Headscratchers / The Daily Show

• The "Rally-To-Restore-Sanity" was supposed to be about being moderate, middle ground, and, well, sane. Stewart made an enormous deal about how he wanted to bring everyone together, and avoid all types of insanity and extremism. And yet, he invited this guy. Epic Fail or Hypocrite?
  • In response to that controversy, Yusuf said that part of what he said was stupid and offensive jokes made in bad taste, while other parts were merely giving his interpretation of Islamic law but not advocating any action. Then where I think it fits with the Rally to Restore Sanity is that he and others objected that they edited the part where he promised to accept the judgment of a British court if it found Rushdie innocent of any crime, blasphemy or otherwise. Not to mention all the things that the controversy initially caused like Tom Leykis calling for a mass steamrolling of Cat Steven's records (it was initially a mass burning) and people smashing his albums in the street. It's nice how the only options you give are epic fail or hypocrisy.
    I'm very sad that this seems to be the No. 1 question people want to discuss. I had nothing to do with the issue other than what the media created. I was innocently drawn into the whole controversy. So, after many years, I'm glad at least now that I have been given the opportunity to explain to the public and fans my side of the story in my own words. At a lecture, back in 1989, I was asked a question about blasphemy according to Islamic Law, I simply repeated the legal view according to my limited knowledge of the Scriptural texts, based directly on historical commentaries of the Qur'an. The next day the newspaper headlines read, "Cat Says, Kill Rushdie." I was abhorred, but what could I do? I was a new Muslim. If you ask a Bible student to quote the legal punishment of a person who commits blasphemy in the Bible, he would be dishonest if he didn't mention Leviticus 24:16.
    • Well, when a guy spouts some extremist rhetoric and then tries to pass it off as "jokes", which Jon's called pundits on the Right out for doing on multiple occasions...
    • Ah, yes, the old "taken-out-of-context" excuse. Sorry, but I'm calling bullshit on this. Stevens (sorry, Yusuf Islam) was never "taken out of context". He advocated murder, plain and simple. The fact that, to this day, he refuses to admit it further proves the point. I think Salman Rushdie summed it up perfectly in his Letter to the Sunday Telegraph:
    Cat Stevens wanted me dead. However much Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam may wish to rewrite his past, he was neither misunderstood nor misquoted over his views on the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses (Seven, April 29). In an article in The New York Times on May 22, 1989, Craig R Whitney reported Stevens/Islam saying on a British television programme "that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, 'I would have hoped that it'd be the real thing'." He added that "if Mr Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, 'I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I'd try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is'." In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Mr Whitney added, Stevens/Islam, who had seen a preview of the programme, said that he "stood by his comments". Let's have no more rubbish about how "green" and innocent this man was.
    • Not taking sides in the Rushdie-Stevens/Islam debate, but after the rally, Rushdie spoke with Stewart, and said that Stewart apparently regretted inviting Islam for exactly these reasons. Rushdie himself seems to hold no malice/grudge/whatever against Stewart.
    • Funny. I don't know where you got your information, but from what I read, the opposite is true. Stewart had no regrets about inviting Yusuf Islam, even if it upset Rushdie. Here's what Rushdie had to say:
    I spoke to Jon Stewart about Yusuf Islam's appearance. He said he was sorry it upset me, but really, it was plain that he was fine with it. Depressing.
    • what's the problem here? he said that Stweart did apologized, just that "he" didn't believe him, that doesn't makes it a fact.

• Oftentimes, during the second act correspondent section, they will have two interviewees on opposite sides of an issue. But they sometimes edit it to look as if the correspondent is actually getting up in the middle of the interview to go to the other one and quote something the first interviewee said. Then they appear to "go back" to the first one and quote what the second one said. But oftentimes these subjects are in different cities, how are they arranging that?
  • Daily Show correspondents are never on location during those segments. It's all done with green screen, something that gets played for laughs during the live Indecision specials, when people who had minutes ago claimed to be in Washington or at a state poling place wander onto the set.
    • No, not the "on location" bits, but the actual interviews.
  • Simple prediction: They are going to two people on opposite sides of an issue. It's not all that complicated to predict talking points of both sides.
    • That coupled with an old strategy used by lawyers - never ask questions that you don't know the answer to beforehand. Maybe not that far, but, as mentioned before, when you have two diametrically-opposed viewpoints, there's going to be some level of predictability.