Last night Jon Stewart hosted his good friend and frequent guest Brian Williams to The Daily Show for a spirited discussion in which they covered a wide range of topics ranging from the campaign (obviously), the Oscars, SNL, the notion of media bias, and exactly on what side of the body one might find the heart. It got punchy early, with Stewart asking Williams about moderating presidential debates and asking, "Which candidate are you biased against — Are you biased for Obama because you're sexist or for Hillary because you're a racist?" Williams declined to respond (but noted that the Daily Show had already skewered him on that point in their debate coverage the night before: "I saw Samantha Bee last night — what, you think I don't have a television?" After a few more joking barbs exchanged, Williams picked up his mug and said, "This is why I drink" — which we need to tell Media Matters about right away because he's a noted teetotaler.
Stewart pressed Williams about the campaign, wondering about the atmosphere live at the debates ("tense" said Williams) and whether Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are friendly in private ("I don't think there's a whole lot of love between these two"). Stewart also raised Clinton's pointed comment in the debate about always getting the first question; Williams pointed out that she had made the most news since the last debate but conceded that probably she had received the first question more often than Obama (though noted that there had often been more than just the two of them in the debates). For ETP, though, here's the exchange that jumped out at us:
JS: When she's talking policy, I always find her to be very compelling... There's something odd when she falls into that other pattern that is more off-putting, because when she's matched against Obama on policy she seems to do very well...do you think she's not confident in that? Why do you think they go back to the other thing?
BW: And you're trying to get me to express an opinion for the first time in my career why, exactly?
JS: Because I want to know....I wanna know....what makes BriWi tick.
At this point we'd just like to note that the nickname "BriWi" originated here at ETP, though obviously by now it belongs to the world. Thank you, Jon Stewart, for the shout-out. Watch the rest of the interview below for all of that and more, plus Jon's assessment of Tim Russert's giant noggin.
Related:
Samantha Bee Reports From "Anti-Hillary HQ" On Press Bias [HuffPost]