Jon Stewart On Hank Williams Jr. Controversy: “So What?”

by Glenn Davis | 10:01 am, October 5th, 2011

On the heels of the nutty interview Hank Williams Jr. did a couple days ago on Fox News’ Fox and Friends, there was some backlash – ESPN pulled his theme from Monday night’s telecast, for example. But in some corners, there was a different, perhaps more surprising, reaction: sympathy for Williams. Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher offered this up yesterday, and last night, Jon Stewart came to Williams’ defense on The Daily Show, essentially saying: what’d you expect out of this guy?

Stewart saved his criticism for a more familiar target of his: Fox and Friends itself, saying that asking Williams about politics at all contradicted a point they’d made earlier in their own show. And it is worth asking why the hell Williams was being asked about politics at all (unless they knew he’d say something crazy and did it to get attention, which, if so: well done).

Stewart, ever helpful, even had a couple suggestions: one, an alternate punishment ESPN could have handed down to Williams (it involves soccer), plus an alternate MNF theme if Williams’ personality proved too much to handle. Video below of Stewart’s comments, via Mediaite.

Oh, and Stewart’s late-night Comedy Central counterpart Stephen Colbert weighed in too. Unsurprisingly, he was lost without Hank Jr.’s voice guiding him:

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