Fox News vs. Comedy Central: Jon Stewart pulls his punches in "class warfare" debate with Bill O'Reilly

By Nicholas Wilbur

(Ed. note: Sorry for the lack of posts today. I'm exhausted after a long week that included a significant electoral event in the provincial jurisdiction in which I live. But, no, I don't blog about Ontario. Anyway, I'll have more soon, but here, for your blog-reading pleasure, is a post by Nicholas on a recent Stewart-O'Reilly showdown that you may have heard about. Enjoy. -- MJWS)

Whenever Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly meet to rekindle their bromance on live TV, Stewart consistently backs The O'Reilly Factor host into a corner – then proceeds to beat him over the head with context, facts, perspective, and the general "reality" O'Reilly just can't seem to grasp.

I enjoy the exchanges, the theatrics, the beatings, and the odd fascination these TV show hosts have for one another. Their meetings feel like a modern version of the Vidal-Buckley debates – only funnier, less snobbish, and in color.

What bothered me about their latest debate over tax increases was that Stewart, an intellectual giant compared to Billo, balked at the moment when he could have knocked O'Reilly out of the studio.

O'Reilly was up against the ropes, taking blow after blow as Stewart mauled him with facts and figures over the plight of the middle class, the myth of equality, the hypocrisy (and irony) of those "poor rich people" complaining about the lowest tax rate in decades, and the truth behind this country's 30-year corporate-funded campaign against the middle class.

"You are not living in reality," Stewart said. "Here's the reality. Top one percent take in nearly 25 percent of income today... The top one percent control 40 percent of the wealth. Twenty five years ago it was 33 percent. Top one percent have had incomes rise 18 percent over the last decade."

Stewart was already doing a victory dance as the audience roared over his closing argument: "I'm not saying we shoot them, but we shouldn't act like returning to the tax rate of the 1990s is class warfare on par with Lenin and Marx! That's what I'm saying!"

But it was too late. He'd missed his opportunity to nail the coffin shut and send O'Reilly sulking off the stage. 

 

Instead, O'Reilly returned to his studio and said this on his next show:

Stewart and many other progressives remain unconvinced that the federal government has a responsibility to operate efficiently and honestly before demanding more tax dollars. But I'm not giving up. I'm determined to convince the left that class warfare is damaging America.

He'll go about that mission by continuing to press two irrelevant and unsubstantiated talking points – talking points that Stewart could have annihilated if he'd postponed his victory dance by 30 seconds.

One is the government efficiency issue.

What Stewart failed to point out is that Washington is being more efficient. This administration, not Bush's or Reagan's but Obama's administration, has agreed to cut a historic $1.5 trillion from the federal budget over the next 10 years. He is drawing down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which have cost this country a conservatively estimated $1.3 trillion. His health care reform bill saves $210 billion over the next decade, and his student loan reforms save another $60 billion.

This administration actually is cutting spending. Today's Democrats are being responsible with taxpayers' money. They are reducing the debt.

You can't demand more efficient government spending when this administration is actively working to recall the bloated spending of the last three Republican administrations – unless you're not called out on it, and O'Reilly wasn't.

The second issue is O'Reilly's insistence that the rich are actually paying higher taxes now, overall and since the recession, when you take into account state taxes, property taxes, and sales taxes.

This is the type of claim that makes liberals cringe. But rather than dismissing the argument and turning the conversation back to the fact that the top one percent owns 40 percent of all wealth in America – and therefore, since they only pay 28 percent of all taxes despite owning nearly a majority of all wealth, perhaps the top one percent should pay closer to a majority of all taxes – progressives should take the issue head on.

Yes, the rich are paying higher sales taxes, property taxes, and state taxes, depending on where they live. But... drum roll please... SO IS EVERYONE ELSE!

The tax increases O'Reilly is whining about are no higher for him and other millionaires than they are for laborers, middle-class folks, even the working poor – at least not comparatively. They may have bigger houses and gas-guzzling SUV stretch limos, and they may contribute a greater portion of individual sales taxes compared to their poor neighbor, but they're not any more affected by these tax hikes than the rest of society. These increases in daily living costs mean that a greater portion of the average, middle class American's wages must go toward paying the mortgage, the gas bill, the grocery bill. They have to reduce their economic footprint in order to ensure that a roof remains over their head, that they can transport themselves to work and back, and that there is food on the table.

When the middle class has less money to spend, the impact on their local economies is evident, because when the masses spend less, local businesses, local municipalities and even state and federal governments collect less revenue. That is not even comparable to the impact of millionaires, who are far fewer in number, don't have to budget for increases in gas prices, and don't live paycheck to paycheck.

The question that should be asked is, When the federal tax burden is at a 60-year low, income inequality is at an 80-year high, and the national debt is "out of control," according to the Republican Party, why aren't the rich – the only people not suffering from the recession – not contributing more in taxes?

Stewart won the debate, but mainly because he was in his own studio, surrounded by his audience, and because the viewer's takeaway from this exchange – indeed, the media's takeaway – was that he bested O'Reilly by forcing the Fox News talking head to admit that "on some things" he's a Democrat. What was reported in the press, in the blogosphere, and in online news media sources – what the masses who missed the segment heard – was that O'Reilly agreed that the rich have been better off in the last 20 years because of the tax code and that he would agree to higher tax rates on the rich if the federal government got its spending habits under control.

But Stewart didn't win the progressive argument. He didn't defend the middle class by correcting O'Reilly's claim that the rich are paying higher state and sales taxes when, in fact, everyone else is as well. And he didn't defend Democrats who have sacrificed the support of the liberal base by agreeing to the very "efficiency" standards O'Reilly is demanding.

As a disclaimer, I must say that I understand that The Daily Show is entertainment. It is a highly political, highly progressive nightly satire routine where "schnicks and giggles" matter more than investigative reporting and deep political analysis. I get that.

That said, Stewart is one of if not the most-watched liberal on television. His 2.3-million-member audience dwarfs all other Fox News show demographics. Only The O'Reilly Factor – supposedly a news program – has better ratings than The Daily Show – a comedy program!

Perhaps it's wrist-slittingly sad that one of the most popular and mainstream advocates for modern progressivism is a side-splitting comedian, but Stewart has earned his reputation. I just wish he'd stop pulling punches and show O'Reilly, and conservatives in general, that the left knows what "class warfare" truly is.

