One of the best daily shows I've ever seen tonight. No supporting cast, just Jon Stewart. Beginning of the show was an excellent smack down of Bush's talking points on Iraq. Just a few highlights:
It's clear that he has developed a sophisticated exit strategy... for getting out of questions about the war. It's a strategy known as repetition, or repetition. How does it work? The first step is to let people know you're aware of your questions. Then the president can reduce these nuanced concerns into a simplistic guided concern, that he can easily refute. ... The key for your new war rationale talking points is : delivering them as if the person who asked is retarded. (Bush: fighting them in Iraq. So we do not have to face them at home. Where we live) Of course, sometimes, no matter how good your talking points, no matter how much you repeat them, there are still, some dissenters and some non-believers. If only there was a way you could shut these people up with some kind of emotional bludgeon. (Bush: Sept 11th, Sept 11th, Sept 11th...) You know, if i had a nickel for every time Bush has mentioned 9/11, I could raise enough reward money to go after bin Laden...
The interviews have been lackluster recently, but his interview with Leftie-turned-Neocon-Bush Supporter Christopher Hitchens was the highlight of the show. Here's the meaty part:
hitch: the big fallacy is people who say, there wouldn't be all these terrorists in iraq if we hadn't gone there... the people who say that the violence of these people is our fault are masochistic and capitulationists. jon: but the people who say that we shouldn't fight in iraq aren't saying it's our fault. that is the conflation that is most disturbing to me hitch: but don't you hear people saying... jon: there are people who say a lot of stupid shit, but what i'm saying is there is reasonable dissent in this country about the way this war has been conducted that has nothing to do with people believing we should cut and run from the terrorists, or that we should show weakness in the face of terrorism, or that we believe that we have in some way brought this on ourselves. they believe that this war is being conducted without transparency, without credibility, and without (?) hitch: but i'm sorry sunshine, i just heard you make fun of the president for saying he wouldn't give a timetable. jon: no, you've misunderstood why...no, that's not why i ridiculed the president. what i ridiculed the president for was: he refuses to answer questions for adults as though we were adults, and falls backs on platitudes and phrases and talking points. that does a disservice to the goals that he himself shares with the very people he needs to convince. (wild applause. jon gives hitchens a nouggie) hitch: you want me to believe that really you secretly are on his side you just wish he was more persuasive? jon: i secretly need him to be on my side. he's too important and powerful a man not to be.
Why, oh, why is a comedy show the only place in the media we can hear this? Update: Crooks and Liars has the video.
