On the Daily Show Wednesday night, liberal host Jon Stewart offered Barack Obama eight and a half minutes of mostly serious policy talk after his infomercial aired on seven networks. The most noticeable part of the interview was when Stewart cued up Obama to attack conservatives for cartooning him as evil, and Obama predictably whacked at "hardcore Sean Hannity fans." Why does Obama seem to single out Hannity for hatred, and not the other conservative media stars? Obama also repeated a lame joke about conservatives think he's dangerously socialist because he shared his toys as a kid:
STEWART: So much of this has been about fear of you, a celebrity, an elitist, a Muslim terrorist sympathizer, a socialist, a Marxist, a witch, that’s right (laughter) – they’ve been calling you a witch. The whole socialism/Marxist thing. I mean, if you do win, is that a mandate for socialism in this country? I mean, has any of this fear stuff, do you think it’s stuck with the electorate? Are you finding that on the trail?
OBAMA: You know, it just hasn’t. I mean, There’s a certain segment of hardcore Sean Hannity fans (laughter) that probably wouldn’t want to go have a beer with me. There’s no doubt about that. But I think that for the average voter, they’re sayin’ to themselves, uh, ‘What’s this all about? I’m trying to figure out whether I can hang on to my house, or who’s gonna help me get a job, or what about my health care? My premiums have doubled over the last couple of years.’ So I don’t think they’re payin’ too much attention to stuff.
The whole socialism argument, that doesn’t fly too well. The evidence of this seems pretty thin. I said today, I think they found proof that when I was in kindergarten, I shared some toys with my friends (laughter, whoops and applause), and that’s clearly a sign of subversive activity…I want to tell you, Jon, that being on this program is further proof of these tendencies.
Stewart laughed like a hyena.
He really ought to hand over the comedian duties for interviews like this. You keep waiting for the Chris Farley Show to kick in. You know, when you gave that speech in front of the columns in Denver, in the stadium? That was awesome!