We've been living it for decades.

(Cross-posted at Muddy Politics.)

Herman Cain claims Jon Stewart criticized him because he's black. Seriously.

By Michael J.W. Stickings

This is hilarious:

Earlier this month, ThinkProgress reported that GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain told an audience in Pella, Iowa that he would not sign a bill longer than three pages. (Cain later said he was "exaggerating.")

Jon Stewart picked up on the story, imitating Cain and joking that if Cain was president he would require everything to be shorter: "Treaties will have to fit on the back of a cereal box... The State of the Union Address will be delivered in the form of a fortune cookie." You can watch the segment here. (Chris Wallace later replayed the segment during Stewart's appearance on Fox News Sunday.)

Speaking Wednesday at the Iowa Falls Fire Department, Herman Cain lashed out at Jon Stewart, claiming that Stewart was only targeting him "because I'm black."

Right, because if you watch the show, and if you know anything at all about Jon Stewart, you'll certainly know that he's a racist bigot who targets blacks.

He doesn't make funny voices for anyone else, nor does he ever joke about non-blacks. Like, you know, he never ever makes fun of Jews like himself.

The crazy thing is, Fox News viewers probably think this is true.

Then again, Fox News viewers are, oh, a tad misinformed.

Tap water shouldn't catch on fire

By Edward Copeland

Just last week, T. Boone Pickens returned to The Daily Show to discuss how natural gas was a safe energy resource that the U.S. had plentiful supplies of that it could use to wean itself off its dependency on foreign oil. However, when Jon Stewart brought up the subject of "fracking," Pickens got tongue-tied. That's probably why he and every major natural gas executive in America refused to be interviewed about the process for Josh Fox's documentary GasLand, which details the destruction that has been unleashed on people, animals, and the environment by the practice.

Fox had never made a documentary before but sort of stumbled into it when he noticed the changes happening in the creek near his family home in rural Pennsylvania following an offer from Halliburton to lease the family's land for natural gas exploration. While they would receive a few hundred thousand dollars from the agreement, as had many rural Americans across the country, they'd also encounter poisoned water sources, dead animals, health problems and more, all which seem to stem from the process used to retrieve the natural gas.

It inspired Fox to go on a cross-country journey to other sites to see the damage done by the hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) process, which the companies insist were safe but which evidence proves otherwise. In a way, it doesn't matter because the 2005 Energy Bill, formed in the wake of the secretive Cheney Energy Task Force, exempts all energy companies from safety regulations that had been in place for decades, some dating back to the Nixon Administration, so the corporations basically can do whatever they want in the least-expensive way without any concerns for the safety of nearby residents, the companies' own workers or the environment itself.

As one man tells Fox, "Amazing. What took millions of years for Mother Nature to build can be destroyed in hours by heavy equipment." If only the equipment were the main problem... What's really causing all the destruction is the seepage of a virtual stew of hazardous chemicals that are used in the fracking process to retrieve the natural gas. It's pretty amazing to watch scene after scene in state after state of people putting a lit match next to a flowing faucet or a stream and see the flames burst forth.

There are other stories that you hear repeatedly as residents complain about contamination only to be told that the water is safe by government or company officials, who then refuse to drink a glass of the tap water when the residents offer one. It's even more disgusting when Fox meets with representatives of state departments of environmental protection and they speak the corporate party line, denying that contamination is as widespread as it is, or at congressional hearings where executives testify that there isn't any evidence of risks and the happy House members, including a particularly dumb-looking and -sounding Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.), side with the businesses.

Meanwhile, Fox learns of those who have contracted cancer and died, the risks of brain damage from repeated exposure, pets losing hair and a Colorado woman who keeps the corpses of mass and sudden animal deaths preserved in her freezer for any potential investigations. Even more frightening is learning how Hurricanes Katrina and Rita scattered the junk from hundreds of thousands of sites all over the place.

GasLand is a pretty good effort for a first-time filmmaker such as Fox and another example of a documentarian doing the investigative work that the Fourth Estate has abandoned. You do learn a lot, though he tends to repeat himself and I don't think it belongs in Oscar's final five documentary features compared to some of the other finalists and nonfinalists from 2010 that I've seen. Still, it's very good and yet another case of showing the indifference both corporate America and our elected leaders have toward the average citizen's wellbeing.

(Cross-posted at Edward Copeland on Film.)

That crazy Arizona shooting: Jon Stewart, Sarah Palin, and the triumph of right-wing narrative

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I don't really have all much more to say about the Arizona shooting. We've written a lot here already on it, and so much has been written elsewhere that, barring a major development, like Loughner talking, we're all just repeating ourselves. Still, it's important not to let the conservative we're not to blame for anything, it's the liberals' fault for being so nasty narrative prevail, which is what seems to be happening -- because it's easier to blame the crazy dude for doing something crazy than to delve into what might have been behind it, into the culture, into right-wing politics, where what you find now are conservatives crying victim and lashing out at their critics for being mean and partisan and trying to score political points (when of course they're the ones being mean and partisan and trying to score political points).

**********

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart agreed with Sarah Palin that Jared Lee Loughner is crazy and that the right, Palin included, deserves no blame whatsoever for the Arizona shooting.

This, presumably, includes blame for the violent right-wing culture in which the shooting took place, that is, for the socio-political context, because those who are pointing at the likes of Palin and holding them responsible, myself included, make sure to stress that there may very well be no direct link between right-wing politics and the shooting itself. The issue isn't that Loughner is a card-carrying Republican or Teabagger (or both), which he apparently isn't, it's that Loughner didn't commit his act of violence in a vacuum.

This is what Stewart seems to be missing, and, needless to say, I have found his response to the shooting, including his refusal last week to say anything of substance, well, lacking.

In agreeing with Palin, all he was doing was buying into, and propagating, the right-wing spin, the narrative conservatives, finding themselves justifiably on the defensive, are trying so desperately to impose upon our discourse. I get that it's better to be civil than uncivil, but politics is politics, the right is the right, and Stewart is deeply naive if he believes a) that political civility is possible with conservatives being what they are these days, and b) that right-wing politics, and the right-wing culture of violence, had nothing at all to do with the shooting. If he truly believes the latter, it makes you wonder if he's watched his own show the past few years. Wasn't he the one pointing out all those gun-toting extremists at health-care town-hall events and Tea Party rallies?

