The Birth of Neo-Gonzo (not affiliated in any way with the Muppet or the movement surrounding the Great one) is my blog about Hunter S. Thompson. Today I made a couple of posts to make up for the fact that I was late on commenting on a few HST stories, like ?Counselor?. The last entry, Frank Rich's comparison of HST and Dan Rather, touches on an issue that's near to my heart. I maintain that The Daily Show with Jon Stewart has been passed the torch of true gonzo journalism. Last week, for example, Samantha Bee made two anti-lawyer crusaders look like complete idiots. She did it in a story in the greatest of Gonzo traditions of Satire and Sarcasm. HST would have been proud.
While Frank Rich's story focuses on how different journalism has become from Thompson's hard-hitting, pre-blogger blog style, I'm realizing that Rich is missing what a million "stoned slackers" have been tuning into every night, especially since the Bush Junta took over. Rich might have missed the Emy's that Stewart and the Daily Show won. Those Emy's were for the entertainment value of the "fake news" show, but anyone who has ever seen the Daily Show will tell you, they get at more truth through their "fake" news than Brian Williams ever will.
"In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying."--Bertrand Russell
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