Ladies and gentlemen, the John Stewart interview in which Mr. Stewart gives a lengthy and what is in my view mostly but not entirely fair critique of cable news as improperly elevating partisan distinctions between us as Americans. In which Mr. Stewart describes what he sees as different rules for what he does as a satirist and for what we on cable news do. And I frankly don't buy it not at all not even for a minute. In which Mr. Stewart gives a defensive George W. Bush on the Iraq war and waterboarding a defense which I don't really agree with but I think was very interesting to hear in which I think was very well put in which John Stewart. John Stewart does not throw up despite having a really acute horrible stomach thing the poor guy the John Stewart interview is right here. John Stewart thank you for coming in I know you're under the weather it's nice to be to come in. I have the babons but I'm happy to be here I'm here to take me medicine. You are here at the 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator. Yeah conflictinated by the way as a reference to Phineas and Ferb the cartoons. Oh the evil doofinch marks Dr. Doofinch marks my kids watching everything he makes is an inator. My conflict the main part. You don't do all that many interviews I think I've done I think I've read everyone that you've done. Oh right. A couple of years because I had to over prepare why did you why did you want to talk to me why did you want to do this. After the rally you know whenever you go out there we. Whatever you put out you can only control your intention you can't control its perception or how people receive it and you can control your execution. So when people are perceiving it as something people that I respect are perceiving it as something that. We didn't perceive it as sort of either two or three things one is we were in arcful in the way that we. Conceived it and presented it. Our intention was wrong or off not clear. Or it's being misperceived so I guess it's this guy there's probably a fourth. I don't know what that would be. On the issue of the perception of the rally in media. Bill Marz said Bill Marz criticism of it was this he said when John announced his rally he said that. The national conversation is dominated by people on the right who believe Obama is a socialist and people on the left who believe 9-11 was an inside job. But I can't name any democratic leaders who think 9-11 was an inside job. Right. Republican leaders who think Obama is a socialist it's all of them. I mean that's a paraphrase of what we said again that's probably in our thoughts we didn't say 9-11 was an inside job. But we said was. These are marks on the left and that bush went to war in Iraq. I can't even remember exactly. Bush's Hitler and Obama's Hitler. No, I'm not saying but it was more about that 9-11 was a chance for Halliburton to get their hands on oil contracts. So it's again I take his point it's a fair point but I don't that's not exactly what we said and it's certainly not I think that's not the seminal thrust of what we were saying. Again the intention was not to say that that's that's people on the left and that's people on the right. The intention is to say that we've all bought into that the conflict in this country is left and right. Liberal then liberal conservative red blue. And all the news networks have bought into that CNN sort of started it. They have this idea that you know the fight in Washington is Republicans Democrats. So why don't we isolate that and we'll stand back here and that's you know Democrats and Republicans will go at it. Red and blue stateers will go at it. And what it does is it amplifies a division that I actually don't think is the right fight. But if what you're asking me is do I believe that what what he's saying that's what I believe. No but what I do believe is both sides have their way of shutting down debate. And the news networks have allowed these two sides to become the fight in the country. And I think the fight in the country is corruption versus not corruption. What's the lefty way of shutting down? Okay you've said Bush is a war criminal. Now that may be technically true. In my world war criminal is polpot or the Nuremberg trials. Or here you're saying he's not saying he's yeah and I did for good reason because I don't think he was. But I think that you know again we have to define our terms. But I think that's such an incendiary charge that when you put it into conversation as well technically he is that that may be right. But it feels like a conversation stopper not a conversation starter. The complaint was in the clip reel we had a woman shouting as an example of dialogue that we were talking about not being helpful. That's really where that came from not from saying it normal conversation. We were talking about tone there not content necessarily. We were talking about standing up in the middle of a meeting and just shouting that. My problem is it's become tribal. And if you have 24 hour networks that focus their job is to highlight the conflict between two sides where I don't think that's the main conflict in our society. That was the point of the rally was to deflate that idea that that's a real conflict red and blue Democrat Republican. I feel like there's a bigger difference between people with kids and people who don't have kids than red state blue state. But I guess the way I follow your logic and I believe what you're saying I can do a point. I'm glad somebody's following it. I do. The people interrupting meetings and interrupting rallies are direct action activists who are doing stuff to be purposely disruptive in a pain in order to sort of throw a wrench in the works. And then on the other side you're saying that it's really nothing. Well it's not that it's nothing it's just not being done with the same level of authority as it is on the right. Like the second amendment remedies thing that's people running for senate. But how did you handle town hall meetings when tea partyers interrupted the town hall meetings with the same level of dismissiveness? Or did you handle it with the sense that what's going on here these angry people? Well my coverage of that was about it being organized. But again that is your coverage of it was to delegitimize it. That it was actually not real it was astroturf. No actually not. I think my approach to that was to say this is being used as a widespread political tactic by people with a lot of money and a lot of stake in the policy issues. And they're sort of deploying direct action activists the way that we haven't seen before. And they say that the general spirit of the block of coverage on MSNBC was as dismissive of the woman who stands up and says Bush is a war criminal or the people at the town hall. Do you think that they were viewed through it the same prison? I think that they were viewed through an appropriately proportional prison because I think CodePink is like 12 ladies. I think that literally half of Indiana says they identify with the Tea Party. And so... Again you are you know they say they identify with the Tea Party what does that mean? Identify how? Identify with the idea that they like smaller government or identify with yelling in a town hall. This is I'm not saying look I love the voices that I hear on MSNBC and there's a difference between... Here's what's unfair about what I do this is really what's a great here's a great thing that I think is unfair. You're one person with one great voice and sincere and study but I'm a climate scientist. I study weather patterns and climate you're talking about the weather and maybe these networks are not meant to be viewed in aggregate but there is an aggregate. There is an effect and when people say well you're influential too I'm a 22 minute show and when I say you know puppets making crank calls in front of me I don't mean that to diminish comedy. I mean that that is not then reinforced through the next person. It's not a relay and there is a amplifying effect to the relay. And this is not you know I don't I want to make perfectly clear because I think if the argument is you do exactly what Fox do and you're as bad as Fox. Anybody who has watched our show in any measure would understand the special place in our hearts for Fox. So again it feels to me like false equivalents sounds like something that you're doing as well. We have a tendency to grant amnesty to people that we agree with and to overly demonize people we don't. I do the same thing I think everybody does. If you would like to write to me in defense of code pink I'm all ears I was just trying to make the point about the difference in size of the disrepty pants brigades on each side but go ahead. Center hate mail to Rachel at msnbc.com I promise to read it and while you're at it here's fair warning of what is ahead in my continuing interview with Mr. Stewart. It's not partisan either they really not but they never criticized George W. Bush for anything even when he was doing things that were sort of not conservative. Yeah, they're not but that's they are ideological but they're not I don't know that they're partisan.