2010 Person of the Year: Jon Stewart

The New "Most Trusted Man in America??"

Yeah, yeah, I know who Julian Assange is, and about WikiLeaks.

And I'm aware that Time magazine chose Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as its "Person of the Year" -- if not a "jump the shark" moment, then awfully close.

But my candidate for "Person of the Year" is Jon Stewart, of The Daily Show fame, and now an increasingly assertive political voice.

People such as myself have been decrying that this generation has no one comparable to Walter Cronkite: someone of unimpeachable credibility and stature (dareI say "transcendant"?), who both serves as society's conscience, and whose sentiments on a subject, when they weigh in, are decisive.

Cronkite played such a role vis a vis the war in Vietnam.

Stewart just played a similar role in getting Congress to fund health care for 9/11 responders:

“Jon Stewart so pithily articulated the argument that once it was made, it was really hard to do anything else."

--Robert Thompson, professor of television at Syracuse University; "In ‘Daily Show’ Role on 9/11 Bill, Echoes of Murrow" (The New York Times, 12/26/2010)

Junior "Senior Statesman"

Oddly, the person who Stewart reminds me most of is Ronald ("we begin bombing in five minutes") Reagan, circa late 1970's.

A two-term California governor and a fixture on the political right for decades, Reagan had yet to be embraced by the mainstream.

Instead, he was derided as a washed-up actor of dubious intelligence, who may or may not also be a trigger-happy cowboy.

Posthumously, Reagan is warmly remembered as The Great Communicator, a man with a genuinely sunny disposition and bedrock principles who guided the country into and through a period of national prosperity -- and not incidentally, a successful resolution of the Cold War.

(Sorry, lefties, he did.)

Stewart's Ascent

It's a bit hard to see Stewart's new-found stature, both because Stewart is a contemporary, and because his credentials -- in this case, as a wise-cracking satirist and media personality -- can also be easily dismissed by the opposite end of the political spectrum (ask now-U.S. Senator Al Franken whether his comedian background helped his candidacy).

But as evidenced by this month's 9/11 legislation, Stewart's growing influence -- culturally, politically, etc. -- is for real.

Amongst all our other problems, perhaps lack of leadership is the most acute.

If we can cultivate a couple more "senior statesmen-types" like Jon Stewart in the next few years, there's cause for optimism.

P.S.: Maybe it was the "avuncular" thing, or that "Walter" sounds so, well, senior citizen-like.

Or perhaps it was just because I happened to be 8 years old at the time.

But it sure seemed like Cronkite was older than 52 when he pronounced Vietnam a lost cause in 1968 -- barely older than Stewart's now 48 years old.

"Quantitative Easing??" Try, "Printing More Idiots"

Is the Fed Repeating
Wall Street's Sins?

Joe Nocera: At a certain point, Wall Street ran out of clients to sell [securitized debt] to. So the only way it could keep the machine going was to buy it themselves.

Jon Stewart: So, they infected themselves. At the end, they themselves became vampires.

[Which suggests] a new theory on the financial crisis: it occurred because of an idiot shortage. If I'm the Fed, I just print more idiots.

--Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera Interview; The Daily Show (11/16/2010)

That's it!

Instead of calling the Fed's current monetary policy something arcane like "quantitative easing," how about calling it "printing more idiots?"

At least, that's how I understand it.

Just like Wall Street ran out of "idiots" to sell securitized debt to, the U.S. Treasury has started to run out of investors to buy (more) U.S. debt.

China already stuffed to the gills with U.S. bonds?

Ditto for Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Saudi Arabia and all our trading partners on the other side of our yawning trade deficit?

No problem -- we'll buy the bills and bonds ourselves!

Two years, five years, ten years . . . you name it.

In fact, we -- the Fed -- will buy so much, we'll actually drive interest rates down.

Which is quite an accomplishment, given that long term interest rates have already collapsed, and short term rates are effectively zero.

Nothing could possibly go wrong with such a scheme . . . . right??

Channeling Jon Stewart

"You Go. Then I Go. You Go," etc.

OK, so Jon Stewart delivered his version in front of more people, at last weekend's "March to Restore Sanity" in Washington, D.C.

But I served up my metaphor first:

It would sure seem that traffic lights are one of the quintessential government functions. When they're in the right place and in working order -- they promote civility, and increase general well-being, respect for authority, etc.

--Ross Kaplan, "Traffic Light as Metaphor," (Sept. 16, 2010)

The post then goes on to note, however, that when a traffic light doesn't work, instead of serving as a device for balancing competing rights and promoting respect for authority -- it actually undermines those things, and encourages go-'rounds (literally).

Now, here are Jon Stewart's closing words at last week's rally, introduced with a video clip of cars merging before entering the Lincoln Tunnel in New Jersey:

"These cars -- that’s a school teacher who thinks taxes are too high…there’s a mom with two kids who can’t think about anything else...another car, the lady’s in the NRA. She loves Oprah…An investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah…a Latino carpenter…a fundamentalist vacuum salesman…a Mormon Jay Z fan…But this is us. Everyone of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear -- often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.

And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile-long, 30-foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river…And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go. You go, then I’ll go -- oh my god, is that an NRA sticker on your car, an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s OK. You go and then I’ll go…"

--Jon Stewart, "Rally to Restore Sanity" (Oct. 30, 2010).

Nice.

While I can't match's Stewart's imagery (or humor), I feel compelled to point out that, while traffic lights are more prosaic (and less dramatic) than tunnels -- they're also not as dark.