Daily Show

Jon Stewart Wednesday finally stopped responding to the aftermath of his performance on "Fox News Sunday" and tried to make amends with a somewhat bipartisan segment bashing the President for his budget solutions as well as both parties for not getting anything done.

Toward the end of the opening "Daily Show" sketch, after a video clip of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying, "My Republican friends seem to be living in a fantasy world," Stewart smartly quipped, "If they were living in a fantasy world, would you still exist?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the past nine days, the comedian most revered by liberals as the nation's top political satirist has devolved into a gross, unintelligible caricature of himself.

So hell-bent on attacking Fox News has the "Daily Show" host become that on Monday he continued to put words in Chris Wallace's mouth while appearing completely oblivious to serious investigations going on in Congress (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Fox News's Chris Wallace on Sunday actually asked Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann if she's a flake.

Possibly feeling the question was a bit over the top, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol during the panel discussion segment of "Fox News Sunday" ribbed the host saying, "You can call me a flake if you want" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Wallace told Don Imus Thursday he intended to fully respond to the fallout from last week's interview with Jon Stewart.

True to his word, at the conclusion of the most recent "Fox News Sunday," Wallace struck back at Stewart's claim that Fox watchers are the most misinformed media viewers by demonstrating that folks who watch "Hannity" and "The O'Reilly Factor" were actually better informed than "Daily Show" viewers (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, Jon Stewart earlier this month did a segment on "The Daily Show" wherein he impersonated Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain using an Amos and Andy voice.

While campaigning in Iowa Wednesday, Cain said of this incident, "He wants to mock me because I happen to be a black conservative" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's been four days since Chris Wallace and Jon Stewart squared off on "Fox News Sunday" and people still can't stop talking about it.

FBN's Don Imus brought it up with Wallace Thursday, and the FNS host said of Comedy Central's feature attraction, "I think he lives somewhat in denial about the bias of his program and of the, more importantly, of the mainstream media" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

It's not just conservatives who are sick and tired of Jon Stewart hiding behind his "I'm a comedian" excuse when called out for his dead-serious liberal pontifications.

Even liberals like Salon.com's Will Bunch are tired of the "Daily Show" host's faux sanctimony, even as he cheers Stewart's liberalism and calls on the comedian to embrace it.

From a June 21 War Room blog post (emphases mine):

Real men know how to apologize for their mistakes, especially when made on national television.

Apparently we can't put Jon Stewart in this category, for after acknowledging that the fact-checking organization PolitiFact found his statement to Chris Wallace concerning "misinformed" Fox viewers false, he proceeded to childishly spend three minutes listing all the times PF determined FNC's comments were likewise (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, Jon Stewart earlier this month did a segment on "The Daily Show" wherein he impersonated Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain using an Amos and Andy voice.

On Tuesday's "Imus in the Morning," Fox News's Juan Williams said that if Sean Hannity had done that, "He'd be out there barking with the dogs after they threw him out" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Jon Stewart on Monday cherry-picked thirteen seconds out of a 24 minute interview to accuse "Fox News Sunday" host Chris Wallace of claiming, "We don't tell both sides of the story."

Unfortunately, that's not what Wallace said Sunday (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Fox News this weekend, Jon Stewart famously denied that the New York Times pushes a liberal agenda. Perhaps the man from Comedy Central sees the paper as "moderate." After all, the Times itself apparently doesn't believe there are any liberals on the Supreme Court.  In an editorial today, the paper described Ruth Bader-Ginsburg and every other member of her wing of the Court, as "moderate."

The Times' mind-boggling notion of what constitutes a "moderate" came in its editorial blasting the Supreme Court's decision of yesterday throwing out a huge class-action sex-discrimination case against Wal-Mart.

Here's the relevant excerpt from the editorial [emphasis added]:

Monday appeared to be the day that MSNBC commentators bashed the ratings of Sunday political talk shows other than NBC's "Meet the Press."

After Chris Matthews ridiculed ABC's "This Week" despite it having more than three times his audience, Lawrence O'Donnell went after Chris Wallace and "Fox News Sunday" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In his June 19 appearance on Fox News Sunday, Comedy Central's Daily Show host Jon Stewart fiercely denounced the Fox News Channel as uniquely biased, and slammed those who watch Fox News as "the most consistently misinformed media viewers....Consistently -- every poll."

