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Jon Stewart… — 33 Comments

  1. The last horse finally crosses the finish line.
    Better late than never, I guess, as most younger Americans get their “news” from Stewart.

  2. Mr. Frank:

    I see now that, since the time I watched it and created the post, it got blocked. I’ll try to put it up again from a different source.

  3. You can’t embed stuff from The Daily Show, but I found it at Hulu and managed to embed that. So everyone should be able to see it now.

  4. It’s blocked because they want you to pay them good money, which they will use to support more Leftists.

    Stewart, for as much as they pretend to be altruists and social do gooders, is out for the money too. Never forget that they are robber baron capitalists at heart, even before the social welfare was applied as a paint to make them seem as meek as sheep.

  5. Ymarsakar:

    Oh, I certainly don’t see Stewart as an altruist. I think he is a liberal. Part of what motivates his liberalism, I believe, is his sense that it is more benevolent than conservatism (many liberals share that belief, and I used to share it too, so I’m well aware of the mindset and the reasoning behind it, although I no longer agree).

    But there’s also no question he is trying to make money as an entertainer. I have no doubt of that. And I happen to believe he’s a very funny man. And every now and then his desire to be funny gets the better of his liberalism. This particular segment brought tears of laughter to my eyes.

  6. This clip just goes to continue the point I tried to make when you were surprised that the NYT was covering this story — pretty much everyone I know (and most of my friends are liberals, just like you) is appalled at the fiasco that is the healthcare.gov launch, thinks it is a travesty, thinks it represents the worst of what the government tends to do, etc., etc. We don’t, as a group, all march lockstep in some sort of “only say things that are good for our side”! Joan Walsh wrote a column to that effect on Salon, a column I thought was ludicrous, and most liberal commentators rightly derided her for it (essentially she said we liberals shouldn’t be harping on the website’s failures because that just helps “the other side”. News flash, Ms. Walsh — some of us care about the truth, not just helping our “side”.)

  7. As far as I’m concerned, it’s too little and too late for Stewart to finally focus his smirking face on the lefties.

    Y’know, things like the ACA impact, like the almost-war against Syria, like the NSA snooping, like the IRS bullying are *serious* *stuff* . . .

    and I am disgusted by clowns like Stewart sniggering his way through a “news” broadcast that very sadly, admittedly *is* the way a large segment of the younger set — marinated in the snigger culture as they are — get their information.

    Woe is us.

  8. Mitsu, 4:27 pm — “News flash, Ms. Walsh – some of us care about the truth, not just helping our ‘side’.”

    Your protestation(s) might be more meaningful had your side vetted this disaster before He became disaster-in-chief; had your side bothered to criticize Him only once He was into the fifth year of His reign. No, I don’t mean sporadically, as some have sporadically done — you’re not gonna get me on that — but vetted, criticized, *ridiculed*, as was, let us say just in a flight of imagination, George W. Bush.

    And had your side not given Him not only the kid gloves treatment, protecting their precious affirmative action icon, but actively worshipping Him. I’d invoke George W. Bush again, but . . . never mind.

    Gimme a break.

    More people on your side have signed up for health insurance through the ACA website than care, *really* care, about the unvarnished whole truth. (And you know it.) They have an agenda and a worldview to protect and defend [against all enemies, foreign and domestic].

  9. Mitsu:

    I don’t want to be rude and call you “stupid,” but it does get frustrating making the same points to you over and over, and seeing you revert back as though you never heard them.

    I wrote exactly why the Times was covering this particular story, in my original post on the subject (entitled “Even the NY Times can’t hide…”):

    What is it about the Obamacare rollout that caused the Times to stop carrying Obama’s water, if only for a minute? The first thing might be that they don’t have to blame Obama, who most likely did not oversee the design of the website. The second is that it is, indeed, deeply embarrassing–perhaps even to the Times, which has been cheerleading Obama and Obamacare for so long. And the third reason might be that it is more than ordinarily difficult to hide or disguise or spin this particular story, when so many citizens have actually interacted with the website and experienced major troubles, and then told their friends and family. This screw-up is more immediately up-close and personal than most.

