My basement is finished, and I finally got around to getting a second cable box. Now I can resume my tradition of painting miniatures and listening to Comedy Central. Unfortunately, during my absence, Jon Stewart and the Daily Show staff have completely lost their fucking minds. They're so insanely partisan, so anti-Bush, it's really impossible for me to enjoy anymore. Now, of course I admire Jon for his “brave, principled stance” that he's taking, and how he's really putting his career on the line by going against Bush, as the numerous Emmys getting crammed up his ass indicate, but last night's show was simply unbelievable.
The first story Jon covered was the CBS fiasco with the forged documents. He starts out on the offensive, by basically just saying “we all know Bush shirked his duties, and used his family priviledge to get out of Vietnam...” Essentially the first thing he needed to get out of the way, is that he's more or less in agreement with Rather. The documents may be forgeries, but they're still true. From there, Jon meekly tosses out some little jokes at CBS, stuff like “Bill Burkett is a widely known anti-Bush loon, how could you trust him, CBS...” Yeah, great Jon, way to at least pretend to keep up appearances. Then they roll out Colbert, and things go completely fucking insane. Colbert's monologue, in short, is “Dan Rather used falsified documents to justify his story, but Bush used falsified documents to justify the war.” He then just calls for the end of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice's time in office. The writers can't keep their politics in check long enough to go after Rather, a man who provides plenty of material a comedy writer would love, a man who used forged documents to attack a sitting president. They just spin it all around and start harping on the same shit they've been harping on for months, again, as if repetition was the soul of wit. That's embarassing. These people just won an Emmy, and they've got one, sad, bitter bit. Comedy is supposed to be novel, fresh, creative and timely. Dan Rather just chopped his own head off, and set it on a golf tee, and these assholes are too partisan to take a swing at it. They're over in the sand trap, hacking away at Bush, again, and again, and again.
In a rehash of the joke he used at the Emmys, Jon's pre-produced story was about John Kerry giving the Heimlich manuever to a Republican senator back in 1988, and saving his life. The basic premise of the piece was to mock the SBVFT thing again, and talk about how the Heimlich story is lost in the mists of time, and we'll never really know if it happened or not. Basically yet more of the same old “I can't believe how fucking ridiculous these people are for questioning a totally awesome hero, of Washingtonian proportions, like John Kerry.“ Same joke, different day, Jon. That's the type of innovative writing that wins Emmys. Here's a fucking joke: Pretending that the word of 250 decorated veterans means nothing when compared to the word of a career politician and traitor.
And who was the guest? Richard Fucking Clarke. A man who I used to think was sharp and honest, but who has proven to be nothing but a partisan crybaby. Needless to say, Stewart has a massive boner for Clarke, and Clarke is more than happy to do the “disbelieving liberal hobnob” act with Jon all day. “Gosh, Richard, we both know that nobody in Washington likes or agrees with Bush, why do they not disavow him completely, publically and petulantly as I would?” “Well, Jon, that's an excellent question, I think it's because they're craven political animals of the worst sort, not honest, legitimate best-selling authors like me. I turned my own failure and the resulting death of 3000 Americans into a great deal of personal profit, so I must be cool.” This guy passes himself off as a bemused wiseman, and yet he treats the situation like it's some sort of media-spun joke. He's got nothing, and he wants you to believe he knows all.
What's particularly cute, is when Jon asks him “what can we do to rescue this, Richard?” Jon really thinks Richard knows. The response: “well, we need to stop doing stupid stuff.” Wow. Awesome. But he clarifies. Stupid stuff would be something like attacking Fallujah, for example. Why? Because al Qaeda isn't in Fallujah. The people of Fallujah don't have WMDs. That's Clarke's world changing insight for you. He's still harping on the WMD cover story, he apparently hasn't even heard of al-Zarqawi, the top al Qaeda leader in Iraq, who happens to be in Fallujah. He apparently has no concept that allowing ex-Baathists to run rampant across a city shows a lack of legitimate control in Iraq, and is unacceptable for the creation of a stable national government. I couldn't help but wonder if Jon had a moment of sadness that even he knew about the ex-Baathists there, and Hero Clarke seemed unaware.
Jon and Richard really have nothing new or interesting to say, just the usual choir to choir jabbering about how awful Bush is, what an obvious clusterfuck Iraq is, and how that's all in the world we need to know. And then I read this. Apparently Richard Clarke, Washington insider that he is, doesn't read Stratfor. Let me quote the article: “This could signal Damascus' willingness to stand down from its non-cooperative stance toward the United States -- yet another example of the immense geopolitical shift in the region resulting from the U.S. ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq.” And more: “For now, this move further strengthens U.S. President George W. Bush as Election Day nears and also increases pressure on Syria's ally, Iran. Syria, it seems evident, has signaled that it no longer can afford to be belligerent.” Stratfor is not a biased group of people. They don't blow smoke, or play partisan games. When I see a group like Stratfor reporting on “immense” shifts thanks to Bush's policy, and I see a guy like Richard Clarke still bleating meaninglessly about WMDs, it really makes me sad that I can't just leave the TV on while I paint miniatures anymore. I have to get up, every time the Daily Show comes on, and turn the TV off until Jon gets done drinking the dick off of some liberal icon, and Reno 911 or Crank Yankers comes on. Hopefully Bush wins a crushing victory, and John can stop pretending like he's gonna singlehandedly give Traitor/Extortionist the White House, and get back to being funny about small, meaningless issues.
Jon, let me be clear to you: you're a monkey clown. When the organ grinder plays, I want you to dance, and make funny faces. I don't want you to tell me how to live my life. You're a monkey, not Deepak Chopra. Hell, Deepak Chopra isn't even Deepak Chopra, and he sure as hell isn't Hussain Chinoy. Even Hussain wants us to go into Fallujah, and he's got an inner hippie to contend with.