Jon Stewart Skewers Obama on Public Financing
Sometime during the run-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq I remember watching a comedy bit on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart that drove home what a big joke the United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq were. The segment featured the UN inspectors, who were at the time charged with unearthing Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, as a bunch of Keystone Kops running around Iraq tripping over their own equipment and being led around by their noses by the Iraqis who were obviously hiding banned munitions. The thrust of the satirical news story was to give viewers a laugh while they nodded in agreement that anyone who trusted these UN clowns to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq must be a fool.
Slamming the UN weapons inspectors as ineffectual twits dominated right-wing talk radio at the time and The Daily Show was in effect regurgitating the talking points of those who wanted to bring the country to war. Dissing the UN's efforts on Comedy Central inadvertently helped make the case for war. It is kind of like when Dick Cheney pointed to the New York Times to buttress his warmongering saying: "Hey, even the liberals agree with us!" When Jon Stewart seeks "balance" for his targets of satire he can end up reinforcing the false impressions that the Bush Republicans want people to have. It's unfortunate because political humor is a powerful force that can sway some of those "low information" voters the pundits have been flogging lately.
So too was the case last night when Jon Stewart ran a bit about Barack Obama's decision to eschew public financing. The Daily Show seized the issue as an opportunity to display "balance" and to poke fun at the Obama campaign. But not only did the bit fall flat it played right into the Republican line, which is full of half-truths and outright lies about Obama's decision. Just watch the right-wing radio shock jocks and the literati warmongers like David Brooks and William Kristol -- who are always looking for a cute "hook" to slime Obama -- cite The Daily Show as confirming, from a hip "liberal" source, their worst fears about Obama. They'll say: "See, we told you so, even the liberals are beginning to see what we've known all along, Obama is just the same old politics, etc."
Let's set the record straight. First, Obama did not "vow" to take public financing no matter what ensued in the campaign. There were all sorts of conditions and unpredictable variables that he said would affect his decision about public financing when (and if) the time came. He wisely gave himself wiggle room on the issue. That's what politicians do. He didn't paint himself into a corner because at the time he didn't know if he'd be able to unseat Hillary Clinton or who his likely Republican opponent would be.
Second, absent from the discussion about Obama's "betrayal" of his principles because he's not foolish enough to tie his hands in the general election is the fact that he has broken all records in American politics for the amount of money raised BY SMALL DONATIONS. The vast majority of his campaign cash, about 93 percent, has come from donations of $200 or less. George W. Bush could never do this; and John McCain could never do it either. So we should punish the one candidate whose campaign is the least beholden to giant corporations and wealthy individuals? Obama has accomplished exactly what he said he did in his recent statement on the issue: a new form of public financing.
Jon Stewart and The Daily Show should be mindful whenever Obama is the target of their satire that they don't end up regurgitating Republican talking points. The Daily Show is far more influential than it was four years ago when Bush still had millions of people duped. The producers should be careful when poking fun at Obama not to provide fuel for the right-wing slime machine. Poke fun at Obama all you want, but do it in a way that also reveals the Republicans' mendacity and hypocrisy.
John McCain has flip-flopped on public financing so many times it's impossible to keep up. Arianna Huffington details these flip-flops in her most recent post.
In 2000 and 2004, the corporate media held the Democratic Party nominee to a much higher standard than the Republican. George W. Bush didn't give the idea of public financing a thought. It wasn't even an issue. In fact, mainstream political commentators praised Bush for not seeking public money. Bush had amassed a record-breaking war chest from corporations like Enron and from wealthy shitheads like T. Boone Pickens. The running joke in 2000 was that Bush had so much corporate cash he was a corporation pretending to be a person. As governor of Texas he also executed 152 people (a record) and at least six or more of them were almost certainly innocent. The press was uninterested and I didn't see any satirical bits about it. Meanwhile, the media hated Al Gore's sighing during the debates, and accepted all the Republican lies about Gore thinking he "invented" the Internet, was the subject of the movie Love Story, etc.
In 2004, we had the spectacle of the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" (many of whom are now working for the John McCain campaign) making the rounds on ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, CNN, NPR, and PBS peddling their lies about John Kerry's Vietnam war record. Yes, even the venerable "serious" news hosts Jim Lehrer and Tim Russert gave the Swift Boaters airtime to libel Kerry. What the Swift Boaters and their media enablers did was worse than anything Joseph McCarthy or Richard Nixon ever cooked up. They pissed all over a man's war record. And even if you believe the Vietnam War was wrong (as I do), trashing a veteran's Purple Hearts is really beyond the pale. Kerry risked his life for his country in Vietnam; the U.S. Navy gave him medals for his efforts; end of story.
