, yes it is sad that we even have to ask these questions, but I suppose we do and I believe that the point goes to Jon when he claims that it is the "Legitimate" news organizations (regardless of their ideological leanings) who have drifted over to his end of the pool.

It is admirable that a news network would take the step of allowing their talking heads to be completely open about their personal biases. However this show was itself an example of the problem which Stewart's recent work seems to be highlighting.

It's a good bet that a lot of commentary that springs up from this interview will concern itself with how entertaining it was. But it is not the purpose of the news to be entertaining, and that is not what we should have expected here. But we should have expected something, if not entertainment. We watch the news to become informed.

Isn't it sad that a comedy show is so highly regarded in comparison with television news programs for its delivery of actual information? But it is only because The Daily Show parodies a news format in delivering their comic commentary that it is informative. It is assumed the viewers know that it is merely a convention and the writers are not held to the standards that journalists hold themselves to (or that they ought to, at least). On the other hand, we watch the news to become informed.

The one thing I learned watching this interview was that Jon Stewart felt there was a bigger difference between the viewpoints of people who have children and those who do not than there was between the viewpoints of the average Democrat and Republican. And that information is of dubious value to me. As an interviewee, Jon Stewart is not likely to give up for free that thing he gets paid so well to do on his own show. I expect he also understood that people watch news programs to be informed, not to be entertained.

Jon Stewart may have acted out of a sense of self-preservation in pointing out so vehemently the encroachment of the news media on what he rightly feels is his territory, but I think it is a good thing he did.

I think Jon refuses to accept the part he plays in news and politics because that's not what he views himself as, period. He is, in fact, a comedian, and we need to remember that, always. We need to view The Daily Show from that perspective. Politics and comedy have gone hand in hand forever. Wasn't the court jester the only one who could mock and criticize the very monarchs he was supposed to entertain? Isn't that Jon's main role?

There's a lot of hatred all over the web over this interview, which is very unfortunate. I loved the interview, even if I didn't agree with many of the things he said. Also, I am so disappointed that he was sick! He wasn't at the top of his game, and it showed. Jon is very sharp, he has a great memory, but he really wasn't his usual self. Still, great interview!

Anyone who watches Fox News can only be watching to be entertained......because there is vary little "news' involved. They present anything that will grab their idiot viewers attention. The problem is that their viewers don't know the difference......the vary same dumbasses that voted Republican this past election.

Rachel brought up a great point that the "fringe" Republicans have been promoted and put in charge, something that I believe wouldn't have happened without the help of repub-tv like FOX. That to me is a huge difference between the two medias. MSNBC would never promote a crazy person just because they were in the lead against a Republican. Rachel, especially, has been obsessed with truth and facts and stresses this importance in all of her shows, whereas FOX is interested in one thing only, their team winning, no matter which crazy is running through the ribbon holding the "red" baton. And since they don't care about playing fair, we need as many people on our team as possible, but Jon says he's in the safety of the stands? It's frustrating but he's right, it's the best position on the not-field, and he's good at it(usually).

Jon Stewart was a brilliant comedian with topical political humor who woke up one day and found out that somehow he turned into one of the most significant political commentators in the country. Since then, he's worked very hard to hit a balanced perspective between the extremists. He presents a thoughtful and insightful view of issues and doesn't seem to get offended when people disagree with him. He even makes fun of himself and respectfully addresses even those who directly oppose his perspective. He does still provide biting humor but he's got the guts to accept the recoil of others with similar humor. I don't think he ever expected anyone to take him as seriously as people do currently but I respect that he's accepting this new fame with a dignified message of restraint.

All of those characteristics are also part of the reason that I like to Rachel. I can't stand rhetoric without logic or argument. I want reason when I watch politics and Rachel is one of the best liberal defenders who does provide reasonable arguments and debate.

What struck me was both the style of the interview and the care that Stewart used. Yes, he disagreed with some things that Rachel said and the two went back and forth with reasonable discourse. That was one of the most beautiful things that I've seen on TV in a long time. He thought about her questions and offered real answers. I didn't agree with some of his answers but he gave his reasons and you can agree with them or offer a reasonable argument against them.