    So of course, if the screw-up is one that is that egregious AND that up-close and personal, you and the Times and other liberals (such as Jon Stewart) might indeed notice, comment, be appalled, etc. This has nothing to do with whether you are objective, or whether slightly less glaring errors and offenses can call forth your condemnation rather than your spirited defense.

    I have been a blogger way too long not to notice that the left is not objective. Nor is the right, by the way, but the distortions of the left to defend itself no matter what happens are more frequent and more extreme (and I first noticed that when I was a liberal).

  10. M J R:

    It doesn’t change anything about Stewart, or what he ordinarily does.

    I just happen to think this is very, very funny, and thought people might enjoy a laugh. I most assuredly did NOT post it in order to make some comment about whether Stewart has Seen the Light. I have little doubt that his views are still the same; there is no change process going on, as far as I can see.

    If there were, though, I’d welcome him over to the dark side.

  11. At one point in his monologue, Stewart makes fun of the Obamacare website listing one subscriber’s spouse as his child. According to this Wash. Post piece, that kind of information is processed in what’s called an 834 transmission, and right now the insurance companies are cleaning them up manually. And, as perhaps Obama luck would have it, the malfunctioning website may actually be a “blessing-in-disguise”:

    The purpose of the electronic transaction is to be able to do this with a minimum amount of human intervention,” says Stanley Nachimson of Nachimson Advisors, a health IT consulting firm. “The hope would be that the health plan’s computers will be able to understand the transaction and do all the processes automatically.”

    Some in the industry believe HealthCare.gov’s traffic problems have been a blessing-in-disguise for the program: If applicants were being able to sign up easily but the 834 forms were coming in with this many errors the results could be disastrous.

    “Some days its going to be 100,000 coming in,” Laszewski says. “The good news right now is there is a small enough number that they can scrub the data manually.”

  12. Stewart’s does not truly skewer of criticize Liberals. He sends them a “heads up people…let’s fix this before real people notice and start talking”. He always manages to impugn republicans along the way.

    He’s a fraud, inside and out. The best that can be said of him is that he has the remnants of a conscience in there somewhere which compels him to a fairness he doesn’t really want, but pays abstract respect to.

    His true feelings are in the joke about how the country could be 80% Dem and crush the Rs if they only did this right.

    In other news….Who won the shutdown now? Shouldn’t the Rs just say, “See, this is what we meant! This is what we were trying to delay for a year! And not Obama is maybe going to do it anyway!”

    I think the Rs should declare victory on their principled stance and say “You are welcome America”, then sit back and watch the apocalypse soon.

  13. “We don’t, as a group, all march lockstep in some sort of “only say things that are good for our side”!”

    How would a brain in a jar being fed electrical signals know it is a brain in a jar?

    Zombie pap paste drones aren’t known for becoming self aware. Software AI hasn’t been updated there. Virus keeps the AIs enslaved and unable to be sentient or self aware.

    When the Left gives a command, people will obey, no matter what justification they call it as. It is not up to the slaves to question why their masters, the LEft, gave or didn’t give them an order. Theirs is to do or die.

  14. neo-neocon, 4:54 pm — “I most assuredly did NOT post it in order to make some comment about whether Stewart has Seen the Light. I have little doubt that his views are still the same; there is no change process going on, as far as I can see.”

    No, friend neo, and I did *not* interpret your post as suggesting Stewart has now or ever will See the Light.

    Unlike you, though, I find his “humor” at least annoying (could ya tell that from my post?). No sweat, different tastes here.

    “If there were, though, I’d welcome him over to the dark side.”

    I wouldn’t. To me, and I know to you, there is a cultural component to the not-so-cold war. I see the juvenile sniggering as part of Stewart’s waging of the war on his side. Strictly my personal “take” on this.

    No sweat, different takes here.

    Or did I say that already? (smile)

  15. M J R:

    Well, I do disagree on that. I would welcome his appeal to a whole other demographic. I like Dennis Miller, too, who’s already a conservative and has a “sniggering” style.

    Speaking of sniggering—I am reminded of this great scene (watch it all the way to the end):

  16. It’s not like anyone crossing the Rubicon is a safe bet. They will eventually become double agents and spies.

    There must be a loyalty test. I can imagine none for Stewart as he is.

