At the end of their interview, Jon Stewart turned away from his desk and moved to walk off screen.
Regular viewers of “The Daily Show” might recognize how uncharacteristic Stewart’s move was. Usually, he leans in over his desk and engages the guest as the camera pans out and cuts to a commercial.
The closing shot is always of Stewart and his companion laughing, huddled close to hear over a thunderous applause from the audience, but that didn’t happen on Thursday night’s episode, because this episode wasn’t like most others.
Bill O’Reilly, the Fox News pundit synonymous with the Republican Party, was Stewart’s guest.
The show’s guest seemed to do all in his power to polarize viewers and present himself as a common enemy of everyone who disagrees with him.
O’Reilly came on to hype the debate he and Stewart organized, “The Rumble in the Air Conditioned Auditorium,” but seemed more focused on being arrogant and offensive.
He joked that his next book would be called, “Killing Colbert,” a reference to Stephen Colbert, host of the political satire news show “The Colbert Report.”
He also stated that Obama should have addressed Mitt Romney’s 47 percent statement during their first presidential debate to “enrage the 47 percent who don’t want to be called slackers but are.” Both of these statements were met with a chorus of boos.
The interview was rough from the start, and Stewart worked overtime to handle O’Reilly’s consistently flat jokes.
At one point, Stewart told O’Reilly, “I see you as an abominable snowman. All I have to do is get outside of your peripheral vision, and I should be fine,” and that’s exactly how their interview played out – O’Reilly one step behind and walking to a different beat.
That would be fine if their interview didn’t matter, but it did.
O’Reilly is a big name on the right, and for him to come on a show with a large audience that isn’t staunchly conservative, that has so much influence on pop culture, and then be so unapologetically crude only serves to isolate himself and his party from a massive amount of people.
That night, he was the voice of the Republican Party, and he told his viewers, “I’m old, I’m mean and I don’t understand you.”
Instead of trying to convert viewers, he was fine fanning the partisan flames, and he’s done just that, because his actions left a bad taste in viewers’ mouths or mine at least.
Now, a left-leaning individual can add another reason to believe that Republicans are crazy, distant, uncaring – the usual stereotypes.
I didn’t watch Stewart’s and O’ Reilly’s debate when it aired on Saturday. I’m sure many “The Daily Show” fans didn’t either, and I only hope that O’Reilly’s persona and actions from Thursday didn’t form a dominant impression of the stereotypical Republican in viewers’ minds.
Daniel Serrano is a senior double major in English and journalism and an assistant city editor for the Daily 49er.