Give And Take

When I was engaged to be married, I asked some of my married friends for advice. The moist poignant piece I received went something like this:

"It's all give-and-take. Give in, and take a lot of sh_t."

Looks like I'm going to have to give Jon Stewart the same talk.

This past week, Stewart's The Daily Show conducted an interview with Palestinian Democracy Activist Mustafa Barghouti and human rights activist Anna Baltzer. During the interview, Barghouti was heckled ("You lie!"), to which Stewart responded, "Apparently, Joe Wilson is in our audience." This was reportedly the first time The Daily Show had faced a heckler in its 11-year history. So much for the "liberal" audience...

Now it's pretty obvious in the American political landscape that there is no real room for debate on Palestinian/Israeli issues. It's pretty simple - if you criticize Israel's policies, you're anti-Semetic by default. Stewart, a prolific cultural Jew, has prided The Daily Show's liberal stance by backing up all jokes and satirical acts with actual quantitative and qualitative facts. This is refreshing, when considering the prevalent news outlets such as Fox News (right-wing oriented), MSNBC (left-leaning), and CNN (whichever way the public tide is currently swinging).
Comedy that takes a stance while reviewing facts is more trustworthy than journalists taking manipulated stances.

But just as Jon Stewart has given in to the right to allow them to express their viewpoints (ex. Mike Huckabee, Jonah Goldberg, Zell Miller, etc), he now must take sh_t from the Zionist Pro-Israel lobby for allowing the other side of the Middle East debate to receive airtime.

Funny how no one seemed to complain during such segments like "Even Stephvens" where Stephen Colbert and Steve Carrell "debated" over which religion, Islam or Christianity, was better, while admitting that they didn't really like Jews. The bit provoked a raucous reaction of humor from the live audience. Or how about when "Senior Black Correspondent" Larry Wilmore did an "editorial" concerning Michael Richards' use of the N-word and interjected something to the effect of "Jewing them down" when in negotiations to use N-word references? More wild laughter from the crowd at the hint of irony.

As an Executive Producer of one of the most popular satire outlets in American media, Stewart has always allowed comedy to express actual and populist views to the public on a nightly basis. While some of this humor may seem demeaning to his Jewish heritage, it has always been taken with a truth-in-jest-everyone-gets-slammed chil pill. So now that another side of a HEATED debate gets aired in a serious nature, Stewart must face hate-mail?

Maybe Stewart should have presented the Palestinian viewpoint with a soliloquy from John Oliver hitting on Samantha Bee, As Bee could have represented the world and Oliver could have been Palestine begging for Bee to "just hear him out!!!" Would that have angered the Pro-Israel lobby the same way? Would the Zionists have been bent out of shape if Wyatt Cenac had editorialized a heavy-handed punishment administered by the Jewish Stewart if The Show's writers had carefully and masterfully scripted an ironically heated exchange betwen the two?

The next trend in American media: present the news of the day with ironic humor. I guess it would have to be because Jon Stewart shouldn't have to get slammed for presenting a serious issue in it's true context: SERIOUS.