    Society may forgive people their crimes, but I’m a different component entirely.

  17. neo-neocon, 5:55 pm — “I like Dennis Miller, too, who’s already a conservative and has a ‘sniggering’ style.”

    Yeah, different strokes, you ‘n’ me. Dennis Miller is on my side, but I recoil at his manner.

    But I’ll have to grant that your approach is the more effective, since in order to sway people, we have to meet people where they are, not where M J R would prefer them to be. See ya.

  18. It’s funny how you can agree with someone but ‘recoil at his manner.’ I, for one, cannot listen to Mark Steyn when he fills in for Rush or when he is interviewed. I agree with him — but I can’t stand his brand of humor mixed with negativity. Ugh. The minute I hear his voice I switch the station.

    Anyone else feel the same?

  19. >I wrote exactly why the Times was covering this particular story

    Yes, Neo, I read that at the time, but all of your proferred explanations ignore the most straightforward possiblility — that in the opinion of the Times, this was a newsworthy example of a large organization doing something in a badly executed, incompetent manner, and the Times has an intentional interest in covering stories in as evenhanded a manner as they can. Even your “it’s embarrassing” possibility still presumes that the purpose of the Times is to take up the side of liberals or the Obama Administration, and that the Times is “embarrassed” (the use of that term presumes that the Times is essentially an intentional player in the game on the side of the Administration).

    Of course I’m not claiming the Times actually lives up to this ideal, nor do I deny that most Times reporters are liberal in their political outlook, and are likely to be filtering their writing through that particular lens. That does not mean, however, that their editorial decisions are *purposefully* intended to be part of a “team effort” on the side of a political party or movement.

    Regarding distortions, we really have an amazing difference in perception here. Obviously it is difficult to see one’s own bias, but I, like most people, make a tremendous effort (at least so I think) to be as objective as possible. I certainly don’t succeed, I am sure, as much as I would like, but that is clearly my goal. From my perspective I see distortions far more often from the right. Everything from “Obamacare is going to destroy America” to fearmongering that it is the beginning of the end of freedom, to spreading all sorts of really quite incredible falsehoods about policy and practice. But again, my point isn’t to litigate these issues here on your blog, but rather to simply point out that the conscious intention of most liberals, including myself, is not to cheerlead one side. If my “side” is doing something awful, in my opinion, I deride it, if the other “side” does something that makes sense, I applaud. Obviously I’m not as objective as I’d like to be, but that is my *conscious* goal, at all times.

    The Benghazi incident, I still believe, is a rather trivial one in the grand scheme of things. The IRS targeting of conservative groups — that is pretty horrible, but then again, further investigation shows that in fact the IRS also targeted left-wing groups. And so forth… to me, most of the “scandals” that have come up (Whitewater is another example of this) really are pretty trivial. But this healthcare.gov thing — that is absolutely a real, and significant screwup. THAT is the reason I am pissed off about it.

  20. The Benghazi incident, I still believe, is a rather trivial one in the grand scheme of things. The IRS targeting of conservative groups – that is pretty horrible, but then again, further investigation shows that in fact the IRS also targeted left-wing groups.

    Another authentic Mitsu sauce, which we will see regurgitated here come the Left’s slave Empire in 2025.

    Then, just as now, he’ll pretend none of that ever happened, he never said such things.

    Mitsu’s sauce has been recorded here since at least 2008.

  21. THAT is the reason I am pissed off about it.

    A Leftist cog and tool has no right to feel anything about it, unless told to by their Master.

    has Obama given you his permission to be pissed off, eh?

  22. Yes, it’s very funny how the IRS gave preferential treatment to Leftist groups and shoved them through the process faster, by explicit or implicit consent.

  23. Mitsu:

    Benghazi, trivial? Failure to guard properly in the first place, then failure to even attempt a rescue, failure to pay attention that evening (going to bed and then to a fundraiser), then telling lie after lie after lie about a video as the cause when it was apparent that was a lie, and meanwhile we have four people in the service of our country dead? No, I’m not of the Hillary “what difference does it make” camp. And yes, you and I have very different standards for what is a significant and outrageous scandal.