Actually, can we just set aside an hour every week on some channel and just get Maddow and Stewart sitting in an empty room talking casually about politics? They can take turns interviewing each other. I don't care, I just want reasonable discourse on TV and that interview was beautiful.

Yea, I was just venting..........I still love Jon Stewart (I'll give him a pass because he was sick). O course, Rachel was a game changer ....as is Ed...even though I didn't like his blatant pushing of his book on air was very cool (come-on dude.....run a commercial for it, but don't sell it yourself!). Anyway, I just hope these people don't lose their edge as they become more popular. I live in a small GA town where everyone believes everything they see on FOX News is true and my vote always goes to waste.

Overlap? Well, both deal with current issues, and both are on TV.  I think this is like comparing The Smothers Brothers with Cronkite back in the '60s. Yes, Rachel Maddow can be funny, Cronkite was somber. It's a different style, and this is a different era.  Please note that Jon Stewart is on the Comedy Channel.  

So, beyond that, I think the most striking impression I had of Jon Stewart from this interview was that he speaks from the perspective of a comfortably wealthy liberal. This is not so clear with Rachel Maddow, who can and does speak about the issues with a passion that is lacking in those who are safely above the crises that define the lives of millions of us today.  I'm glad both are there.

Does my neighborhood high school football team play the same game as the NFL? Yes. Do they play in front of millions of people on network television? No. Do they make millions of dollars doing it? No. So, they play the same game, but on a different level. That's the only relationship that I can conjure when Rachel says that she & Jon are both 'in the game'. They can both run the same sound-bite clips, but Jon gets to do a 'face', and then parody the clip. Rachel has to try to explain it with some dignity and forethought. Both can be thought provoking (just like a play at the high school can be as complex as one in the NFL), but Jon always has the comedic 'out'. That is where we separate the wheat from the chaff. Rachel is the real deal. Jon is a good deal, with a side of yuks. He's playing the same game (political commentary), but he's not on the same field.

White, upperclass, straight dude denies privilege, news at 11.

Rachel,

You are well respected for your intelligence, honesty, and accuracy in reporting and discussing news. I am stunned however, at your misunderstanding of the clear difference between what you do and what Jon Stewart does. If you think that you and he are doing essentially the same thing, then I'd like to challenge you to get on a stage in front of a live audience and tell jokes for 15 minutes or so night after night.

When Jon Stewart went on CNN's Crossfire in 2004 and asked them to "stop hurting America" Tucker Carlson asked Jon why he wasn't asking more hard-hitting questions to politicians. I don't think I was the only one who was dumb-founded at Tucker's inability to differentiate between the job of a person in "news" and the job of a comedian who works on a mock-news show on Comedy Central. As a long time viewer who has great respect for you, I almost cannot believe that you fail to understand the difference as well - and perhaps THAT is the problem that Jon aims to address ...which MSNBC can't seem to put it's finger on. Please don't be the Tucker Carlson of the good guys. Please, don't hurt America.

After he exposed CNN's theatrical antics and the theater involved in a 35 year old TV personality "wearing a bow-tie" the sad truth of a news media team unable to determine who was really responsible for news between themselves and a comedy show who's lead-in was "a show where puppets make crank phone calls" it seemed the confrontation left both sides changed. Crossfire was cancelled shortly afterward, Tucker Carlson stopped wearing his ridiculous bow-tie, and Jon Stewart began getting more involved in political interviews. I think he probably feels as most reasonable people do, that it was a sad state of affairs that he, as a comedian, after facing a Tucker Carlson and Paul Begala bewildered at his suggestion that their jobs were different than his in responsibility, should maybe pick up their slack a bit.

Again Rachel, if you think you are in the same ring as Jon Stewart and have the same professional responsibilities, I dare you to start doing stand-up. Hit the circuit for a while and see how similar your jobs are. I knew a really funny guy once who was a carpenter and not qualified for much else. As it turns out, you can be funny and appreciate humor without being qualified to be a professional comedian and entertainer. Likewise, I've known plenty of carpenters, musicians, actors, dancers, etc. who have had opinions on politics and news, but I wouldn't offer them your job because few people are properly qualified to interview the Secretary of State or to report the stories that "no one else is reporting". While Jon Stewart is a rare type with the abilities for both stand-up comedy and hard-hitting interviews, he is not covering the stories that "no one else is reporting" because that's not his job and he knows his place. He tells dick jokes. This path you seem to be on of equating your job with his does not serve you or the current state of the television news industry any justice.

