This month's Rolling Stone features an interview with fake news gurus Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. The twist? This one's written by Maureen Dowd. Never one to underestimate the importance of self-deprecation, she opens with a revealing paragraph:
I thought Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert might be a little nervous to meet with me. I was the real news commentator, after all, and they were the mock. They threw spitballs at presidents; I interviewed presidents before throwing spitballs at them. I had crisscrossed the globe to cover news stories, while these guys just put on dark suits and threw up imported backgrounds on a green screen. No doubt they would try to impress me with some weighty discussion about world affairs or the midterm elections. But when I walked into Colbert's office at The Colbert Report, just off Tenth Avenue in Manhattan's Hell's Kitchen, the two barely acknowledged me.
Interesting choice, to start a cover story about two hot-topic figures with a paragraph about...yourself. Making sure, of course, to mention all the reasons why these hot-topic figures should be impressed with and intimidated by you. Sure, her subjects may have hosted dignitaries from Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf to John Edwards (when he first announced his candidacy for president) and count people like John McCain as regulars; but being interviewed by a REAL journalist, that's still got to be a heart-pounder. Particularly one who has already appeared as a guest on both shows. Intimidating!
Dowd then launches into personal profile-mode, painting Stewart as an "intense Manhattan smarty-pants" with a dry wit born of Jewish angst and Colbert as the family-loving "meticulous sprite" whose status as the youngest of eleven children lets him easily play Harpo to Stewart's Groucho. Then, rather than going for, say, a few questions on how both men plan to cover the midterm results on election night, she reaches for the existential with the following:
A fake news show, "The Daily Show," spawned a fake commentator, Colbert, who makes his own fake reality defending the fake reality of a real president, and has government officials on who know the joke but are still willing to be mocked by someone fake. Your shows are like mirrors within mirrors, using a cycle of fakery to get to the truth. You've tapped into a sense in society that nothing, from reality shows to Bushworld, is real anymore. Do you guys ever get confused by your hall of mirrors?
To which Stewart fittingly responds, "I didn't know we were going to have to be high to do this interview."
— Melissa Lafsky
