Is Jon Stewart Getting Soft?

If you read this headline and thought it was a double entendre, you are probably watching too much Comedy Central news. No. Jon Stewart and the Daily Show are not getting soft like a container of ice cream left out on the kitchen counter.

But Stewart may be losing his political edge and giving right-wing spokespeople a free pass. On May 1, 2013 Jon Stewart invited former Texas Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison on the Daily Show to promote her new book, Unflinching Courage: Pioneering Women Who Shaped Texas. Hutchinson brings a sense of classiness to the political right so Stewart used her to poke fun at the current Senator from the great state of Texas, Tea Party fire-brand Ted Cruz. Unfortunately this meant giving Hutchinson a free ride on some of her most outrageous statements about Texas history.

Discussing Jane Long, one of the more notable early Texas matriarchs, Hutchinson and Stewart called her the "mother of Texas." According to Hutchinson, Long "came in first, back in the earliest 1800s, before there was anything there."

What Hutchinson and Stewart missed were the Native Americans, Caddos, Apache, Karankawas, and Comanches, as well as the approximately 4,000 Spanish Mexicans who were already in Texas.

Hutchinson continued explaining that while her husband traveled to Mexico, Jane Long remained in Galveston Island, about 50 miles southeast of present day Houston on the gulf coast, "By herself, pregnant, and with one helper." Missing of course was the name and status of the helper. The helper, according to a University of Texas website was named Kian and she was an enslaved African.

In one swoop, Hutchinson managed to eliminate Native Americans, Mexicans, and enslaved Africans from Texas history -- and Jon Stewart let it go.