Unfortunately for Stewart, he was relying on a methodologically-flawed survey from the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) that in December trumpeted how "those who watched Fox News almost daily were significantly more likely than those who never watched it to believe...." and then listed a series of supposedly false statements.

But many of the study's supposedly false statements of fact were actually opinions that liberals don't share.

After months of being asked, Jon Stewart finally appeared on "Fox News Sunday" this weekend.

The primary discussion point was bias in the media which the "Daily Show" host continually told Chris Wallace is far more prevalent on FNC than at all the other news organizations (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Normally the announcement that a government official is leaving a post to join a company they had oversight of would invoke cries of crony capitalism from the likes of NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams, but when that person is joining your company it makes for quite the awkward news brief. Williams, to date, has expressed no outrage at the fact that FCC commissioner Meredith Baker is leaving that job for a gig as senior vice president of governmental affairs at Comcast/NBC Universal, even though just four short months ago she voted to approve the merger of those two companies.

This bit of conflict of interest news was not lost on Fox News' Bret Baier, who reported the story on the May 12 edition of Special Report and Jon Stewart who joked about it on Monday's Daily Show. Since Brian Williams is a self-proclaimed fan of Stewart, going as far to praise him as "indispensable," it has to be asked if he felt a tinge of angst when watching his comedic hero on Monday night.

(video and transcript after the jump)

On April 8, MRC’s Culture and Media Institute started a debate  when it called attention to an e-mail ad from J Crew that featured a mother painting her young son’s toenails pink. The story gained national attention on radio, TV and the web. And now it’s made “The Daily Show.”

Video Below the fold.

Once again, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart sacrificed "civility" in order to sharpen his liberal arguments – this time attacking corporations for greed. The liberal comedian, who time and again has used his national podium to cry out for civility in the nation's political discourse, resorted to vulgar name calling Monday during a four-minute tirade against big-business.

During the segment full of naive disillusionment and titled "I Give Up," Stewart tried to poke fun at the argument that corporate tax cuts stimulate the economy. His incivility boiled over when he reported that despite paying no corporate income tax, GE is still slashing American jobs and creating jobs overseas.

"You know, I know the Supreme Court ruled that corporations are people, but what I didn't realize is that those people are a**holes," he ranted. This is quite a far cry from his "Rally to Restore Sanity" this past October, when he pleaded for civility to govern the national political discourse.
 

It certainly wasn't at all surprising that comedian Jon Stewart was displeased about NPR getting exposed by James O'Keefe as the liberal shills most Americans knew this supposed news organization was.

But during Wednesday's "Daily Show," the host used the occasion to slam Fox News while calling the disgraced radio network "p--sies" for not fighting back (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

Jon Stewart's latest anti-conservative screed included a satirical defense of top income earners and a tongue-in-cheek plea for teachers to pay their fair share, in the wake of the Wisconsin protests. On Monday's "Daily Show," the Comedy Central host offered a shallow assessment of the entire Wisconsin situation with not a single critical look at the state's public sector unions.

Stewart's simplistic take on events is that teachers are being unduly bullied by Republicans and the wealthy to help solve the budget crisis in this country. What could help, he opined, would be boosting taxes on the "top two percent" of income earners.

"Hey you know, one thing we could do – not extend the Bush tax cuts to the top two percent of the country. That would earn us $700 billion over the next ten years," Stewart remarked to applause. "Oh, oh, and maybe also we could close some corporate tax loopholes."
 

In a classic example of liberal media bias, Chris Matthews on Friday bashed former President George W. Bush for holding Prince Abdullah of Saudia Arabia's hand when he visited the Crawford ranch back in 2005.

After mentioning how "the bowing and scraping" involved in the "paramount task" of presidents honoring Arab leaders has sometimes "been nearly comical," the host of the syndicated program bearing his name completely ignored President Barack Obama's deep bow to the very same man less than two years ago (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Jon Stewart on Thursday marvelously lampooned Keith Olbermann and all his former colleagues that can't fill the "Olbermann-shaped hole" his departure has left at MSNBC.

