Listening, but hearing nothing

As predictable as the setting sun, some in the thin-skinned press corps would take umbrage when Jon Stewart aimed his considerable comedic guns at cable news.

First up (so far) are MSNBC’s liberal firebrand Keith Olbermann and CNN’s Howard Kurtz. Both reacted negatively to comments Stewart made in his final, mostly serious “address” at today’s “Restore Sanity” rally in DC. It frankly surprised me.

The funnyman rightly said:

"If we amplify everything, we hear nothing. The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we eventually get sicker." (Taking a well-deserved swing at the self-righteous lunatics on the right, he also said, “These are hard times, not End Times.")

And as Politico reported today, “Stewart insisted it was ‘a clarion call for rationality,’ and a collective plea for the nation to stop yelling and show more respect to those they disagree with.”

On Twitter, Olbermann said, “It wasn't a big shark but Jon Stewart jumped one just now with the ‘everybody on Thr cable is the same’ naiveté.” He later added, “You can tone down all you want and the result will be: the Right will only get LOUDER. Sorry.” So the solution is, what, to keep SHOUTING? In reality, the only one who has “jumped the shark” is Mr. Olbermann.

Kurtz then weighed in by noting, “Stewart's serious close hit favorite punching bag, cable news. Which needs punching. But nothing on our nasty, broken political system?” Meaning: It’s the fault of those nasty pols, not us innocent journos. We’re as pure as the driven snow. But revealingly (and lemming-like), Kurtz dutifully retweeted all of Olbermann’s snarky remarks to his own followers as they rolled hot off the Twitter press. That driven snow looks a bit blood-stained to me.

Although Olbermann and Kurtz are hardly the worst offenders (that would be Fox News & Co.), they remain classic examples of the precise mindset that Stewart is talking about. And it’s like shouting into the wind. Clearly, both men “hear nothing.”

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BY THE WAY: Here is the video of what I call Stewart’s "These Are Not End Times" State of the Union Address at today’s rally. Seriously, the speech really is quite good – and funny, too. Worth a listen.