OF THE
TIMES
Stewart, the former star of Comedy Central's The Daily Show who is now hosting his own gabfest on Apple's streaming service, said Thursday that "canceling" Rogan would be akin to banning Stewart from television for his opposition to the Iraq war in 2003.
"The New York Times, right, was a giant purveyor of misinformation, and disinformation," Stewart said of the newspaper's editorial support for the Iraq war.
"And that's as vaunted a media organization as you can find, but there was no accountability for them."
The Times and other mainstream news organizations were criticized for unquestioningly reporting the Bush administration's claims that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction and that those efforts justified the US invasion.
No such weapons were ever found in Iraq after American troops removed Saddam from power and installed a friendly government in Baghdad.
Stewart said Thursday that while he was "very vocal" in opposing the Iraq war in 2003, he was in the minority.
"Couldn't I have gone down and fallen down this — if Viacom or Comedy Central had wanted to censor me — or had wanted to take me off the — look, I'm not owed a platform. Nobody is," he said.
Stewart then added: "But my point is, these are shifting sands, and I think I get concerned with, well, who gets to decide?"
Rogan hit out at mainstream media outlets such as CNN on Thursday, calling them "dishonest" for their portrayal of his podcast.
That is the question of the ages and, hopefully, there will be an answer soon for who has been making the decisions thus far.
I can pretty much say with certainty that the answer will not be, "We the People..."