Closed minded conservative that I am, I fairly routinely watch the Daily Show.
The show I just saw was the most twisted sort of madness I can even imagine. Two key things stick out:
First, Jon plays a clip of this interview, in which George W. Bush says: “Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night.”
Jon was amazed by how stupid this is. Now, honestly, I have to admit that it is stupid. Americans have not sacrificed at all, and Bush is completely out of line to coddle the whining dipshits that infest this nation. But what makes it completely insane is when Jon Stewart, a man who has done nothing but profit from whining about the war for four years, is criticizing this quote. It's like a moebius strip of retarded liberal self-righteousness.
Bush isn't buttering up people up for their “sacrifices“ for fun. He has an audience. Bush is talking to you, Jon. He's trying to humor your ceaseless negativism and baseless self pity. He shouldn't, I agree. But he is. And so, when he humors your ridiculousness you attack him, not even realizing you're ultimately mocking yourself. You think it's ridiculous that people should people pity themselves for “suffering” through the news they get on the Iraq war. And you've done nothing but, for four years.
So, on comes Jon's guest, former British military man Rupert Smith, plugging his book. Rupert explained to Jon that history is written by the winners. Jon took this as an opportunity to give his spiel about how invading Iraq and telling them to set up a decent government isn't a “good story” for them to make into their history, and denies them a “foothold” for national pride. He's said this a half dozen times, he thinks its very clever, and so does his audience.
In response to this, Rupert Smith explained to Jon that in modern warfare it's not enough to wait for the end of the war to write the history, you have to write it as you go, convince the world of what good and victorious things you are doing even as you do them. And, of course, we have done a poor job of it. Somehow, Jon took this to be a reproach of the Bush administration, presumably because that's what literally everything is when you're a liberal. He fails to understand that the “story” is being told by the American media, by American popular culture, by... Jon Stewart... Yet again, he's being shown how he, and people like him, have failed the nation, and yet again he somehow thinks it's about Bush.
Jon, you think you're very smart, very insightful, and very thoughtful. You've stopped thinking. Your entire life is a reflexive, mindless attack on George W Bush. You've lost any ability to introspect, to question yourself, to ask if any of our problems stem from anybody other than George W Bush. You're a shallow, mindless partisan, and you're everything that's wrong with the country right now.