**********

At Politico yesterday, Michael Kinsley provided a fine analysis of the right's "breathtaking bait and switch on Tucson":

In the week since the Tucson, Ariz., massacre, pleas for "civility" have turned into accusations of incivility, and the whole, useful discussion of "civility" versus "vitriol" has turned into the usual argument over competitive victimhood. The vast right-wing conspiracy has played President Barack Obama like a violin.

And they've done a pretty good job of messing with the heads of the liberal media as well. As a result, anyone who even raises the issue of who might be responsible, or more responsible, for the "atmosphere of vitriol" in which we conduct our politics is guilty of contributing to it. In just a few days, it has become the height of political incorrectness to suggest there might be any connection between the voices on right-wing talk radio and the voices in Jared Lee Loughner's head.

Republicans generally praised Obama's speech at the memorial service in which he took care to absolve conservatives and Republicans of any special responsibility for the tone of the political debate. It is, he said, "a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do." This sounds like a noble sentiment. But who is to blame for what ails the world if not those who think differently? If those who think the same as you are responsible, it's time to start thinking differently yourself.

Once again, liberals and progressives and Democrats and those generally on the left just don't seem to get it. Or, at least, a lot of them don't. I understand that Obama needed to be cautious, to walk a fine line, and that he said what had to be said. It would not have been "presidential" to have gone on the offensive.

But rank-and-file Democrats and mainstream liberals are backing off, too, perhaps because Obama was so effective (and they feel guilty fighting back against the right), perhaps because they, too, don't want to delve too deeply into what really happened and why, perhaps because they're terrified of Republicans. Whatever the reasons, the upshot is that conservatives like Palin are largely getting away with it.

And, again, what is Stewart's excuse? Given that he has made a name for himself criticizing the "crossfire" of the news media, and that he has fashioned himself a voice of the silent majority against the extremes, even as he himself, not to mention his audience, leans left, it may just be that he thinks now is not the time for partisan rancour. Or maybe he really does believe that Loughner is crazy and that it's irresponsible, and simply wrong, to suggest that there may be more to it than that.

Whatever the case with Stewart and others like him, backing off simply enables the right, and allows it to win. No, this isn't all about partisan winning and losing, but ultimately politics, and hence governing, which is what you need to do if you want to change things, is about who wins and who loses -- not just at the ballot box but in the media, in the world of narrative, in the world of spin. And if you let the right win, in this case and others, nothing will change, including a socio-political culture that is deeply disturbed as a result of years and years of abuse at the hands of conservatives and their ideology of division, violence, and power.

If you really care about America, and Jon Stewart does a great deal, you must do everything you can to prevent that from happening.

"You can't outsmart crazy"

By Edward Copeland

With those words, Jon Stewart gave another eloquent speech at the beginning of Monday night's Daily Show, dispensing with humor to address Saturday's horrific events in Tucson.

With each passing hour and day since alleged gunman Jared Lee Loughner opened fire on Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, critically injuring her, killing six and wounding 14 others, it becomes clearer that this 22-year-old man was not a political partisan but someone who was severely mentally ill. With Arizona government offices finally open Monday, The Washington Post finally was able to answer one simple question that's not open to debate: his voter registration. The answer turns out to be that he was a registered independent but was considered inactive because he hadn't bothered to vote in such a long time, including in November. Hardly indicative of a Tea Party participant.

I am guilty of jumping to conclusions. With the precursors without body counts such as smashed windows, threats, cut gas lines, it was an easy assumption to make. However, in my horror of the moment I forgot the old line about what happens when you assume: it makes an ass out of u and me. Subconsciously, there probably was part of me as there consciously was in many others who wanted this tragedy to turn out to be that way for political advantage. I may disagree with the Tea Party, believe them to be terribly misinformed and inflamed by the likes of Glenn Beck, but they aren't all homicidal lunatics.

When so many on the left criticized Jon Stewart's rally, claiming he was trying to make both sides equivalent, in the wake of Saturday's events, now he seems more right than ever. Keith Olbermann's Saturday special comment didn't say so explicitly, but if you read between the lines, it was a bit of a mea culpa for his own role. As Sarah Palin rushed to delete her graphic with the gunsight over Giffords' district, Daily Kos also had to delete a post where one of Giffords' constituents said that Giffords was "dead to me" because she voted against Nancy Pelosi for House minority leader.

Already, both sides are starting to revert to old habits. Because we on the left rushed to link the act of a madman to the politics of those we oppose, now those on the right revert to defensive mode and attack us. Hopefully, someone can stop this quickly. This is an opportunity for everyone to step back, take a breath and restore civility to the political process. I'm not saying compromise your principles, but it's long past time where both sides stop treating political opponents as the enemy. As it's been said many times, you can disagree without being disagreeable. The political climate probably didn't set Loughner off, but both parties need to look at themselves critically and seriously.

I hope that people take Pima County, Ariz., Sheriff Clarence Gupnik to heart and start rejecting the Becks and Limbaughs, but the only way that happens is when they get hit where it really hurts: the wallet. Beck has shown those signs with the loss of lots of sponsors, being taken off a big New York radio station and even dropping numbers on Fox News. I wish their listeners realized they were in it for the money, but oh well.

What really needs to be addressed seriously is the fact that this country has a gun problem and it's had a gun problem for a long time. A man rejected by the military, kicked out of college and who worried others around him was still allowed to legally purchase his Glock and, more importantly, his high-volume ammunition clips. He had three clips which had 33 rounds each. These sorts of clips were illegal under the assault weapons ban which was allowed to expire during the Bush Administration. If that law were still in place, he could only have purchased clips that held 10 rounds, meaning he would have to reload more frequently and the bloodshed would have been less. I hope the NRA and their friends in Congress are proud. Right now, Arizona is considering allowing faculty and college students to carry concealed weapons without a permit.

We also have to improve our ability to treat the mentally ill. In a rare moment of a television newsperson saying something profound, Lester Holt did the other day when he said that in the end, the motive doesn't matter. Six people are still dead, including a 9-year-old student council president born on 9/11.

