Barack Obama is the luckiest dude on the planet because the guy he's running against appears to be getting dumber the closer it gets to the election.
September 25, 2012 | The Daily Show
Showing posts with label Jon Stewart. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Jon Stewart. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
Jon Stewart: How in the world is Obama ahead?
It ain't because he's suddenly smarter, funnier or better looking.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Poor comedian Ron Paul: 'I get no respect, I tell ya!'
It's an interesting journalistic conundrum: Should the MSM give Ron Paul "equal time," when they, Republicans, and everybody else knows Ron Paul is a joke candidate with a reckless ideology sprinkled with a few good ideas (like, end the trillion-dollar wars -- doy!) that even most libertarians are afraid of realizing 100% but don't care because they know their worldview never will accepted, and who doesn't have a shot in hell at getting nominated by the GOP, much less get elected President?
My first response is, No, the media should not give Ron Paul equal time. Contrary to what some people think, the media's job is not to act as human dictaphones relaying to us the talking points of famous and powerful people. Instead, journalists are charged with providing us facts in their proper context, with analysis where appropriate. And the facts that Ron Paul does well in early primaries, has a small but rabidly loyal fan base, and raises lots of small contributions on the Internet are not the whole story; his repeated pathetic failure to attract his own party's attention despite having lots of chances is the real story.
I digress, but: If Ron Paul is so hardcore about being a libertarian, why doesn't he run as a libertarian anymore? At a certain point, don't you get the message that your party doesn't want you? Ralph Nader got that message a long, long time ago. Is it because Ron Paul likes being a 13-time Congressman from Texas a little too much? Even worse than ignoring him though, his party took the Tea thing that Paul invented before there was astroturfing, and then not so politely told Little Ronnie to go back to the kids' table empty-handed. His party shamelessly stole from him, and then refused to give him any credit, and continued to roll its eyes at him like a lunatic. I mean, his son, who was elected to the Senate from Kentucky for the first time by watering down his dad's nutty speeches, instantly became more famous and influential than Ron. What a slap in the face that must have been for dad!....
Upon reflection, however, perhaps there is an important place for the perennial losers like Ron Paul and Ralph Nader, who, one could argue, act as the party's conscience, and who tug more electable candidates back in the correct ideological direction. Another way to spin this is, they give us voters a chance to see how far the front-runners are willing to go, how much they are willing to pander to the ideological fringes just to get nominated -- all the while sweating how they're going to take it all back in the general election when faced with moderate/independent voters who want bland oatmeal.
In the end it doesn't really matter. In any case, Ron Paul supporters will blame the lib'rul media for Paul's "invisibility cloak," -- the same invisibility cloak that liberal Ralph Nader wears, courtesy of the same lib'rul media -- although it was lib'rul comedian Jon Stewart who busted FOX and the MSM for going out of its way to make Paul the veritable "13th floor" of the GOP Hotel. Watch it:
Monday, November 1, 2010
Rally to Affirm Irrelevance signs
OK, I get it. A lot of these Rally to Restore Sanity signs were clever. I even enjoyed reading them.
But what was the point?!?
Come on, lib'ruls, let's think Marketing 101 here. What's your call to action here? This rally was the equivalent of a redneck with a "Honk If You Like Beer" bumper sticker. Yes, you have reached a large like-minded demographic, but what of it? You got a nice feeling when Bubba honked at you, but after that?.... Exactly. Nothing.
Jon Stewart proved he could write a note on a napkin and attract 200,000+ people to Washington, DC and out-rally Glenn Beck. Good for him. But what have you participants proven? That you can make clever signs that don't mean anything? Good for you, you irrelevant overeducated weenies! Now move to the back of democracy's line.
The aphorism is incorrectly stated as: "If you don't stand for something, you will fall for anything." It is correctly stated as: "You better stop believing you're so freaking clever and fight for your liberal ideals with everything you've got before Bubba Twelve-Guage and Grandpa No-Gubument-Medicare shove their insane worldview down your smug throats."
It's past time that we Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers realized that politics is a no-rules brawl, not a fashion show. We're not showing up with a knife at a gun fight, we're showing up to a war with a copy of our senior thesis. Until we learn from Republicans and get mean, angry, and settle for nothing less than victory, we liberals deserve to get our asses kicked.
By Ryan J. Reilly
October 31, 2010 | Talking Points Memo
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Jon Stewart's rally bad for America, liberal activism
Just in case some of you think I take my marching orders from Jon Stewart, here are two very strong criticisms of his silly Rally to Restore Sanity yesterday.
First, mean-spirited, angry liberal journalist Mark Ames, who attended the rally for a short while before he had to bail, argued that the rally is emblematic of his generation's prime directives to 1) never risk looking stupid, no matter what is at stake, and 2) always preserve one's ironic detachment from events, even from oneself. That kind of cool pose is great and everything at parties, but not when the general welfare of the nation is at stake. Concluded Ames:
You see, this is why so many cool Gen-Xers and Gen-Yers were so jazzed up about going to the Stewart rally – by definition, they were guaranteed not to look stupid by going to it, because it's not really a rally. They're not putting anything on the line. They're just going to chant the equivalent of that annoying Saturday Night Live Update skit 'Really?' No generation ever looked so cool so late in their lives as my generation. We did it! We achieved our dream! We don't look as stupid as the hippies did when they were in their 40s! Woo-hoo! We still mock ourselves and we're still self-aware, but best of all, we don't look stupid by devoting ourselves to ideas or movements that other people might one day laugh at. We won! We won the least-stupid-looking-generation competition! Let's gather together in an ironic, self-aware way, and celebrate how we're not really rallying or laying anything on the line–not even now, not even when the whole fucking country is collapsing. What's our prize, Don?
Meanwhile, behind Door Number 1, the country is in two losing wars and the worst economic crisis in 80 years, behind Door Number 2, over 40 million Americans are on fucking food stamps, behind Door Number 3, millions are being land-transfered out of their property like landless peasants in a banana republic–yeah, it's bad, whatever dude, it's always been bad, nothing ever changes much, don't have a cow, deal with it….
Second, founder of the anti-war group CODEPINK, Medea Benjamin, made a similar although more focused criticism prior to the event, saying Stewart's "slacktivism" celebrates those people who are too "sane" to rally against insane wars, Wall Street bailouts, and other unjust government policies. She also noted how Stewart's Daily Show spent two hours taping her, along with an anarchist and a teabagger, lumping them all together as protesting nutjobs. As if any loud and angry protest by definition is crazy. She concluded:
So let's celebrate the people who walk the talk. Slacktivism did not end slavery, activism did. Slacktivism did not get women our rights. Activism did. Slacktivism won't end war or global warming. But activism just might.
I've said it before: my generation's children and grandchildren are not going to be proud of us because we were so cool and avoided saying stupid things; they're going to blame us for sitting on the sidelines in ironical detachment while our country went to shit. If we don't stand up and stand for something -- and that something should be liberal-progressive ideals which have saved us in the past and can do so again -- then we are irrelevant.
That said, Jon Stewart is funny. That's his job. It's not his job to organize and lead us. We are not like those atomized zombies of the Right looking for a TV preacher like Glenn Beck to tell us where to gather and what to say and do.
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