Andrew Golis

I just saw the most amazing television interview of my life. Jon Stewart was interviewing the author of a book called “The Connection” about “How al Qaeda’s Collaboration with Saddam Hussein Has Endangered America.”

Now, this was less an interview than a very subtle take-down. Stewart clearly thought the guy and his book were bullshit from the beginning, but the way in which he recontructed the argument within his questions to make it look foolish, and the way in which he asked what are essentially very common sense question in a non-partisan, non-rhetorical so that his argument wasn’t skewed by typical liberal presuppositions and attitude.

It was also pretty surreal to watch because Stewart was being so quietly vicious to his own guest. You could see the author kind of go bug-eyed as he realized that he was under attack and that he really wasn’t equipped to handle Stewart. At one point right after Stewart has just finished a long and critical question and the audience has laughed and applauded, you see the author start to rev up for a fiery rebuttal. He sits forward on the couch:

“Wait wait wait, I just have one question…” he begins, clearly sensing that he needs a big comeback to save face.

Stewart interjects: “Sagittarius.”

The crowd laughs, the momentum is lost, and the author is left to ask his dramatic comeback question without the rhetorical upswing that he had been counting on.

With disarming humor and unassuming questioning Stewart took down not only this man’s book and argument, but the entire case for the war in Iraq. It was a site to be seen. I will post the video as soon as it is put up on the Daily Show’s website, which will probably be tomorrow or Wednesday.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2004 at 3:38 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.