Is Jon Stewart the new Edward R. Murrow?

By Michael J.W. Stickings

There has been much ado recently, and justifiably so, about Jon Stewart's admirable advocacy in support of 9/11 First Responders, demanding passage of the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act and shaming both Congress (Democrats for not being aggressive enough and Republicans for obstructing the bill) and the news media (which, with the exception of Aljazeera, was neglecting the story entirely) into action.

Stewart has repeated denied that he is a political player, let alone a partisan, preferring to present himself as a comedian first and foremost, but there is no denying that he has become a major political figure. His rally with Colbert back at the end of October was a sign of his significant reach, but those of us who adore him, if I may put it so lovingly, have known about his influence for a long time. So, for that matter, have his critics.

While a huge fan, I have been deeply critical of Stewart's anti-partisan claims, and so, while supporting 9/11 First Reponders is hardly a partisan thing to do (even if Republicans like Tom Coburn made it partisan), I do welcome Stewart's aggressive foray into legislative politics. Without necessarily turning into an overt partisan, and without endangering his comedy (and his broad appeal across the left into the center, and especially with liberal-minded but independent young people), he should do more of it.

But the question is, is he, as no less an authority than the Times has suggested, the new Edward R. Murrow, the legendary journalist and CBS commentator who famously stood up to McCarthyism and, in the process, became the icon of journalism itself?

It's a silly question, in a way, even as it asks us to put Stewart into perspective, to figure out just what he's all about. No longer just a self-deprecating comedian with an obscure late-night cable faux news show appealing to collegiate stoners, Stewart has become a sort of icon himself, the essential progressive voice of the engaged but generally powerless, a voice speaking truth to political and media power, but doing so not as a member of the insider ranks, like Keith Olbermann or Rachel Maddow, but as a justifiably cynical outsider pointing out the very absurdity of it all while holding those on the inside to account, catching them in their various foibles, sometimes criminal, often unethical, usually counter to the public good.

If he isn't quite Murrow, it's because he refuses to be that serious, because he remains a comedian above all, and because, honestly, Murrow was a man of his time and place. In today's media landscape, a Murrow just isn't possible, just as, say, a Cronkite isn't possible. The world is too fractured for such a singular giant. Now it's all about granular niches and multiple platforms, not overarching media figures wielding immense influence on a limited number of channels, the entire nation tuned in.

But that doesn't mean the comparison is without merit. Murrow was a man of exceptional determination and courage. Stewart is much less sure of himself, and much more of a funny man who thrives on being out there on the fringe, poking fun at the establishment, but his willingness to take on the establishment even as he and his fans are laughing at it suggests a courage that is sorely lacking in American society today, both in politics and in the media. He may not have the revolutionary aims of a Julian Assange, but, then, neither did Murrow. And like Murrow, what Stewart is ultimately fighting for is for America to live up to its professed values and principles. He doesn't go about it quite the same way Murrow did, but the similarities are there.

For more on this, see this fine piece by Andrew Cohen at The Atlantic, which has influenced much of what I've written here. Here's part of it:

Jon Stewart may or may not be the most important journalist of the 21th Century -- it's early still, plus he'd have to cop to the label and I'm not sure he would. But it should be clear from this episode, if it somehow weren't before, that Stewart (Murrow-like, you might say) wields enormous power and prestige through the medium of television (and the Internet). He showed it this fall with his well-attended Washington rally, he shows it each week with his ratings among younger viewers and the nation's political elite, and he clearly raised his game a notch with his searing light on how official Washington was screwing up the responders' health bill. I give credit to the Times and others for at least trying to cover that aspect of this story. The comparison to Murrow, which came off as facile in the Times piece, has some merit. It just wasn't explained well enough. Nor, alas, was the mainstream media's generally miserable failure -- also highlighted by Stewart -- in covering the 9/11 responders' legislation before Stewart's broadcasts. Stewart didn't just blast the Congress, remember, he blasted news organizations, too, for the latest example of their chronically short attention spans.

When Murrow took on Sen. Joseph McCarthy nearly half a century ago, he had far more to lose than Stewart did when he lobbied for the federal legislation. Murrow was standing up to bullies -- horrible, powerful bullies -- who might have ended his career and destroyed his network. By comparison, Stewart was merely speaking out against the way politics and journalism too often works in Washington. But both Murrow and Stewart dramatically changed public perceptions about a current event. Both men stuck their necks out. Both went first into a sort of no-man's-land. It is probably true that only Murrow in his time had the bona fides to stand up to McCarthy (and don't forget, Murrow waited years before doing so). But of all the media people who could have stood up in late 2010 for the brave, sick men and women who went into the rubble of September 11, 2001 only Stewart had both the will and the chops to do so in earnest. Does that make his courage any less impressive? Not in my book. Not when compared with so many other broadcasters and journalists who thought they had more important stories to file.

Courage in broadcasting, or in journalism in general, is not a zero sum game. Praising Stewart for his "mad as hell ain't gonna take it anymore" moment is no slight to Murrow or any other journalist who risks criticism and vitriol for speaking truth to power. Any comparison between the men diminishes neither. Let the historians and biographers correct me if I am wrong, but I believe Murrow would have applauded Stewart's role in redirecting public opinion back to some of the heroes who ran toward the rubble in Lower Manhattan in September 2001. And I believe Murrow would have endorsed Stewart's critical view of the media's role in the affair -- especially the navel-gazing that has occurred since the passage of the legislation. Murrow may have searched for light but he is known today for the passion, the heat, he brought to his best work. I believe history will judge Stewart similarly, in this instance and hopefully again in the future.

Hopefully indeed.

Tom Coburn looks to block passage of health-care benefits for 9/11 First Responders

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Full credit, or almost full credit, to Jon Stewart for raising awareness of the urgent health-care needs of 9/11 First Responders at a time when most in the media, and so many in Washington, couldn't be bothered, and for advocating swift passage of the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

As Slate's Chris Beam notes, examining Stewart's undesired role as partisan political activist, "[t]he bill wasn't as far from passage as it seemed -- Stewart just shined a light on the issue at the right moment." But even if it was close to passage, Republicans were still blocking it, at least until the tax deal was passed. And it was getting so bad for Republicans, PR-wise, that even some conservatives were slamming them for blocking what should be a slam dunk (or at least, like Giuliani, Huckabee, and Pataki, advising them to get on board). Who, after all, opposes health care benefits for courageous 9/11 First Responders?

