Jon Stewart, being interviewed by Larry King, chatting about Bill Clinton.
KING: So you get angry?
STEWART: You get angry because it’s, you are so — so needing of that inspiration and that leadership and that mind and that intelligence and so angry that it would be wasted on such a trifle thing.
KING: Monica Lewinsky…
STEWART: Not to suggest Monica Lewinsky is a trifle. I certainly don’t want to hurt her.
(CROSSTALK)
KING: In an interview with British TV today, she said that Clinton’s description of their affairs an insult to anyone who reads it. Also says that Clinton destroyed her once the liaison became known.
STEWART: She is going to come out now with a line of grief handbags. Hopefully she can knit her way to health. I don’t know the woman. I’m sure she’s very nice, but quite frankly, I find that if I’m embroiled in a scandal I tend to not go on British television if I don’t have to. If I want to heal and be left alone, I tend to perhaps go off and try and find my way inconspicuously in the world as opposed to say going to parties where they might describe me as a portly pepper pot?
KING: Would you book her on “The Daily Show?”
STEWART: I would not.
KING: Would not?
STEWART: I would not.
KING: Have no interest, not curiosity about it?
STEWART: I have no interest. Curiosity in what sense?
KING: About her life. About what she got herself into, the events that occurred around her.
STEWART: I am very familiar with what she got herself into. I have gotten myself into that with people that I know.
KING: Elaborate.
STEWART: Sex, isn’t it? You never? How many times — you’ve been married like 28 times. You never had — come on, you’ve got kids!
KING: Okay, yes.
STEWART: Am I going to have to draw this for you?
KING: No. OK.
STEWART: But do you know what I’m saying? Why is anyone interested in what she does?
KING: Because she’s a victim and a participant and she’s a footnote in history.
STEWART: Footnote in history is the perfect way to describe her and that should close the book. Footnote in history. Thank you. Finally we have some perspective.
Originally linked to at Crooked Timber (pointing to a different quote). Read the whole thing.