I think he’s wrong about some of these things, I just can’t tell you why. — David Letterman
This is two days in a row where a glib, lefty comedian has taken off his clown nose, engaged in a serious debate with someone from our side they disagree with politically and found themselves caught off guard by a prepared presentation of facts and logic. Wednesday it was Jon Stewart being schooled by Donald Rumsfeld on the Iraq War and last night a calm, cool, and educated Senator Rand Paul gave David Letterman a terrific lesson on the basics of economics…
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Like Jon Stewart, you have to give Letterman credit for his willingness to seriously engage on this issue. You just have to wonder how long that will last if our side keeps presenting our ideas so well. Will the clown nose and cheap shots return soon?
What is great, though, is that thanks to Secretary Rumsfeld and Senator Paul’s willingness to enter the hostile territory of popular culture, a whole new audience has been exposed to a range of ideas unheard of on these shows before. Instead of our worldview simply being ridiculed or marginalized as punchlines, it’s being presented in reasonable and even attractive ways.
If Letterman and Stewart want to expand their audience; having more of our political stars on, engaging them on the issues, but doing so with this kind of respect would be an excellent way to go about it.
Fox Nation has some of the transcript here.