Sincerely and With Great Respect,
-ted-

Hmmm...this one has fewer comments....

I watched the rally on CSPAN. It gave me a headache. For me, it perfectly encapsulated the sorry state of affairs we are now in. It represented, together with the Tea Party, (hopefully) not the final nail in the coffin of organized direct citizen action addressing issues of social, environmental, and economic justice as well as human rights in general, but a depressing manifestation of the impotence of our present power to effectively organize for meaningful change.

The great labor, civil rights, and anti-war movements of the twentieth century have been replaced by "rallies". Campaign rallies, pep rallies, rallies to restore sanity are merely spectator sports. Where no one participates any more than they would at a cheesy rock concert or a football game. This is what America's left has become, a sad parody of itself.

I wonder what Mr. Stewart thinks of shows like Democracy Now? I wonder what his views are on writers like Noam Chomsky who could accurately make a case that every U.S. president at least since there were such laws are war criminals? Does he see this as a conversation stopper? Well it might be. It is and it isn't. Actually I think Mr. Stewart is wise to generally confines his views(?) to the mainstream media and pop culture. Boundaries... besides, who in the audience would be interested?

I am not suprised he likes you Rachel. You are so likeable, and you infuse your show with a positive energy and thematic continuity which is hard not to marvel at. How did you get so pesky and perky? I also admire your ability to be unimpeachably snide, particularly in some of your interviews.

I think Steward started becoming more than just a satirist when he went on Crossfire and challenged the whole premise of political pundits by suggested that they were destroying democracy through their divisive rhetoric. He crossed the line from observing and commenting to entering the fray and participating.

Considering the state of dysfunction in this country, particularly in the Senate, I'd say we need more than satire. Charles Dickens created some funny characters but his novels became so much a voice of despair that people finally started to take them seriously.

Stewart needs to stop kidding around and mimicking those like Beck with rallies of his own. He needs to figure out how political criticism can be constructive. Stewart obviously admires journalism when he sees it. It would help perhaps if he started adding links to the sources he uses in his sketches to the credits at the end of his shows, so viewers could expand on their curiosity?

What, oh what would Will Rogers have done today? He wasn't Mark Twain or Sinclair Lewis. But he sure hit a cord with the average Joe and got them to move beyond their apathy and believe that there was more that they should be doing besides complaining and voting for Republicans.

Something more important is broken in our society besides the economy and our political system. I'm not sure we can expect journalists like Rachel Maddow or political satirists like Jon Stewart to fix it. We voters put these Republicans into a position of power and we have to find a way to stop them.

I'm beginning to think it is a crisis in faith...all of them. We have let our major religions be highjacked by political zealots. How do we free God from the morally bankrupt and let Him do his work again without the demigods getting in the way? How did we stop the Nazis and the Communists?

If humor isn't really furthering a solution to our problems, it would be a good time for God to show us a sign of what could? If journalism isn't enough, what is missing? We have to find that key and find it soon.

Jon Stewart is not just ON the playing field--he's playing shortstop.

