Monkeys and Marionettes

I wish I could say the same of poor Dennis Miller. If the scabrous Stern is the contemporary echo of Lenny Bruce, down to the same boring obsession with his legal woes, Miller is surely the minor-league Sahl. Just as the great Mort was knocked off his comic stride by the assassination of JFK and the women’s movement — his jokes got lost among his barking obsessions — so Miller is a casualty of September 11. Having undergone a conversion experience, he’s traded in his rapier for a bludgeon and now compares America to Sinatra slapping around punks on the Vegas strip and backs Bush because the president “doesn’t over-think it. He wakes up every morning, jumps out of bed, lands on his two feet, scratches his balls and says, ‘Let’s kill some fucking terrorists!’” Except, of course, when he takes time out to scratch Dennis’ balls by cutting his taxes.

Miller clearly sees himself as a beleaguered truth teller in time of war, but as Gerald Nachman suggests in his terrific book Seriously Funny: The Rebel Comedians of the 1950s and 1960s, once a comic starts fancying himself as Howard Beale, the righteous anchorman from Network, he starts haranguing the audience rather than letting his ideas reveal themselves humorously. He sacrifices the source of his power.

Which brings us back to Jon Stewart, whose canonization continues — among liberals, anyway. The Daily Show just won two Emmy awards. The hilarious America: The Book isn’t merely No. 1 on the best-seller list, The New York Times Book Review said it deserves the Pulitzer for history. And out in the world, everybody is genuflecting before Stewart. Even as liberal critics label The Daily Show “an oasis of sanity, a public service” (Charles Taylor, Salon), conservative pooh-bahs like Bill (“Vibrating Factor”) O’Reilly make their haj to The Daily Show to pretend they have a sense of humor about themselves.

To his credit, Stewart seems unnerved that a fake newscaster should enjoy so much clout. But when the call came from Crossfire, the temptation to use his power for good must have been irresistible. Not only is this show the kind that Stewart detests — America: The Book conjures an imaginary talk show called Fuck You With Pat Buchanan and Bill Press — but it’s hosted by two of cable’s creepiest figures, nervous-laugh liberal Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson, he of the Ted Bundy eyes, who almost makes you respect Robert Novak for not hiding his thuggishness under a veneer of preppie sophistication. (Carlson recently burnished his iconoclastic credentials by saying, “I have contempt for this idea that ‘everyone should get out there and vote.’” Gee, I wonder which party he supports.) Begala and Carlson clearly hoped Stewart’s presence would help make Crossfire seem hip. Boy, were they wrong. Even as Carlson kept urging their guest to be funny — “I’m not going to be your monkey,” Stewart replied — Mr. Bowtie’s face twisted into the expression of impotent rage the show routinely induces in guests expecting intelligent discussion. He was much less cool about being insulted than Ted Koppel was when Stewart lectured him on Nightline.

Still, while I respect Stewart for bearding this wretched Crossfire in its own cave, I’ll bet he’s smart enough to abandon his Tiresias act. Not only does it leave him open to charges of being a scold — Wonkette accused him of “auditioning for the position of assistant professor of journalism at Blue State Junior College” — but he already makes these points far more effectively on The Daily Show, the best media-criticism class in the country. Indeed, Stewart matters precisely because he jokes so brilliantly about the intersection of news, politics and popular culture — the absurd heart of contemporary America — while lesser media guys deliberately turn themselves into punch lines.