stewart by a landslide

Dana Stevens column at Slate reports on Jon Stewart's contentious appearance on Nightline with Ted Koppel during the DNC. She sees it as a battle between two different realities.

"From the start, Koppel made no secret of his distaste for Stewart's show: 'A lot of television viewers--more, quite frankly, than I am comfortable with--get their news from ... The Daily Show.' His first challenge to Stewart: 'You say that [the Democratic Convention] is like a product launch.' 'Not like a product launch--it is a product launch,' Stewart replied, and proceeded to outline his take on Kerry's nomination as the result of a year-long process of corporate branding: 'John Kerry: now with lemon!' A pretty standard line of argument for those of Stewart's generation, reconciled as we are to our postmodern condition as the constant targets of marketing and spin, but to Koppel, it must have sounded like the sheerest nihilism. As the interview proceeded, it became clear what a gulf lay between Stewart's and Koppel's views of the world, and it was heartbreaking to watch, like eavesdropping on your cool brother and your nice uncle as they pursue some hopeless ideological argument over Thanksgiving dinner."

worm "Something Better, Something Brighter," Pretty Girls Make Graves

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