Well, how about Oklahoma's Tom Coburn?

Amid mounting pressure from Democrats and a growing handful of Republicans to pass a bill that would provide health care benefits to first responders who were at the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Oklahoma Republican Sen. Tom Coburn announced on Monday his intentions to block passage of the legislation.

He tells Politico that he "wouldn't allow the bill to move quickly" due to "problems with parts of the bill and the process Democrats are employing" to pass it.

Coburn  defended his position in a Tuesday morning interview on Fox News, arguing that "this is a bill that's been drawn up and forced through Congress at the end of the year on a basis to solve a problem that we didn't have time to solve and we didn't get done."

Coburn also argued that the bill, entitled the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, "hasn't even been through a committee." Coburn added: "We haven't had the testimony to know." (ThinkProgress notes that on June 29, the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions -- on which Coburn sits -- held a hearing on the bill. But Coburn's office says that doesn't amount to having gone "through a committee.")

The testimony to know what? Whether 9/11 First Responders deserve health care? Why do you need a committee to tell you that? I appreciate the committee process, but isn't this a prime example of a bill that should be allowed to circumvent process?

It's bad enough that Senate Republicans -- all of them, let us remember -- were prepared to block this and all legislation until the tax deal was passed, as if tax cuts for the wealthy are more important than health care for 9/11 First Responders (to Republicans, they seem to be), worse that Democrats still had to get Republicans to haggle over the cost of the bill (and how it would be paid for -- now a fee on federal contracts instead of closing a corporate tax loophole), as if the health care benefits of these courageous men and women should have to be subjected to the right-wing Republican agenda, and worse still that this one Republican is threatening to kill it altogether. (And is he really against it for procedural reasons, or is he just against it period -- you know, because it's government health care?)

And is he alone? As Fox News's Shep Smith discovered, a lot of Republicans don't even want to talk about it. So are they with Coburn or not?

I suspect that the bill will be passed -- another major victory for Democrats during the lame-duck session. But it won't be easy, given Coburn's opposition, and it says a lot about Republicans (and not just Coburn), that it's come to this point.

This is what Jon Stewart was talking about

By Edward Copeland

To paraphrase the old Clinton campaign battle cry, "It's the media, stupid."

When the whole TSA media explosion began, it was one of those rare stories where all sides of the political spectrum seemed to agree from the likes of Jane Hamsher at Firedoglake to an assortment of conservative talking heads. It even had its own variation of "Don't tase me, bro" with "If you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested" before true horror stories came out of passengers who had colostomy bags broken and urine collection bags ruptured, women who had their prosthetic breasts which they got after cancer surgery moved around as if they were puzzle pieces, etc. (Read Capt. Fogg's post for some of the examples.) It all pointed to improper training. Well, cable can't stand something like that, so they had to find political sides.

Suddenly, the left decided the whole issue was raised by neocons and the right to try to use racial profiling, even though days earlier they agreed with some of the ridiculousness of the system that still doesn't really add to protecting our skies nine years after 9/11. What makes this completely nonsensical and infuriating is that there is real news going on.

North Korea attacks a South Korean island in the most serious engagement between the two countries since 1953 in the same week we learn that North Korea has built another uranium enrichment facility. Do cable news shows want to discuss the serious implications of this? They could even put a political spin on it, if they wanted, as Jon Kyl continues to oppose the latest START treaty for no apparent reason.

I just watched Ed Schultz throwing a conniption fit about racial profiling and the TSA and Rush Limbaugh and I just couldn't take it anymore and I did what I do more and more when I need reasonable news coverage: I watched PBS' the NewsHour. They, of course, had in-depth coverage of the Korean situation as well as the fake Taliban negotiator, a promising drug that might actually prevent HIV infection and details of the financial reform. In fact, they went an entire hour without mentioning the TSA or what the cable channels would have you believe is today's other story of monumental importance: Prince William and Kate Middleton have set a wedding date!

Of course, I'm not even mentioning MSNBC's corporate synergy with NBC by using its nonstop coverage of the TSA imbroglio to play the Saturday Night Live skit about it from last weekend about it (which they do every time there is a new SNL on) as if it's an essential part of illustrating the story. Chris Matthews went as far as calling it the greatest SNL sketch ever. It aired on Olbermann, Maddow and O'Donnell last night and Morning Joe, Hardball and Schultz today.

Politico's Mike Allen had a funny tweet earlier today pointing out that Good Morning America actually did lead with the North Korean situation, but the Today show actually chose to go with the wedding date. As Fran Lebowitz said in the wonderful documentary about her that premiered on HBO last night, Public Speaking, I remember when news used to mean information.

It's like Jon Stewart said during his interview with Rachel Maddow. Was the Juan Williams story really as important as cable news made it out to be? No, but it fit their narrative and their template. There are far too many important things going on both domestically and overseas to waste our times on this nonsense anymore. Our "leaders" in D.C. can play politics, but they've lost the ability and the interest to govern and none of the talking heads on either side have any role in governance. Enough.

Quote of the Day

By Creature

"As I've tried to explain, the GOP moderates are gone and the two or three that are left (Snow, Collins, maybe even Scott Brown) still vote like a hive. They even block things they agree with. We can debate why they always vote in lock-step, but we can't debate the fact that they have. I truly do long for a world where news is news and facts are facts. Where an informed public made wise decisions after actively gathering those facts. Where moderates existed in the GOP that could be reasoned with to support moderate legislation (which all this president has offered so far, much to my liberal-socialist chagrin). I long for a world where there is no FOX News or Rush Limbaugh. In that world Keith could go back to sports broadcasting, Rachel could be a world renowned foreign correspondent for NPR, and Jon Stewart could go back to making bad movies and doing bland stand-up. But that's the dream, not the reality." -- me, in an email to a friend (and blog reader) as I continue to try to convince him that MSNBC is not FOX News and that ultimately we agree on Jon Stewart's overriding argument (that cable news is destroying America).