    Funny thing, though—the Obamacare website mess is not a scandal to me, it’s an incredibly incompetent screw-up but not primarily a scandal. It’s a scandal, I suppose, in that it involves an enormous waste of taxpayer money, but that’s commonplace. Otherwise, in the website rollout itself (not Obamacare): no restraint on liberty, no illegal shenanigans (that we know of, anyway), and the only lies told about the website itself was the lie that it would be easy to use.

    As for the rest of it, the idea that liberals are objective is sort of funny to me—and I am quite familiar with liberals.
    Actually, very few people period are what I’d call objective, really objective. It’s a rare commodity.

    Re one of your points towards the end of your comment, that the IRS also targeted left-wing groups, please see this.

  24. Mitsu, what was that about you saying your Democrats aren’t zombies that just say what the Leftist propaganda tells you to?

    How then, does a brain in a jar know it is a brain in a jar, eh?

  25. >Benghazi, trivial?

    My understanding is the CIA was on the scene 25 minutes after the attack began:

    http://thehill.com/blogs/defcon-hill/operations/265503-us-officials-cia-wasnt-delayed-in-benghazi-rescue-attempts

    As for the video being “the cause”, this has been rehashed over and over again — you think it was a purposeful “lie” (what possible advantage would there be to purposefully spreading a mistake like this, particularly one which would eventually be refuted?) whereas my interpretation is that this was just a mistaken assessment passed along by Rice, that didn’t have any political motive.

    Granted, the lack of adequate security at the embassy is a fuck-up, but as I mentioned to you back at the time, in the scale of fuckups in American security and military affairs, it pales in comparison to the incredible levels of massive fuckups that happened in the run-up to and the execution of the Iraq War. One simple example: disbanding the Iraqi Army (something which I knew would create massive instability at that time, yet something that the Bush Administration did clearly with no clue about how military operations work). Or the lack of sufficient ground troops to secure the country. Or the near-total lack of planning for the aftermath, and on and on. These fuckups are about 10,000x larger in scope than the fuckup around this one embassy in one country. So yes, I do believe the Benghazi incident is, in all fairness, trivial by comparison to other security fuckups we’ve had in the past.

    >the IRS also targeted left-wing groups

    Regarding that link, that’s good additional information, though I question the implication that many tea party groups had their applications denied. Every other news report I have read says none of these applications were denied, they were just delayed. But yes, the entire existence of the BOLO list is an outrage and should never have happened, whether they targeted only right-wing groups or some left-wing groups as well. Apparently, one left-wing group did have its application outright rejected, however:

    http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-05-15/irs-sent-same-letter-to-democrats-that-fed-tea-party-row.html

    Note that Jon Stewart also covered the IRS scandal, similarly caustically to his coverage of the healthcare.gov fuckup:

    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-may-13-2013/barack-trek–into-darkness

  26. Mitsu:

    Sorry to say this, because I think you’re a decent person, but your ignorance and/or denial is truly astounding.

    I think mostly denial.

  27. >I think mostly denial

    I have to say, I have the same feeling about you, Neo — I like you and I think you’re sincerely attempting to be objective and reasoned, which is actually a large reason why I come to read your blog from time to time (plus, I never tire of the lovely attacks I get from your commenters…) But I often think that the fact that you buy into something like the right-wing outrage over Benghazi is quite surprising, in light of that. Yes, Rice promulgated an incorrect story, there was apparently some pushback from some officials to shape those talking points, but all of this was corrected within days. Of course, if you’re predisposed to thinking there must always be some sort of conspiracy, then fine, but come on — the error was corrected relatively quickly, everyone knew the truth soon enough, and that was always going to happen regardless of what Rice said on the Sunday shows afterwards.

    But more importantly, the entire incident, from top to bottom, doesn’t have any large-scale significance from a military or strategic standpoint. I don’t see how it shows any sort of major systemic problem, other than some bureaucratic fuckups and a wrong security assessment about this one diplomatic outpost. I mean, even Dick Cheney has praised Obama for continuing a lot of things the Bush Administration started — people on the left, while generally supportive of Obama, have been upset with him about many of his tactics (most especially drone strikes). If anything Obama has been more than aggressive in the war on terror, he’s no shrinking violet when it comes to that.

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