there was a really sobering moment when jon stewart confronted the author of dick cheney's new biography and it was a thing of beauty.
earlier, he'd played the clip of Cheney being eerily prescient, but then he said that the difference between the liberals and the conservatives on the iraq war was that the right lied and used their lies (even when they admitted they knew the truth) to brand those who didn't believe their lies as traitors and un-American. then he wondered why we should believe anything this administration, especially cheney, has to say about their accomplishments when they've been wrong about everything.
when the author tried to mitigate all this and say that the right never really did any of those things, they just have a different way of viewing solutions, he was booed by the audiience and Jon Stewart got super serious:
Stewart: Let me say this: I think there's a real feeling in this country that your patriotism has been questioned, by people in very high-level positions, not fringe people. You know, I myself had some idiot from Fox [News Channel] playing the tape of me after September 11th, very upset, and them calling me a phony, because,
apparently, my grief didn't mean acquiescence. So, I think that it's a fair point to say—
Hayes: I think we can agree that we shouldn't be questioning other people's patriotism; on the other hand, I think it's totally legitimate to talk about different ways of handling the war on terror and for them to make their case.
Stewart: If they were to make their case on that, I'm saying to you, I think we'd have a fair argument and agreement on how to move forward. They haven't done that, and the evidence that they haven't done that is, he made that case in 1994, he knew those were the problems, and they never brought it up in the run-up to the war. (snip)
the segment was very sobering. no laughing. no jokes. just really disappointed resignation that our administration just screwed the pooch for the past 6 years and turned against its own citizenry to do so.
you can find a transcript here.
4 comments:
I saw it and I was cheering Jon on. I love it when he get serious. McCain is going to be on tonight. I wonder how that will go.
me too. and it was such an unexpected moment, wasn't it?
first he did the funny voice and when it was clear the author was deliberately being disingenuous, he got serious on him and totally threw him off.
this is what good satire does - it destabilizes discours and then, when you realize that (duh) it has a point, it's too late. the poor author guy couldn't recover.
if you've seen stewart's stand up, you can catch glimpses of the seriousness there, too. it's hot.
oooh! we have a season pass on tivo. i'm going to the TV right now to make sure it hasn't been bumped off! i'm months behind in my daily show and colbert viewing. must catch up. and that sounds SCRUMPTIOUS!
love love love colbert! i think his show is even better satire than stewart's.
also on wednesday night, he had kos from Daily Kos to answer questions about the site being a 'hate' site (by Bill Reilly, of all people) and it was just hilarious. he was trying to get kos to give a hitler salute by asking to show how tall a pony is.
classic. (and also great advertising for kos' site. let's see anyone do that with Little Green Footballs.)
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