The Rachel Maddow - Jon Stewart interview: What politics is not

By R.K. Barry

I finally got a chance to watch the entire Rachel Maddow - Jon Stewart interview. I'm sure that many people are tired of the dust-up to do with Mr. Stewart and the suggestion by some on the left that he was claiming an equivalence between what goes on at Fox News vs. at MSNBC.

That's getting old and I don't care about it anymore and neither, apparently, does Mr. Stewart, who wasn't claiming anything of the sort in the interview. Good.

No, something else came to mind while watching this very interesting exchange. It was that politics is not what Jon Stewart thinks it is. If he, as a bright and decent man, thinks that politics bears some resemblance to the way people communicate with each other and negotiate preferences in the every day world, he is mistaken.

Politics is, and has always been, an entirely different form of human endeavour and to attempt to understand it by any other set of rules than those that apply uniquely to it is shear folly.

Politics is, excuse the tired term, a blood sport. It is about putting your argument in front of the voters and ridiculing the other guy's argument. It is about "going after" one's opponents to make them look incompetent, clueless or otherwise just plain wrong.

It is not about working together to find common ground, at least not in the election period and increasingly not even in the governing phase, though I think we make too much of this being a new phenomenon. Republicans in FDR's time, for example, actively worked to thwart his plans to resurrect the nation amidst a depression in the hope they could return to power sooner.

Politics is about spinning and messaging that de-emphasizes inconvenient truths that weaken your position. It is about shading the facts, or telling half-truths to make one's arguments look stronger. It is about appealing to certain interests held by particular constituencies as a way to make them forget that most of your platform doesn't really benefit them at all.

It is almost always a very nasty game, which is why people don't like it. Moving mass opinion requires tactics that are not wholly honest. It just does. Scream if you like, it doesn't change the facts.

Jon Stewart is not wrong when he chastises those engaged in politics, and those who report it from strong ideological perspectives, for being part of a frequently unpleasant game. And the thousands of people who went to Washington with him are not wrong for wishing that politics was more civilized. All these fine folks are not the first to wish it so.

Niccolo Machiavelli is credited with having said that in politics we have to assess the means we can tolerate based on their relationship to the value of the ends that result -- the ends justify the means idea. The right, in great part through their mouthpiece at Fox News, has clearly decided that any deception, any reprehensible tactic, is justified because the stakes are so high. The left, at times through MSNBC, does politics the old fashioned way: they spin, they hold clear ideological positions, they emphasize certain facts, they engage in some choice name-calling, but they do not typically make shit up.

The left in America is just not willing to go as far as the right to realize their political goals, so I guess Machiavelli is only partly correct. The left doesn't have the same taste for blood as the right and they are suffering electorally for it.

I don't think that Jon Stewart thinks that everyone is the same in the way that they do politics. But I do think that the he and those who went to Washington with him have an unrealistic idea of what is involved, not that it's a bad idea to wish that human beings behaved better.

I also don't think I want the left to follow suit and completely spoil anything they might hope to gain by crawling into the gutter with the other side. But they are going to have to use more of the tools required by politics because that's the way the game is played. They, and those who support them, will have to decide what means they can tolerate and how far they will go to secure the ends they value.

Lest you think I am talking about anything insidious, I am not. Obama, Democratic politicians, supportive media, other progressive groups all need to push back hard against their political opponents with arguments and characterizations, based on fact, that make Americans understand the dangerous future the right is offering. The gloves need to come off.

Now is not the time for us all to get along. Now is the time for the left to fight back with all the legitimate tools politics offers.

As I said, Jon Stewart seems to be a smart and decent man, but what he is on about is not politics, though in a better world it might be.

Keith Olbermann and the tone of political debate in America

By R.K. Barry

On November 9th, Keith Olbermann returned to the air after having gotten his knuckles rapped by MSNBC executives for making political donations to three Democratic candidates. They claimed he violated network guidelines. He claimed this prohibition was not in his contract and he was not aware of it.

Whatever.

What's interesting here is that prohibiting journalists from engaging in political activity is usually about maintaining at least the appearance of objectivity. Keith Olbermann? Really? Objectivity? Ummm. No.

Journalism has changed over the past little while. The number of public affairs programs with hosts who are rabidly partisan is growing at a prodigious rate. The idea that these folks not support candidates in order to protect their case for objectivity is a little odd. They have no case for objectivity, whatever that means.

But that doesn't mean that they are absolved of the responsibility of being fair and accurate in their work as political commentators. The best we can ever do is to make a good case for what we believe while citing fact that we hope will support our views. As long as we are then open to the possibility that we can be shown wrong by the preponderance of contrary evidence, we might be able to say that we have acquitted ourselves well.

The epistemologists in the room would likely quibble with the looseness of my terminology, but I think we all know what being open to honest argument means.

I don't think the good folks at MSNBC are without their faults on this score, but I do think by and large they put the cast of characters at Fox News to shame. Olbermann, Maddow, and Schultz are on the left; O'Reilly, Beck, and Hannity are on the right. Do I really think that these respective teams are in any way similar in the way that they do business on the scale of being fair and accurate and open to legitimate argument. No, I don't.

One last shout out to Jon Stewart, whom, of course, we all love: This is why Fox News and MSNBC are not the same.

As a lefty, I like to say that I have had many energetic political discussions with bright and decent individuals who describe themselves as politically conservative. These discussions have been marked by openness and honestly and a mutual interest in the truth. This means I know it's possible.

No, Olbermann is not "objective" in his politics. He has a point of view. But that doesn't mean he is unaware of the difference between integrity and bullshit. Strong beliefs are not what is destroying the tone of debate in America. Those who believe they bear no responsibility for proving the truth of their arguments are to blame.

I'm glad Olbermann is back and as feisty as ever.

What Stewart actually said

By Edward Copeland

Reading the posts from those who think that Stewart has somehow tried to put the nastiness of the Republicans on equal footing with a relatively few examples of Democratic overreaching (though as crazy as Rand Paul is, Jack Conway blew his chance at winning with that Aqua Buddha ad) made it seem clear to me that either very few listened to his closing speech at the rally or they couldn't hear what he was saying. As for Keith Olbermann, as a former member of the media, I can tell you with great authority that few people have thinner skins than members of the media. They don't like to even be mentioned in passing if it sounds like criticism. Remember the days when Ed Schulz looked like a fool trying to defend his coverage of the Balloon Boy story well after it had been proved a hoax? The media hates to hear the truth that it sucks.

