I think it is time for fans of Jon Stewart to start worrying about him. He has not been right since the day CNN confronted his friend, Anthony Weiner, outside the then-congressman's office -- and Stewart attacked CNN for doing its job.
Stewart has been in a real tailspin since Weiner admitted his lies a week after that. But the event that seems to have really pushed Stewart off the rails is the interview he did with Chris Wallace on "Fox News Sunday" June 19.
n that interview, he lied about Fox News viewers being the "most consistently misinformed" of news consumers and then he compounded the false charge by saying "every poll" shows this to be true. And if you look at the video tape, you will see he makes the claim not once but twice - almost spitting the words "consistently misinformed" in Wallace's face. PolitiFact, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning fact checking operation, labeled Stewart's statements false.
I have been all over this story since his attack on CNN. Writing five pieces and appearing on CNN's "Reliable Sources" Sunday to discuss it with other critics and editors. And I was willing to let it rest after Sunday's "Reliable Sources." But, remarkably, Stewart went back to the Wallace interview Monday night for a full segment on his "Daliy Show" -- more than eight days after it happened.
And he really was obsessing and parsing and sounding like a graduate student whose first draft of a dissertation just got shredded by his or her Ph.D. committee -- and he or she can't accept being corrected.
