Slow-Pitch Softball with Evo
Apropos my Wednesday anti-Jon Stewart rant, the New York Times TVDecoder blog reports that The Daily Show today launched a website independent of Comedy Central which houses a massive archive of clips dating back to when the show was funny (i.e. the Colbert years). CNN says that "Videos of every skit, every joke and every guest are available for free, fully searchable on TheDailyShow.com. According to Comedy Central, 13,000 videos will be stored in the database." (Will this include Craig Kilborn's stint as host?)
Featured on the front page of thedailyshow.com is Stewart's embarrassingly sycophantic interview with Bolivia's leftist President Evo Morales. Stewart, the scourge of American politicians, plays slow-pitch softball with at the divisive revolutionary leader: "You promised to nationalize resources and help distribute money to the poorer folk in Bolivia; convene a constitutional assembly and institute agrarian reform. You did that within eight months of your election!" And, of course, his trademark, "lets love one another" incoherence: "We have a tendency to group South American leaders. If you visit Castro, if you visit Chavez, then we all of the sudden, I think, get scared. So that understanding and dialogue is important for us to open up as well."
Stewart, mostly in serious interviewer mode, doesn't find time to ask about recent strikes in La Paz, the Cuban dissident illegally expelled from the country for criticizing Morales, or his controversial, Chavista-like statements about the private media. As The Economist recently observed, "Morales calls the media the 'main adversary' of his government and wants to hold them accountable to the people. On June 5th the judiciary staged a one-day strike to counter a presidential assault on its independence."