So, take some time and actually read Jon Stewart's closing statement and see what he actually said. To some progressive analysts' credits, they did praise Stewart's speech such as Lawrence O'Donnell, though I don't know if I'd go as far as he did and call it the best speech since Obama's at the 2004 DNC convention.

And now I thought we might have a moment, however brief, for some sincerity. If that's OK — I know that there are boundaries for a comedian/pundit/talker guy, and I'm sure that I'll find out tomorrow how I have violated them.

So, uh, what exactly was this? I can't control what people think this was: I can only tell you my intentions.

This was not a rally to ridicule people of faith, or people of activism, or look down our noses at the heartland, or passionate argument, or to suggest that times are not difficult and that we have nothing to fear — they are, and we do.

But we live now in hard times, not end times. And we can have animus, and not be enemies. But unfortunately, one of our main tools in delineating the two broke.
The country's 24-hour, political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems, but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying glass up to our problems, bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen. Or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire, and then perhaps host a week of shows on the dangerous, unexpected flaming ants epidemic. If we amplify everything, we hear nothing.

There are terrorists, and racists, and Stalinists, and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned! You must have the resume! Not being able to distinguish between real racists and Tea Party-ers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult — not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate. Just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more.

The press is our immune system. If it overreacts to everything, we actually get sicker — and, perhaps, eczema. And yet... I feel good. Strangely, calmly, good. Because the image of Americans that is reflected back to us by our political and media process is false. It is us, through a funhouse mirror — and not the good kind that makes you look slim in the waist, and maybe taller, but the kind where you have a giant forehead, and an ass shaped like a month-old pumpkin, and one eyeball.

So why would we work together? Why would you reach across the aisle, to a pumpkin-assed forehead eyeball monster? If the picture of us were true, of course our inability to solve problems would actually be quite sane and reasonable — why would you work with Marxists actively subverting our Constitution, and homophobes who see no one's humanity but their own?

We hear every damned day about how fragile our country is, on the brink of catastrophe, torn by polarizing hate, and how it's a shame that we can't work together to get things done. The truth is, we do! We work together to get things done every damned day! The only place we don't is here (in Washington) or on cable TV!

But Americans don't live here, or on cable TV. Where we live, our values and principles form the foundation that sustains us while we get things done — not the barriers that prevent us from getting things done.

Most Americans don't live their lives solely as Democrats, Republicans, liberals or conservatives. Americans live their lives more as people that are just a little bit late for something they have to do. Often something they do not want to do! But they do it. Impossible things, every day, that are only made possible through the little, reasonable compromises we all make.

(Points to video screen, showing video of cars in traffic.) Look on the screen. This is where we are, this is who we are. These cars. That's a schoolteacher who probably think his taxes are too high, he's going to work. There's another car, a woman with two small kids, can't really think about anything else right now... A lady's in the NRA, loves Oprah. There's another car, an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car's a Latino carpenter; another car, a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan.

But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief, and principles they hold dear — often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers'. And yet, these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze, one by one, into a mile-long, 30-foot-wide tunnel, carved underneath a mighty river.

And they do it, concession by concession: you go, then I'll go. You go, then I'll go. You go, then I'll go. 'Oh my God — is that an NRA sticker on your car?' 'Is that an Obama sticker on your car?' It's OK — you go, then I go.

And sure, at some point, there will be a selfish jerk who zips up the shoulder, and cuts in at the last minute. But that individual is rare, and he is scorned, and he is not hired as an analyst!

Because we know, instinctively, as a people, that if we are to get through the darkness and back into the light, we have to work together. And the truth is there will always be darkness, and sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel isn't the promised land.

Sometimes, it's just New Jersey.

On false equivalency

By Creature

Almost nothing makes me crazier than the "both sides do it" meme. Here's Keith's reasonable answer to Jon Stewart.

Jon Stewart -- the definition of insanity

By R.K. Barry

I like Jon Stewart. I like The Daily Show and usually watch it every night. One has to be constantly reminded that Stewart is primarily a comedian because his political commentary is so frequently bang on and his interviews so thoughtful and compelling.

But even before the recent Stewart/Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity, something was starting to bother me about Stewart's approach, which has been, simply put, his more recent suggestion that the left and right in America are in some sense equally culpable for poisoning the current environment in which political ideas are framed, articulated, and advocated.

If what he means is that conservatives have bent the truth beyond recognition and pandered to the worst instincts of human nature in order to troll for votes, while progressives have fought back as best they could, though fairly feebly, then, yes, both left and right are equally culpable.

Let's face it, for the past many months, countless Republican candidates, Tea Party activists, Fox News and its stable of crazies, and other purveyors of the hysterical conservative narrative have shown no interest in facts and rational argument and reasonable political accommodation. They have harnessed voter anger and frustration in the most effective ways possible.

Democrats, who clearly have not caught on fast enough to the "new normal" of political discourse in America, have been getting their asses kicked.

So, watching Jon Stewart say to what were undoubtedly mostly a bunch of fairly progressive citizens that they ought to become more reasonable and rational in their attitude towards politics was a little like watching the Rand Paul campaign organizer asking the women whose head he stomped to apologize for getting her noggin stuck under his foot.

Surely Mr. Stewart doesn't think that his audience, either on the National Mall or at Comedy Central, is composed of many conservatives.

But it is conservative hysteria that has driven the current climate of debate and to suggest that progressives, liberals, or Democrats are equally culpable is to show that one has simply not been paying enough attention. To ask this group to calm down and be more "sane" is not only foolish but a little dangerous.

I cannot help but think of a dozen metaphors to express what is wrong with this, most of them violent metaphors (make of that what you will). The inadvisability of unilateral disarmament comes to mind.

The current election campaign is now almost over. I invite you to catalogue the misrepresentations, outright prevarications, and bat-shit crazy ideas and behaviour coming from the conservative leadership in the current struggle for the hearts and minds of the American voter. And while I would not suggest that Democrats are devoid of sin, you cannot reasonably compare the two. But the conservative record is pretty clear.

