Jon Stewart may have just sealed his legacy.
He got the New York Times to publish a curse word.
The Grey Lady, well known for writing around more colorful language, published the uncensored word “bullshit” in its write-up of Stewart’s final episode of “The Daily Show.” The hour-long finale included an instant-classic rant by the comedian about bullshit.
The use of the word is not unprecedented by the Times. A search of the paper’s online archives shows about 30 instances of the word going back to at least 1977. But Stewart made sure the paper’s practice of writing around such steaming piles was nearly impossible.
From Times writer Neil Genzlinger’s recap of the show:
He delivered a monologue on the theme of bullshit, a word he used over and over in the span of a few minutes. He called out public officials who give names like the Patriot Act to their legislation because the Are You Scared Enough to Let Me Look at All of Your Phone Records Act would not have sold. He called out financiers and politicians and assorted others for two-facedness. It was the kind of piece Mr. Black would have screamed while frothing at the mouth. Mr. Stewart skipped the theatrics and delivered it fairly calmly, as if he wanted to make sure we knew it was not a gag.
Mr. Stewart was returning to the beginning — he was delivering a mission statement. The mere fact that it had a mission is what made “The Daily Show” stand out in the first place. Mr. Letterman, Mr. Carson and Jay Leno were on for more years, but their late-night sessions behind the desk were solely for the purpose of entertaining. Mr. Stewart was after something more, and achieved it.
So he got to have a valedictory, and he got to urge his viewers to keep up the work he pioneered. “If you smell something, say something,” he said.
Stewart’s final rant used the word itself numerous times.
“Bullshit is everywhere,” Stewart said. “There is very little you will encounter in life that has not been, in some ways, infused with bullshit, not all of it bad. General day-to-day free-range bullshit is often necessary or at least innocuous.”
The Times might be a family newspaper, but even families swear.
