All Over Albany

That's Ben! On The Daily Show!

posted Jun 5, 2008

Ben managed to make it out looking OK.

So, we checked out The Daily Politics yesterday and there was this picture of Hillary Clinton's "concession" (not) speech from Tuesday in NYC. We looked. Then we looked again. "Wait," we thought. "Isn't that Ben? Ben Jakes- Johnson from Albany? Right there-- four feet over Hillary's head (look for the red tie).

But it gets better. Turns out Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show was there interviewing Hillary Clinton supporters (O.K. poking fun at Hillary supporters) for a segment that aired last night. And yes, they snagged an interview with A-Town Ben. We've always wondered what it'd be like to be interviewed for a Daily Show segment --walking that fine line between being in on the joke and being the butt of it. Ben clued us in on the experience.

He says it's kind of what you might expect. Interns scanned the crowd looking for "unusual suspects." "Some people they talked to seemed really crazy. Others were semi normal like me."

But Ben's seen The Daily Show before. And he was in the room full of Hillary supporters--umm-- supporting Hillary. Didn't he know what was coming? "When they asked me I said yes right away. Then I went 'Oh My God, what am I doing.'"

Sure, Mandvi tried to trip him up a few times, but Ben wouldn't go for it. "He asked me what Obama might say to Hillary after her speech. When I started to answer he said 'No, no... say it like Obama would.' There was no way I was doing that ."

But he got into the spirit and had a little fun with it. When Mandvi asked "Where should she take this next?" Ben came back with "I don't know? Maybe West Dakota?"

Alas, if you watch the segment, you'll miss most of Ben's witty comments. Through a stroke of luck (good or bad?) only about 3 seconds of his interview ended up on TDS. So he's still got most of his 15 minutes left.

Here it is.

still: The Daily Show

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