Jon Stewart Quotes

I'm less upset with politicians than the media. I feel like politicians, there is a certain, inherent - you know, the way I always explain it is, when you go to the zoo and a monkey throws its feces, it's a monkey. But, when the zookeeper is standing right there, and he doesn't say bad monkey... Somebody's got to be the zookeeper.

There is nothing more common than critics of journalists accusing them of practicing journalism. It is our function in the world to take things that are complicated and render them in a form that non-experts can follow and make sense of.

I think aggressive, sometimes outspoken reporting from the White House briefing room is expected by the American people.

It is an honor to take the helm of 'Reliable Sources,' the very best of a very small number of programs about the media's role in society.

[Coaching] is a difficult job which everyone who owns a TV thinks they can do better at.

Politicians and bureaucrats are no different from the rest of us. They will maximize their incentives just like everybody else.

I have been called a Rogue Elephant, a Cannibal Shark, and a crocodile. I am none the worse. I remain a caged, and rather sardonic, lion, in a particularly contemptible and ill-run zoo.

Is it really the right of the media to dictate to the president whom he will allow in his press conferences? That's tetchier. And then there is the added issue of whether it would be a service to their readers, and the country at large, for, say, the Washington Post to take itself out of the room -- meaning they don't have the ability to ask important questions the president is obliged to answer? I think that would be a mistake.

Politics is made up of two words: "Poli," which is Greek for "many," and "tics," which are bloodsucking insects.

The big question now is who will take power in Afghanistan once the Taliban is defeated. I was thinking, how about Al Gore? He's not doing anything, he needs a job, and he's already got the beard.

I think the jobs [at the top] are unbelievably difficult, and there is nothing easier than second-guessing people.

When people try to read between the lines - critics, they have a job. Their job is to make something bigger than it is.

It's why I left TV. I couldn't handle everybody telling me what I should have done after they watched me on TV. I said, "You're not even watching what I think I'm doing, so I'm out."

I think Ted Cruz is a very mean-spirited guy. You can see it from how the Republican Party responds to him.

The media is fully fine and hunky-dory with the idea that they may destroy somebody, and they think that's part of the job description. But you turn around and criticize them, and that's not permitted in the vacuum in which they live. They have free rein over you, because I guess this is how they define their constitutional responsibility. And since they have constitutional recognition, somehow they've all been taught at journalism school that nobody may assail them, that nobody may criticize them.

The Humane Society of America thinks Michael Vick should have a dog. I think whoever's in charge there should have a lobotomy.

So that all the people who say, you know, "All the media hates America." A lot of the media does hate America but this is a case of, actually, the press doing its best, I think, to do the right by national security. So good for them.

It is the rare - maybe even nonexistent - politician who will admit this, but number one on the politicians to-do list is always to get reelected. Nothing else comes close. The economy, the stock market, the war on terrorism ... NOTHING comes ahead of getting reelected. Staying in power is job number one.

I think the policy makers like the idea of being the boss. I mean people who like to boss other people around like to go into politics so they can become the boss.

The metal press has a certain type of audience, and I think most of them support the magazines' negative focus on me.

I think they called me the closest thing to a God of the Internet. But at the end, that article wasn't very complimentary, because the author suggested that I wasn't doing a very good job, and that I ought to be replaced by a "professional." Of course, there isn't any "God of the Internet." The Internet works because a lot of people cooperate to do things together.

A new poll showed that 66% of Americans think President Bush is doing a poor job handling the war in Iraq and the remaining 34% think that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church.

I think the media argues all the time with itself.

I think the media has to continually remind itself, and I think we do but sometimes not well enough that we're not just an economic property.

I'd tax the Daily Mail [if I were a Prime Minister] so high no one could afford to buy it. I hate that paper, I think it's really vicious. I picked one up the other day and every single page is about hate. It's just so negative.