Jon Stewart is a comedian, a satirist, his sole motivation; to make people laugh. He likes doing it, no one is in a position to tell him what to do with his life. If he becomes a pundit, if he becomes a mouthpiece for a political party, he loses that comedic high ground. The position that lets him poke fun at lunacy and idiocy regardless of whether it's found on the right or the left. He also understands that this repetitive, in your face, twenty-four hour, politically charged news business represents a very real threat to Americans. It's dangerous to inject journalism with partisan politics, because there are individuals out there who, for whatever reason, aren't capable of discerning fact from bull@!$%#. So you get Fox News who starts by amplifying right wing rhetoric to an incredible level, and the ignorant and unworldly buy into it big-time. And the point I think he's trying to get across, is that while a liberal media organization may seem like the appropriate response to Fox News, it's not the the response that is in the best interest of the people. I should point out that he mentioned numerous times that he doesn't believe that MSNBC is the equivalent of Fox News, he just doesn't want it to turn out that way. A journalist or news network's primary focus should be pursuit of the truth, not finding evidence to support your ideology. It's just hard to make that point on MSNBC because they're not Fox News, they're not the ones spinning and lying around the clock, but if they pursue a similar game-plan, who's to say it couldn't corrupt MSNBC in the same way? Jon Stewart is trying to bring people together, trying to move us along. You know, there isn't going to be one final partisan debate and this things all over, at some point we're going to have to compromise or our democracy is going to fail. The more outlandish the claims made by our round-the-clock media, the more crazy people you're going to see in public, and the harder it's going to be to make any real progress.

Jon Stewart and Rachel Maddow are both good people, they both looked like friends in the interview, why is everyone trying to make this some kind of grudge-thing? Go watch that MMA, UFC crap if you want conflict. I was damn near moved to tears when Jon was like "I like you." In those three words I observed incredible respect and fondness, they're both terrific people.

What I got from Jon Stewart's rally was a conversation starter. I understand now why the Tea Party became such a powerful movement. It was just people seeing how ineffective gov't was at addressing their needs so they simply said, "Go away gov't, why should we pay you if you do nothing for us?" Then, it was sucked up by the Republican Party and molded to fit the needs of the super powerful - with that losing its true message and becoming the shouting anger fest we saw in the media. Take a close look at Scott Ashjian's campaign to see what a I mean.

I'm a liberal. I believe in reform. Gov'ts can change if we elect the right people but as Jon Stewart said by the time you get to the elections the person you are supposed to vote for doesn't represent you.

In the show Crossfire he even pokes at how the United States isn't a democracy - its two loud voices yelling in different directions. Where are the other voices? We need more parties. As a liberal I do not see my party in the democrats. I imagine others are the same way. My ideas of gov't are more in common with the Swedish Social Democrats than any Democrat here in the United States.

I was appalled to know that Jon believes that Cheney and Bush went to war in Iraq based on their fears of Saddam and therefore they are entitled not to apologize to Iraqis or us. We cannot have one standard for Hitler, Saddam, Milosevic and another for the USA. Bush and Cheney, Nixon and Kissinger, Blair should be at least tried as war criminals before they are allowed in public.

I found last night's interview with Jon Stewart to be sleepy. I don't know why Rachel idolizes him so much. Rachel is a success in her own right. The interview with Stewart was too heady and philosophical. What I enjoy about Rachel's show is that, generally speaking, she presents her content in a way that is easily understood by folks at any level. She can attract those who are highly educated and those that aren't. Yes, Jon can do that too on The Daily Show--which is where he is best suited.

The basic difference between MSNBC and Fox is this: Fox is all opinion and partisanship wrapped in a pathological and pavlovian need to lie whereas MSNBC has straight news during the day and then news/commentary at night -- but throughout MSNBC never lies -- I was perplexed at Stewart's inability to concede this fact; lies are lies and facts are facts and Fox does not rely on facts -- they put out lies all day long and when those lies are debunked by other legitimate news organizations Fox never has the basic decency to admit errors like the ACORN debacle (which Stewart also played into and never acknowledged his errors in reporting on the fake pimp tape either) or the fake meme that Obama had put out a logo for a federal agency that resembled a Muslim crescent when in fact the change to the logo was created by the Bush administration; I could go on but what's the point -- few people in the mainstream media have the courage to stand up and say Fox is not a news organization -- Rachel on the other hand has the courage to stand up and say that without apology.

Each time I listen to Jon Stewart and his insistence that he's in the bleachers and not on the field and prefers it that way, what comes to mind is that he sounds like someone reluctant to be on the field but utterly capable of engaging there. Like the hero who is confronted with a choice to either take on the heroic journey or stay home in his comfort zone. It may be a stretch and I might be accused of engaging in conflictinator-like distortions but maybe Jon has his own journey that he's afraid of taking.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hero_with_a_Thousand_Faces