America's Anchors

STEWART: It's not that we shouldn't be talking. It's that we shouldn't care.

COLBERT: We can't care.

STEWART: What people in Washington don't understand is that we're not running for re-election. We don't have to parse every word for fear that it appears in our opponent's commercial and suddenly renders us impotent.

COLBERT: We claim no respectability. There's no status I would not surrender for a joke. So we don't have to defend anything.

STEWART: They believe everything has consequence in real-world terms. And what we as comedians understand is, you bomb one night, you go on the next night and you do a little better.

I don't understand why you always say, "I'm just a comedian," because from Shakespeare to Jonathan Swift, humor is the best way to get through to people.

COLBERT: Peter Cook was once asked if he thought that satire had a political effect. He said, "Absolutely. The greatest satire of the twentieth century was the Weimar cabaret, and they stopped Hitler in his tracks." It doesn't mean that what we do is worthless. It's hard to do, and people like it, and it's great. But it doesn't mean that it has an effect politically.

STEWART: Or that it has an agenda of social change. We are not warriors in anyone's army. And that is not trying to be self-deprecating. I'm proud of what we do. I really like these two shows. I like making 'em. I like watching them. I'm really proud of them. But I understand their place. I don't view us as people who lead social movements.

Is there any way to bring young people, or all people, back to news?

STEWART: Yes. Reinstitute the draft. Say it's your job to reinvent the nightly news. How do you make it relevant again?

STEWART: Whatever happened to editorial expertise? Remember 20/20 Downtown? It was 20/20, but John Qui?ones wore a black leather jacket? It was the same fucking show, but he wore a black leather jacket, as though kids would go, "Wait, hey, hold on, who's that guy wearing the black leather jacket? I'm interested in that. The guy dresses just like I do." It is that kind of absolutely transparent contrivance that makes this so much fun to do.

You both had really sad things happen to you when you were ten.

STEWART: I would not put mine in the same category. Is this one of those are-you-crying-on-the-inside questions?

Is it obvious why you would become comedians after that? Do you start it to try to make your mom laugh, or do you think life is so absurd?

COLBERT: I'm one of eleven brothers and sisters, and they didn't become comedians, though they are funnier than I am. It was valuable at some point to be funny for me. I don't think I know myself well enough to give you a succinct answer. I could talk for three hours about that and at the end of it go, "That's probably bullshit."

STEWART: People always seem to view comedy as an affliction as opposed to an ability. I think it is a wiring issue. I remember the first time I got up onstage to do comedy, I sucked. There was something about it where I went, "Oh, right, this rhythm feels like how my brain works, and I think I will get good at this if I work hard." But I don't view it as an affliction.

COLBERT: I had a similar feeling. I started as a straight actor. I'd go onstage and I'd think, "Wow, this is the only thing I want to work really hard at. I will rehearse fifty times on a single scene, I don't care, I'll do it again." I took that as evidence that I would be a fool not to follow what was clearly the wise thing for me to do. But what the specificity was that led to that, I couldn't tell you.

Jon, you've been called a sex god by female fans.

STEWART: Let me put it this way. I know how women felt about me before television. And I know that I'm on television. And I know that I married up. When I was a bachelor, I did fine, but usually it had to do with the fact that I was bartending or had a show. You gave up drinking and pot and smoking?

STEWART: Not all at once. They came in waves.

COLBERT: At noon, it was smoking, then at 3 o'clock . . .

STEWART: I'd say drinking and drugs went first. But drinking and drugs for comics -- people don't realize how fucking boring it is to go to a town outside Detroit from Tuesday to Sunday and stay in a Ramada Inn until 7 o'clock at night. I remember when I first went on the road. I'd go to, like, Lubbock, Texas, and I'd be like, "What do you guys have, a Prairie Dog Museum? I'm there." You explore every inch of that town, and by three years into it, you could be doing a gig in the Vatican and be like, "Nah, I'm not going out. I'm fucking staying in my room and drinking."