It takes a big man to admit he screwed up and take a principled stand. It takes a phony liberal elitist to apologize for the sake of protecting his television ratings.
Jon Stewart makes Arlen Specter look principled.
Like Pee Wee Herman, Jon Stewart launched his intercontinental ballistic missile, and he could not put the missile back on the launching pad. In his case, the only thing that seeped out was stupidity.
Jon Stewart, for those who are not “trendy,” “hip,” or “cool” (brie-cheese-eating-elitist-snobs according to the Tygrrrr Express dictionary), has a nightly political television show where he presents the news with all the accuracy and fairness of the Jayson Blair Times.
Yet he is slightly different from the JBT. The JBT wants to be taken seriously, despite being leftist, boring, and usually wrong. Jon Stewart wants to be taken seriously when it suits him, and as a comedian when that benefits him. He straddles like Bill Clinton, only with his trousers on. On the one hand, Stewart claims to offer intelligent political insight. Yet when challenged a couple of years ago, Stewart took the defensive posture that his show was followed by “crank calls by puppets.”
This is not about “Crank Yankers.” This is about acting like a cranky wanker.
Jon Stewart had his CW moment when debating the absolutely brilliant Cliff May. I know Cliff personally. He is no partisan hack. He is a serious policy analyst with expertise in matters of national security. People who attend his lectures are better off for it.
Cliff May debated Jon Stewart on torture, and the only thing that was definitely tortured was Stewart trying to keep up. Cliff May did not use coercive interrogation methods on Jon Stewart, but he certainly put him in an uncomfortable stress position. Stewart was twisted into a pretzel by the time the debate was done.
Here is May’s recap of the events.
May asked Stewart if Harry Truman was a war criminal for bombing Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Stewart hemmed, hawed, and fumbled his words. For a man who lambasted President George W. Bush for malaprops and syntax fracturing, Stewart sure looked like the pot calling the kettle African-American. In fact, he looked like President Obama without a teleprompter.
He eventually blurted out that, yes, Harry Truman was a war criminal.
Then came the backlash from the millions of people that understand that America is about Jimmy Stewart, not Jon Stewart.
Jon Stewart then apologized on a later show. It takes a tremendous amount of courage to apologize after a backlash occurs. After all, free speech is not free. Just ask Dr. Laura. Jon Stewart may have come to understand that some of his sponsors do business with Middle America.
Yet, this is about something deeper. Why does Jon Stewart give latitude to Harry Truman while skewering George W. Bush?
Because ideological bigotry requires that liberals and Democrats be exalted while Republicans and conservatives are skewered. Actual issues are irrelevant.
(For those that are part of the Jon Stewart love orgy, Ideological Bigotry is my groundbreaking new book that exposes leftist hatred. Middle America gets it. You should as well.)
Jon Stewart realized that he criticized a Democrat. It is better to be a hypocrite and anger people that you already detest than to be consistent and anger people you love. It is not possible to unite everybody on your side, but it is possible to unite people against you.
So let me offer some common sense that will be self-explanatory to Middle America.
Harry Truman did the right thing. He made an impossible choice that none of us will ever have to make. His job was not, as some liberals insist, to save the world. His job was to save America. We were under attack. By killing many innocent Japanese civilians, he prevented millions of Americans from being killed. He did the one thing a president must do. He kept us safe. As an extra benefit, millions of people worldwide were saved.
George W. Bush also did the right thing. He also made the impossible choice. He also responded to an attack on our soil by going everywhere terrorists were harbored and protected.
We were attacked by Japan, but Harry Truman took the fight to Germany. Germany never attacked us. So what? They were part of the problem.
We were attacked by Al Queda, but George W. Bush took the fight to Iraq. Iraq never attacked us. So what? They were part of the problem, as are Iran and Syria.
More people died at the hands of Harry Truman than George W. Bush. The numbers are not even close. Harry Truman took measures more brutal than anything George W. Bush ever did. Harry Truman ordered the most unimaginable response.
So if Harry Truman was right, then George W. Bush cannot be a war criminal.
Jon Stewart knows this. To deny this is to be intellectually dishonest, or as I say in my Tygrrrr Express dictionary, “a liberal.”
Jon Stewart once remarked that when George W. Bush was right about something, “My head may explode.”
Well, feel free to spontaneously combust, Mr. Stewart. George W. Bush got the biggest thing right that he was asked to do.
Jon Stewart has his right to free speech because George W. Bush protected and defended that right.
Yet Jon Stewart allowed fear of being called a hypocrite to overrule common sense.
He then realized that nobody has a right to earn tons of money from “free” speech.
Jon Stewart was not protecting free speech. He was protecting very expensive, highly paid speech.
It is at that moment that he decided to “apologize” and defend his bottom (left) flank.
He had the courage of his “convictions,” which was to defend his rumpus from financial harm.
Real courage would be Jon Stewart offering an apology to George W. Bush while he is still alive to hear it.
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