Dan Le Batard can be highly questionable, I had to do it, that being said he makes a good point every now and then. I know the feeling. Le Batard yesterday tweeted out the following:
Television lost the most trusted news man in America tonight. In other news, Brian Williams left his program as well.
— Dan Le Batard Show (@LeBatardShow) February 11, 2015
It’s the series of unfortunate events for Brian Williams that makes him a punchline. Williams will continue to be a punchline for a couple weeks and then again in six months when he is scheduled to make his return to NBC Nightly News. If he makes that return, we’ll have to wait and see.
A man making those punchlines will be Jon Stewart. You know him from the critically acclaimed Jon Stewart Show on MTV… or if you are most people you know him from The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Stewart has been behind the desk there since 1999 replacing Craig Kilborn.
Stewart totally retooled The Daily Show. Kilborn’s Daily Show and Stewart’s Daily Show are totally different animals. One of these two won enough Emmys to give one to seemingly every resident in New Jersey; the other won as many Emmys as his beloved Minnesota Timberwolves have won NBA Championships.
This is not supposed to be a putdown fest of Kilborn, but more proof that what Stewart has done at The Daily Show is simply amazing. Stewart changed the way young people get the news, especially before the Twitter age and still strongly into it.
I could go around my college’s campus and ask fellow students who Brian Williams is and who Jon Stewart is and I am more than positive more would know the latter. I might get a couple, ‘Isn’t Brian Williams the guy that raps on Jimmy Fallon?’, but that’s the extent of Williams’ reach outside the retirement home demographic.
Stewart has never dumbed down the news. He’s brought comedy to it and shown a light on a lot of tough stories in a comedic way that almost everyone can understand it. There’s an Eminem line, which is kind of taken from a book, that I always go back to: I joke when I say I’m the best in the booth, but a lot of truth is said in jest.
Stewart has never said he is the best, but the jokes he delivers somehow put everything in the right light. Not everyone agrees with everything Stewart says, but he says it so beautifully that it is hard not to just sit and watch in awe of the man.
There was traction to a story that wanted Stewart to host NBC’s Meet The Press. A real show. It’s not a pretend one that I like to watch. It’s a real-life, political issues show. That’s how good Jon Stewart is. Stewart is so good at being a comedian, a political comedian, that people want him to host a real political show. If something goes screwy during Brian Williams’ suspension, I can guarantee that Stewart will be linked to the NBC Nightly News chair as well.
Stewart has made it as a comedian. He has transcended satirist and become one of the smartest political voices in the country.
There will be a lot of rumors about who will fill Stewart’s seat at The Daily Show, but the truth is that new person will have to do it their own way like Stewart did. Nobody can replace Stewart just like no one can quite replace David Letterman. Stephen Colbert will try and I believe he will succeed, but he will do it his own way. The same goes for whoever is next at 11 p.m./10 p.m. central on Comedy Central.
We’ll hear from Stewart once he leaves the show and we’ll keep watching The Daily Show, but when we watch it will just be with a little different Zen.
Collin Kottke: All-Around Swell Guy 