Jon Stewart gets a little schooling

I used to be a bigger fan of the Daily Show a few years ago, when Jon Stewart seemed a little more balanced in his criticism and less obviously beholden to a certain agenda. He can still be funny, but I'm much more of a fan of Stephen Colbert, who distributes his sarcastic love to everyone equally, and whose whip-smart intellect is much more in evidence than any particular political ideology.

He just had Tony Blair's former press secretary, Alastair Campbell, on the show tonight; earlier in the show, he'd been making fun of Blair, and now the new Prime Minister Gordon Brown, as lapdogs to President Bush. One of the things I really liked about the interview with Campbell is that he pointed out to Stewart that a) it's awfully easy to make fun of people and ridicule them when you take their words and decisions out of context, and b) all of these folks are human beings making ridiculously tough decisions, and that while we can (and should) critique their decisions, we need to do it with the respect of our common humanity and the recognition of likelihood that we wouldn't necessarily do all that better at their jobs, and few of us have ever been willing to take on that level of responsibility.

Anyway, I appreciated that he was willing to call Jon Stewart on that a little bit and to continue saying it when Stewart kept up the ribbing, because it's not said enough. I think George W. Bush (and a great many other world leaders, for that matter) have made some awful, terrible, sinful decisions; but they also have some of the hardest jobs in existence, and are under constant scrutiny. How well would you do?