Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Jon Stewart is not Rosie O'Donnell

Bill Moyers recently did an excellent and highly entertaining interview with Jon Stewart. You can download the podcast here.

The Daily Show host had a few choice lines, including these about President Bush reaction to Alberto Gonzalez's testimony to congress:

And by the way, that was all just — that was a game, and he knew it, and the guys on the committee knew it. And for the President to come out after that and say, "Everything I saw there gave me more confidence in him," that solidified my notion that, "Oh, it's because what he expected of Gonzalez was" it's sort of like, do you remember in GOODFELLAS? When Henry Hill got arrested for the first time and Robert DeNiro met him at the courthouse and Henry Hill was really upset, 'cause he thought Robert DeNiro would be really mad at him. And DeNiro comes up to him and he gives him a $100 and he goes, "You got pinched. We all get pinched, but you did it right, you didn't say nothing."

Stewart also had some poignant things to say about Iraq:

But war that hasn't affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that's why they're so really — here's the disconnect. It's sort of this odd and I've always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, "We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. "And, so what I'm going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children's children all suffer. So, what I'm gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad."

So, there's a disconnect there between — you're telling me this is fight of our generation, and you're going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that's gonna do it. I'm sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can't, because he doesn't have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country's not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we're doing and really examine how it is that they've been waging this.

And on his reaction to the Virginia Tech tragedy in relation to Iraq:

I don't even know if it's appropriate to broach it … but we in this country we have a very tragic situation occur at one of our universities and, it really has taken the country aback and there's a real grieving process that we're going through, And going through it mourning and learning about the victims and-learning about it and showing our support, you know, I hesitate to say, how does your country handle what is that type of carnage on a daily basis? Is there a way to grieve? Is there a numbness that sets in? How is that?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Make like a tree and get out of here McFly

harris said...

it's make like a tree, and leave!

Count Choculitis said...

I think anonymous has the quote from the move right, and man he is a tough audience. Spread some liberal love over the blogosphere and see what you get?

McFly, as a card-carrying liberal what do you think of Tommy-Boy Friedman?

harris said...

I love Tom Friedman. If I were President, he'd be my secretary of state.

Anonymous said...

Friedman took a dive into an empty pool a while ago. His naivete is humorous at best and frightening at worst. The fact that he would be your secretary of state, says something about the credibility of your administration harris. I vote Hilary over Harris.

Toasty Joe said...

I love Jon Stewart. My hero.

Toasty Joe said...

Incidentally, Jon's interview last week with McCain was borderline-brilliant (even though they talked over each other a bit too much). You can probably find it on comedycentral.com.

harris said...

I saw the interview with McCain, and I was disappointed with Stewart. He essentially sabotaged McCain and didn't let him answer questions. It wasn't so much an interview as it was an exercise in frustration. I highly recommend you download the interview with Moyers (in which they discuss the McCain appearance). You can use the link or just search for the Bill Moyers podcast through iTunes. It's free.

Count Choculitis said...

I watched Stewart with Christopher Hitchens the other night. I think Jonny Cakes is buying a bit into the hype. He doesn't let anyone answer any questions, he just makes stupid jokes or cracks his stupid liberal purported wit.

harris said...

Is there anything in this world you like Greenhaus? Ice cream? $100 bills? Hoverboards?

Toasty Joe said...

If Count Choc had a naked stripper on a hoverboard, holding a $100 bill and an ice cream cone, he'd complain because the ice cream was the wrong flavor.

harris said...

Ha!

Count Choculitis said...

I like Christopher Hitchens. I think I like Barack Obama (but I'm not sure yet). I like nicknaming folks Johnny Cakes. I love Fall Out Boy.