Jon Stewart mocks the media's selective, blinkered outrage over Brian Williams
It's not that Jon Stewart doesn't think Brian Williams should be censured for his shifting, increasingly heroic (and misleading) tale of being shot at in the Iraq War in 2003 — though he argued on Monday night's Daily Show that like most cases of, um, self-love, "typically, being caught is punishment enough." The NBC lead anchor's TV news colleagues don't seem to see it that way. Indeed, cable news is a feeding frenzy of criticism and speculation about Williams' professional demise.
That may sound like overkill, Stewart said, teeing up his big point. But "I am happy. Finally, someone is being held to account for misleading America about the Iraq War." The media that helped pave the pay for the 2003 invasion by "plagiarizing" Dick Cheney's first-draft of history is now nit-picking whether Williams saved one puppy or two early in his career, he added. "Never again will Brian Williams mislead this great nation about being shot in a war we probably wouldn't have ended up in if the media had applied this level of scrutiny to the actual f---ing war." It's not all that heavy-handed. Watch for Stewart's droll pointers on when a news anchor is telling the truth and telling crowd-pleasing anecdotes. —Peter Weber
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
-
A peek inside Europe’s luxury new sleeper busThe Week Recommends Overnight service with stops across Switzerland and the Netherlands promises a comfortable no-fly adventure
-
Space data centers could be joining the orbitUnder the radar The AI revolution is going cosmic
-
Codeword: December 23, 2025The daily codeword puzzle from The Week
-
A peek inside Europe’s luxury new sleeper bus
The Week Recommends Overnight service with stops across Switzerland and the Netherlands promises a comfortable no-fly adventure
-
Son arrested over killing of Rob and Michele ReinerSpeed Read Nick, the 32-year-old son of Hollywood director Rob Reiner, has been booked for the murder of his parents
-
Rob Reiner, wife dead in ‘apparent homicide’speed read The Reiners, found in their Los Angeles home, ‘had injuries consistent with being stabbed’
-
Hungary’s Krasznahorkai wins Nobel for literatureSpeed Read László Krasznahorkai is the author of acclaimed novels like ‘The Melancholy of Resistance’ and ‘Satantango’
-
Primatologist Jane Goodall dies at 91Speed Read She rose to fame following her groundbreaking field research with chimpanzees
-
Florida erases rainbow crosswalk at Pulse nightclubSpeed Read The colorful crosswalk was outside the former LGBTQ nightclub where 49 people were killed in a 2016 shooting
-
Trump says Smithsonian too focused on slavery's illsSpeed Read The president would prefer the museum to highlight 'success,' 'brightness' and 'the future'
-
Trump to host Kennedy Honors for Kiss, StalloneSpeed Read Actor Sylvester Stallone and the glam-rock band Kiss were among those named as this year's inductees
