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Posts Tagged ‘Jon Stewart’
October 11th, 2013 at 1:55 pm
Fire Sebelius?

Tom Bevan thinks so.

“Any corporation that allowed a COO to mismanage a new product line as important to its image as the Affordable Care Act is to Obama’s would be contemplating their severance package,” writes the Executive Editor of RealClearPolitics.

“The fact that Republicans haven’t called for Sebelius’ scalp should tell Democrats all they need to know about how much conservatives think she is hurting Obamacare’s cause. If the president cares about rescuing his signature policy initiative, he should consider putting it under new management right away.”

Though cathartic, I’m not sure Bevan’s idea helps the GOP all that much.

True, if Obama fired Sebelius it would touch off a huge confirmation battle over her successor as Secretary of Health and Human Services, the agency overseeing Obamacare’s implementation. But since Democrats control the Senate, confirmation would be won eventually.

Better, I think, to schedule a series of high-profile congressional hearings to grill Sebelius, her deputies and the contractors responsible for the glitch-heavy federal insurance exchange website. Sebelius is fast-becoming the bureaucratic face of Obamacare – let her try to defend it.

The tone coming from House GOP members should be sharp but measured. Already, Speaker John Boehner has used a line that would be devastating to repeat to every pro-Obamacare witness at every hearing:

“How can we tax people for not buying a product from a website that doesn’t work?”

Then there are the simple questions Sebelius couldn’t answer in a cringe-inducing appearance on The Daily Show.

Host Jon Stewart – an Obamacare supporter who thinks America deserves a single-payer system – got no good answers from Sebelius about why Healthcare.gov stinks and businesses get a one year mandate delay but individuals do not.

In response, Sebelius said – without a shred of evidence – that the site is getting better, and that individuals can delay the mandate, so long as they pay a fine.

If that’s the best she can do with a friendly host, imagine the possibilities under good cross-examination at a House hearing.

No, Obama shouldn’t fire Sebelius until House Republicans get a chance to turn up the heat.

October 28th, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Obama Not Shining in His Spectacle of Me

Which of these sounds like the person currently serving as the leader of his party and nation’s chief executive?  On one side is a man crisscrossing the nation in a mad-dash to raise his members’ hopes, and squeeze out a few more votes and volunteers by Election Day.  He is upbeat, full of self-effacing humor, and mindful of long-term perspective.

The other man is in a television studio in Washington, D.C. defending the results of a campaign that ended almost two years ago.  To a comedian.  And failing.

The first man is former president Bill Clinton.  The latter is his current successor Barack Obama.  While Clinton is preaching a “we’re-all-in-this-together” sermon in battleground states, Obama seems lost in self-absorption, unable to feel anyone’s pain – including the crushing news that one’s political career is over because of votes the president asked you to take.

Sure, politics is a big-boy business with harsh outcomes.  But it is jolting to watch President #44 missing so many lessons from #42 about the importance of running through the finish line instead of stopping several yards out.  Just like winning, sometimes people need to feel like they’re losing for something; in this case the president’s uber-liberal agenda.

The failure to lead and inspire in the face of certain defeat will not be forgotten by those Democrats who survive to fight in 2012.  Chance are, the memories of Clinton helping and Obama not will do much to make Hillary Clinton’s dark horse candidacy all the more appealing.

October 1st, 2010 at 10:52 am
Idiocracy Ascendant? Obama Calls Comedian Jon Stewart’s Rally “Really Important”
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One week ago, we were treated to the pathetic spectacle of Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert “testifying” before Congress in character.  Colbert was invited by Representative Zoe Lofgren (D – California), but even House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D – Maryland) called it “an embarrassment” and “not appropriate.”  Now this week, President Obama labeled Comedy Central host Jon Stewart’s farcical October 30 rally in Washington, D.C. “really important.”  With all of the domestic and international issues pressing the White House and our nation generally, not to mention a pivotal election just days later, Obama considers Stewart’s inanity “really important?”

Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, coming from a man who was elected largely on the basis of a cartoon “Hope” poster.

January 21st, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Water Boarding vs. Water Torture

It’s not often that a member of the MSM like CNN’s Christiane Amanpour gets told on her own show that she lied to her viewers.  During an appearance by former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen, Amanpour was confronted with remarks she made comparing water torture techniques used by the Khmer Rouge to the CIA’s use of water boarding.  Thiessen – like the Bush Administration, CIA, and legal scholars like John Yoo – distinguished the two on the following criteria.

First, of all the people submitted to water torture (submerged into a bucket of water while handcuffed to the sides) in S-21 by the Khmer Rouge, only seven people survived, while 14,000 died.  No one died as a result of CIA water boarding (simulated drowning).  Second, the point of water torture is to eventually kill the victim.  By contrast, the point of water boarding is to create a psychological state so panic-ridden that people will think they are about to die.  But at no time are subjects actually at risk of death.  That doesn’t mean it’s a comfortable experience.  It does, however, mean that equating tactics designed to kill with those intended to break a person’s will is a dangerously misleading formula.

Along with John Yoo’s gentle smackdown of Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, the Thiessen interview is another indication that the MSM can’t be bothered to get informed about the distinctions that save lives and reputations.

H/T: Human Events

January 14th, 2010 at 1:52 am
Who Are Yoo?
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Jon Stewart has been getting laughs at the expense of conservatives (many justifiably), then booking conservative straw men that he could easily knock down for years. Yet Stewart met his match on Monday’s edition of The Daily Show, when he interviewed former Bush Administration DOJ official John Yoo (author of the infamous “torture memos”).

If Stewart hadn’t been the one ginned up for a fight, it would’ve been appropriate to invoke the mercy rule. But it was hard to feel sorry for the smug, self-righteous (Stewart’s least appealing style) host when Yoo gently and subtly exposed his complete lack of even a basic understanding of the issues at play.

On the following night’s show, Stewart even had to cop to how badly he got owned.  See the full interview herehere and here.