I point to this shameful Swift Boat episode from our last presidential election to illustrate the level of toxicity in our media environment. In such a contaminated and sulfurous political context anyone who wishes to rid the nation of the dead hand of Republican misrule must be careful not to play into the narratives the Right is expert in constructing every four years. That cautionary note applies especially to television shows that can influence the political climate ever so slightly in this pivotal election year.
Yeah, that means you Jon Stewart.
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Do not taunt hopey change Obama.
Thank you for your instruction, Maximum Leader. However, we communications proles have some questions.
You pronounced that The Daily Show seized the Obama campaign finance issue as an opportunity to display "balance." Would torture be justified as a means of getting a comedian to confess to their motives?
A related question: As you said, "Jon Stewart and The Daily Show should be mindful whenever Obama is the target of their satire that they don't end up regurgitating Republican talking points." By what methods should the Mindfulness Retraining be conducted? We have Mr. Stewart and the Offending Writers in our basement right now, so any guidance you could provide would be timely.
You also observe that "anyone who wishes to rid the nation of the dead hand of Republican misrule must be careful not to play into the narratives the Right is expert in constructing every four years. That cautionary note applies especially to television shows that can influence the political climate ever so slightly in this pivotal election year." We agree! However, what about shows that can influence it greatly? Shouldn't we apply even stronger "cautionary notes" to journalists?
By the way, thank you for the History Update: "Obama did not 'vow' to take public financing no matter what ensued in the campaign." We will change all materials accordingly, although we are very busy substituting Eastasia for Eurasia in this week's Hate campaign.
Sincerely,
O'Brien
i watch jon stewart to laugh and get some news. yes, his show is informative and funny, but his pieces on obama's choice to forego public financing was . . . wait for it . . . NOT FUNNY AT ALL. worse than that, it was clearly a distortion of obama's positioning (yes, as a politician, folks) on the financing matter and does a disservice to those who haven't closely followed this, as i have, and as jon stewart should have.
Why is it that the rich white man is taking a hand out to the tune of $85 million dollars, while the black man from the south side of Chicago chooses to refuse the handout, and yet is some how the guy in the wrong here? Obama is saving us $85 million by eschewing public financing. McCain, who, along with his wife, is worth better than $100 million is taking welfare to run his campaign. Somehow, the guy who stands up and says I don't want to take all that money from the government, I want to do things on my own, a real boot-strap kind of stand, that guy is the one that is vilified! The right-wing loves to pillory the welfare mothers with their hands out, and yet, here the rich guy with his hand out is somehow the upstanding individual and the black guy doing it on his own is an object of ridicule. What a joke.
After John F. Kennedy was elected, Mort Sahl joked as much about him as he had about Eisenhower. Democrats complained to him, “We thought you’d be happy now” His response: “Hey, you didn’t have to do it for *me*.”
Nearly 50 years later, you can dish it out, but you still can't take it.
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
But Obama has raised more small donations than McCain, correct? Plus, he had to raise a lot more money than McCain because of the battle with Hillary -- so I don't see even if the 93 percent number, which I got from the Obama camp, is exaggerated, the basic point that he's raised more from small donors than Bush or McCain or Clinton stands -- so where is the "analysis" wrong? Although the MSM has missed it totally Obama has run a grassroots campaign with people organizing at the local level all along -- most people who have given his campaign money are working people without a lot of resources -- unless you think African Americans in this country are living high on the hog.
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
If you people don't think Obama is pure enough, you can always vote for Ralph Nader. I voted for Nader in 1996 and in 2000 in New York (which is safely Democratic) -- in 2004 I pulled the handle and even gave money to John Kerry because I thought Bush was very dangerous -- I did not agree with Kerry's placid stand on the Iraq war, but I voted for him anyway because he was not Bush -- it's a duopoly, two party system, or really a one-and -a - half party system -- it's structural, institutional, and therefore the lesser of two evils is all we got -- Nader's lucky if he gets 2 percent -- I voted for Kucinich in the California primary because he was the best candidate on the issues (unfortunately, he dropped the day after I mailed my ballot in). President Dennis Kucinich would be my choice, but he didn't make it, so now it's Obama or McCain. Jon Stewart would be fine with McCain. I think McCain is more dangerous than Bushj in many ways.
