At one point in “Irresistible,” Jon Stewart’s new
political satire, a cable news anchor tosses a
question to an absurdly overstuffed panel of 12
analysts, each in their own little “Brady Bunch”
square. Immediately they start shouting at once,
drowning each other out.
It’s just a quick, amusing bit, but for diehard
Stewart fans it may evoke a memorable
moment: his 2004 appearance on CNN’s
“Crossfire,” where he accused the debate show’s
hosts of being “partisan hacks” who were hurting
America by imposing an artificial red-blue divide
on every issue.
And it’s essentially that same message that the
former Comedy Central host is trying to get
across in 2020 with this, his second feature (after
the accomplished Iran-themed “Rosewater”).
Here, he takes aim not so much at the media
— well, not ONLY the media — but the whole
institutional structure via which we elect our
leaders, and the corrosive role money plays in it.