The "Daily Show" host began the segment (video follows with partial transcript and commentary): 

On Tuesday's "Daily Show," liberal comedian Jon Stewart flashed a smirk and wondered why the conservative base of the Republican Party is "so easily ignitable." The comedian hosted former Republican Party chair Michael Steele, who recounted the story of how he had to go about "re-igniting our base" after the party lost the White House and fell further into the minority in Congress in 2008.

"Why is it so easy to ignite your base?" Stewart asked with a smile. Amidst laughter from the audience, Michael Steele played along and quipped "they're an excitable bunch." Stewart kept at it. "They are so flammable, your base," he remarked, and added "so easily ignitable."

The remarks seem to echo Stewart's calls for civility in discourse, where he has focused much of his invective toward what he feels to be inflammatory political rhetoric. Earlier in the show, Stewart mocked "political hypochondriacs" on the Right who fear America will suffer the destructive fates of certain European and African countries; Stewart then lampooned Leftists who try to "cheer the hypochondriac up" by wishing America was in fact like certain European or Asian countries.
 

Jon Stewart on Thursday again jumped to the defense of Barack Obama, slamming those who questioned the cheering at Wednesday's memorial for the Arizona shooting. After playing a clip of Michelle Malkin complaining about the event, he derided the conservative: "You're not a primitive nematode, capable only of autonomic response to outside stimuli. You have a choice."

Trading jokes for straightforward insults, Stewart mocked, "You went to Oberlin." (Malkin attended Oberlin College.)

The liberal comedian expressed outrage over the fact that Brit Hume dared refer to the blessing, involving feathers and given by the University of Arizona's Carlos Gonzales, as "peculiar." Stewart mocked, "Yeah, yeah, I like my benediction like I like my coffee. Christian!"

[See Video below. MP3 audio here.]

 

Anyone who’s read Big Hollywood for any period of time knows I’m no Jon Stewart fan. On his best days, I find him smug and disingenuous. “But he attacks the Left!”, my friends tell me. Yeah, when they’re not liberal enough or like the ACLU taking a righteous case every now and again, as cover so people will say, “But he attacks the Left!” Sorry, no sale here, and Stewart’s increasingly strange obsession with controlling the way we speak only confirms that decision. 

Stewart’s unnatural preoccupation with regulating speech, especially political speech, is not only borderline un-American, but you can tell he loses sleep over the frustration he feels when people don’t speak the way he thinks they should. The best example of this occurred just a few months ago at his anti-Beck “Rally to Restore Sanity.” In order to point his sanctimonious finger at the rest of us and wag it like the Church Lady so he could tell everyone else how they should and should not conduct themselves, he puts on this HUGE rally in DC. I’m sorry, but this is not normal behavior.

Liberal comedian Jon Stewart once again lampooned Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) over his continued opposition to repealing the military's Don't Ask Don't Tell (DADT) policy, saying the senator is quite behind the times with his stand. "Well you're really going down with the ship, huh," he ripped navy veteran McCain's remarks.

"McCain's like one of them Japanese soldiers living on Okinawa in 1949, still fighting because he doesn't realize the war ended a long time ago," Stewart quipped. "And for some reason, even though he's been alone for years and years on this island, he doesn't like gay people."

Stewart opened his Thursday show with an eight-minute segment covering the DADT debate, in the wake of a published study by the military showing that the majority of servicemen polled don't mind serving with gay comrades. He trumpeted soundbites from multiple figures who support a repeal of DADT – including remarks from Sen. Joe Liebermann (I-Conn.), a usual target of Stewart's mockery.
 

Jon Stewart is finally flaunting some of that "sanity" we've heard so much about. On his show Wednesday night, he had a simple message for the legions of journalists obsessed with Sarah Palin's children: "Who gives a sh*t?"

"Kids are off limits," Stewart added. "In fact, we should all go out of our way to treat her children with kid gloves and respect to show that we don't judge individuals and mock them purely based on who their parents are."

"Stop making me feel sympathy for the Palins!" he begged - hysterically, I might add. "Stop it!" (Video below the break - h/t Charlie Spiering)

Comedian Jon Stewart on Thursday scolded Rachel Maddow for using the word "teabagger" to describe members of the Tea Party movement.

Appearing on "The Rachel Maddow Show" for an oftentimes quite interesting interview, Stewart also criticized others on MSNBC for taking this vulgar joke way too far (video follows with transcript  and commentary):