TDS - 9/11

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Opening monolog - 9/20/01

Good evening, and welcome to the Daily Show. We are back. This is our first show since the tragedy in New York City, and there's no other way really to start the show than to ask you at home the question that we asked the audience here tonight and that we've asked everybody that we know here in New York since September 11th, and that is "Are you okay?" And we pray that you are, and that your family is.

I'm sorry to do this to you. It's another entertainment show beginning with an overwrought speech of a shaken host, and television is nothing if not redundant. So I apologize for that. It's something that, unfortunately, we do for ourselves so that we can… drain whatever abscess is in our hearts, and move on to the business of making you laugh, which we haven't been able to do very effectively lately.

Everyone's checked in already. I know we're late. I'm sure we're getting in right under the wire before the cast of Survivor offers their insight into what to do in these situations…

They said to get back to work. And there were no jobs available for a man in the fetal position under his desk crying, which I *gladly* would have taken. So I come back here, and tonight's show is not, obviously, a regular show. We looked through the vault, we found some clips that we thought might make you smile, which is really what's necessary, I think, right about now.

A lot of folks have asked me, "What are you going to do when you get back? What are you going to say? I mean, jeez, what a terrible thing to have to do." And I don't see it as a burden, at all. I see it as a privilege. I see it as a privilege and everyone here does see it that way.

The show in general, we feel like, is a privilege. Just, even the idea that we can sit in the back of the country and make wisecracks – which is really what we do, we sit in the back and we throw spitballs - but never forgetting the fact that it is a luxury in this country that allows us to do that. That is, a country that allows for open satire. And I know that sounds basic, and it sounds as though it goes without saying. But that's really what this whole situation is about. It's the difference between closed and open; it's the difference between free and… burdened. And we don't take that for granted here, by any stretch of the imagination. And our show has changed, I don't doubt that. What it's become, I don't know… "subliminible" is not a punch line anymore. One day it will become that again, and Lord willing it'll become that again, because it means that we have ridden out the storm.

But, the main reason that I wanted to speak tonight is not to tell you what this show is gonna be, not to tell you about all the incredibly brave people that are here in New York and in Washington and around the country, but… we've had an unenduring pain here, and… an *unendurable* pain, and… I just, I wanted to tell you why I grieve – but why I don't *despair*.

…

I'm sorry… luckily we can edit this.

One of my first memories is of Martin Luther King being shot. I was five. And if you wonder if this feeling will pass… When I was five and he was shot, here's what I remember about it: I was in school in Trenton and they shut the lights off and we got to sit *under* our desks, and we thought that was really cool, and they gave us cottage cheese, which was a cold lunch because there was rioting, but we didn't know that. We just thought, "My God! We get to sit under our desks and eat cottage cheese!" And *that's* what I remember about it. And that was a *tremendous* test of this country's fabric, and this country's had many tests before that and after that, and…

The reason I don't despair is because… this attack happened. It's not a dream. But the aftermath of it – the recovery – is a dream realized. And that is Martin Luther King's dream.

Whatever barriers we put up are gone, even if it's just momentary. And we're judging people by, not the color of their skin, but the content of their character, and…

You know, all this talk about "these guys are criminal masterminds, they've gotten together their extraordinary guile and their wit and their skill…” It's… it's… it's… it's a *lie*. Any fool can blow something up. Any fool can destroy. But to see these guys, these firefighters, these policemen, and people from all over the country, literally, with buckets… rebuilding… that's extraordinary. And that's why… we've already won! They can't… it's light! It's democracy, it's … we've already won. They can't… shut that down.

They live in chaos. And chaos, it can't sustain itself – it never could. It's too easy and it's too unsatisfying.

The view… from my apartment… was the World Trade Center. And now it's gone. And they *attacked* it. This… symbol, of American ingenuity and strength and labor and imagination and commerce and it is *gone*. But you know what the view is now? The Statue of Liberty. The view from the south of Manhattan is now the Statue of Liberty.

You can't beat that.

So, we're gonna take a break, and I'm gonna stop slobbering on myself and the desk, and… we're gonna get back to this. And it's gonna be fun and funny and it's gonna be the same as it was, and I thank you. We'll be right back.