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
It's just depressing to hear an audience of 20-somethings laughing in ridicule at the first candidate to come along in 40 years who just might do something positive for their generation -- I mean if they hear over and over again what a sell-out and hypocrite Obama is on their TVs, and the Republicans will be hammering on the same talking points too, then the young people might not put down their bongs and unplug their iPods and go and vote in November and then we're stuck with a warmonger for four more years. Obama is a different kind of candidate -- I've never seen my students more excited about an election, let's not piss all over it.
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
I look forward to The Daily Show every night because it is the only place where there is any media criticism. It's the only place where the absurdity of Fox News is laid bare. Given that CNN is useless, and forget about the networks, the only place on TV for sanity is Olbermann and Stewart. Stewart's main error is that he loves McCain -- forget about his warmongering and his anti-environment and anti-reproductive rights record or that he's been a lapdog for Bush and promises Bushism without Bush -- McCain still gets a free ride in the MSM, especially the print media -- to counter that we need someone like Stewart to drive it home -- I said in my post poke fun at Obama all the time, just keep the far more egregious hypocrisy of the Republicans there too -- Obama is a politician and he should be called on his stuff when he betrays his principles, but I can tell you that there is no such thing as purity --in 1968 the supporters of Eugene McCarthy did the same thing to Robert Kennedy, as if Kennedy had to walk on water -- he was a politician, and politicians have to bob and weave now and then. Obama is the best we got.
I am a friend of Joeys', and even though I did not agree with his response, to Mr. Stewart, why did my response not appear???
Can someone tell me???
Or will this entreaty, not appear, either???
The Daily Show, as well as the Colbert Report, are in the business of being funny. They poke at everyone,left, right and center.
They don't claim to be, never have claimed being and never will claim being a news show.
If someone is to blame its more people like yourself who just cannot get the fact that comedians are not political activists and hence their work shouldn't be used as political arguments by websites such as HuffPo. (How many times have clips of both these shows been used in the past years to make a political point?)
jon stewart is very often funny, but that report was so not funny my wife and i sat there watching completely dumbfounded. what the hell was jon stewart thinking? palermo is absolutely correct that stewart has enough swaying power that he shouldn't underscore the distortions of the republicans. if this is stewart's attempt to be 'fair and balanced' i'm shocked that he misses so badly on this one.
It's comedy, it is not meant to be a news show. He does not pretend to be fair and balanced.
In the long run, Obama is just like the rest of them but so much more dangerous. Look how many fools have succumbed to his koolaid.
More dangerous than the fool who lied us into an illega,l immoral war, to prove that "Great Presidents are war Presidents"?
Who has repeatedly violated his oath to "Protect and defend the Constitution of the United Sates"?
I don't think so.
The fools are the 20% of people still supporting the President.
As opposed to the numbers who succumbed to bushco(tm) during the 2004 election. Claiming that he was the only one who could keep us safe. Claiming that his wars (which have since been PROVEN to be disastrous!!!!) were needed in that goal!
How exactly is Obama even NEAR that bad, much less worse???
The weapons inspections were a joke. There were no nuclear weapons to be found. They would have given up after a year and we would not know whether weapons were hidden or never existed or gone or given away. The same war would have started, a year later. "Let the inspections Work!" Yeah, that was smart.
See Joseph A. Palermo's Profile
The UN weapons inspectors that Jon Stewart made fun of cost about $50 million a year and no American or Iraqi lives. Wouldn't that be better today to have just paid $50 million a year for inspectors (who were in Iraq doing their jobs until Bush warned them to leave before he attacked). So we could have spent about $250 million on inspectors and lost no American or Iraqi lives -- instead, we've spent close to $1 trillion and about 1 million dead Iraqis and 4,100 dead Americans -- I wasn't blaming Jon Stewart for the war, I just used the bit on the UN weapons inspectors as an illustration of crappy comedy that helped the warmongers in 2002 and early 2003.
The old "1 million dead Iraqis" canard? Thoroughly discredited political tripe from the Lancet (let's see - a foreign tool used to try to sway a US election; FAR worse than the veterans that showed Kerry to be a fraud).
Yes, 4,100 members of the military died protecting your right to live in a bubble. Tell ya what, Mr. Progressive - let's see you address the 70,000+ murders that occurred right here in the US during the same time frame as the war; murders that can be attributed to your failed liberal social policy.
Obama is the FIRST presidential candidate to reject public funds, and their concomitant spending limits, since NIXON!
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