Where to begin? Sarah Palin's lies about "death panels" in Obama's health-care legislation; Carl Paladino's homophobic rants; Rand Paul's misrepresentation of the Civil Rights Act and his thuggish repression of dissent on the campaign trail; Sharron Angle's call for Second Amendment remedies to solve disputes; Christine O'Donnell's rejection of the separation of church and state; Ken Buck's rejection of abortion even in the case of rape and incest; and almost anything said by Glenn Beck and all the others on Fox News about America's inevitable descent into totalitarianism at the hands of the socialist Obama. And I can't even begin to list the instances of idiocy from the likes of Rush Limbaugh.

Again, it's late in the campaign season, so there is no need to restate everything. But to suggest that conservatives and progressives are equally culpable for poisoning the tone of debate is not credible.

Yes, people like Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann, and Rachel Maddow get excited in defending the truth, and I am so glad they do. It is not, after all, passion that we should worry about, for passion in the service of the truth should always be looked on as a positive contribution.

It is passion and aggressiveness with the goal of misrepresenting the facts in order to appeal to people's fears, irrational biases and lesser angels. This has been the conservatives' stock-in-trade.

By implication there is a suggestion on Stewart's part that we all just need to calm down and talk to each other rationally in order to arrive at some sort of agreement as to how America can move forward and solve the problems that need addressing.

Great idea, but that train has left the station. For conservatives, I don't think it ever made that station stop at all.

Passion in the defence of truth, passion in the defence of the facts, passion for the openness of political discussions that might get us closer to solving our problem. Yes, to all of these things.

But now is not the time for progressives to calm down in their struggle against the dangerous vision for America presented by the likes of the Tea Party movement and those others in the Republican Party afraid to cross them.

Progressives are in a very serious conflict here and they will need to bring their best effort to have a chance, both over the next few days and in what is to follow. It would be insane to do otherwise.

It is simply not true that progressives and conservatives are equally responsible for the tone of the current political debate, and we ought to stop suggesting it is. Conservatives have, for the time being, cornered the market on anger. Progressives need to get back in the game and be just as passionate in defense of the kind of America they want.

To do any less would be the very definition of insanity. And -- forgive another violent metaphor -- it would be like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

Olbermann v. Stewart

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Co-blogger R.K. Barry will have a post up later today on the Stewart-Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear, but I wanted to say that as much as I like Stewart -- and I'm a huge fan -- I think Keith Olbermann was right in his (fairly gentle) criticism of Stewart's unfortunate tendency to view both the left and the right as equal parts of the problem. As Olbermann tweeted on Saturday, via Mediaite:

It wasn't a big shark but Jon Stewart jumped one just now with the "everybody on Thr cable is the same" naiveté

There's obviously a lot not to like about the news media, including cable news (and, yes, MSNBC, the more liberal network, if hardly as liberal or as partisan as Fox News is conservative and a mouthpiece for the GOP and conservatism generally), but it is ridiculous to assert that Olbermann is akin to, say, O'Reilly or Hannity -- or that, again, the left is equally to blame. What is this "left," after all? Olbermann, Maddow, and Schultz? Oh, please. What are they compared to the entirety of Fox News? Or even to CNN, which, while claiming to be a neutral news organization, thinks that fair and balanced means centrist Democrats and a pile of conservative propagandists? As Olbermann also tweeted:

The America before today's cable wasn't reasonable discussion.It was the 1-sided lockstep of Fox and people afraid of Fox.That got us Iraq.

And:

I wish it were otherwise. But you can tone down all you want and the result will be: the Right will only get LOUDER. Sorry. 

And:

Last comment then I'll drop this:Whatever the losses are Tuesday,will they be because Liberals were too LOUD or because they were too timid?

Too timid. I think that's obvious, despite the Republican propaganda about how Obama is a radical fascist-socialist totalitarian and the media's regurgitating of right-wing talking points to the effect that Obama and the Democrats overreached with their aggressively left-wing agenda -- a claim that is simply insane.

And, unfortunately, Jon Stewart is too timid as well. While he, along with Colbert, is an extremely important liberal-progressive voice, it isn't enough just to blame the media and to seek some "sane" middle ground, just as it's not enough to expose Republicans as a bunch of hypocrites. Yes, the media are to blame for a lot, but the blame needs to be handed out with a sense of proper perspective, not by appealing to a utopian center -- and, yes, it's fine to expose Republicans for what they are, but it's not enough just to laugh at them. They are far too dangerous for that, and, ultimately, in politics, you need to fight -- with rhetoric, sure, as well as with comedy, but also with the other (non-violent) tools at your disposal in a liberal democracy, including GOTV campaigns. And, as R.K. Barry will argue, passion matters.

Yes, passion, passion for the fight, passion for the truth. That seems to be what Stewart is lacking. He might admit as much -- he is, after all, full of self-deprecation -- and perhaps we shouldn't expect much more from him than he gives us night after night, as valuable as that is. But I think it fair to criticize him for succumbing to the myth of the silent majority, the myth of the center that is rational and sane and that, if only allowed to rule, would make America a better place. To me, that "center" of independents is full of apathy and ignorance, and it's what allows the powers-that-be to remain in power, the system to remain dysfunctional, and Republicans to fuck over the American people time and time again.

I suspect that Stewart is a man of genuinely progressive views and values. His interview with President Obama last week, while also somewhat timid, showed him once again to be a thoughtful proponent of progressive politics. But it is rather irresponsible of him to suggest that the left is just as bad as the right -- whether he actually believes this or not is another matter -- and to encourage progressives to tone it down.

America, and the world beyond, certainly does not lack for insanity, and, yes, American politics could do with a healthy dose of sanity, but, with the right descending ever further in madness, with so much of the electorate drugged into submission by endless consumerism and a hopelessly impoverished popular culture (and in many cases by real drugs, both legal and otherwise), and with the left often unable to muster the unity and conviction to fight back, what is really needed is an invigorated liberal-progressive movement for change.

I would hope that Stewart would be part of that. At the very least, he should stop lumping all of us together, left and right alike. Ultimately, after all, you have to fight for what you believe in. And that includes on cable television, where the likes of Olbermann and Maddow, night after night, stand up firmly to the right's lies and deceptions and assaults on all that is good and decent and give voice -- just as Stewart himself does, in a different way -- to our aspirations for a better America and a better world.