This week’s Washington Times column:
On Tuesday night I was bestowed the honor of being ridiculed on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show” with Jon Stewart. The segment in which I was featured had Mr. Stewart mocking those of us who dare criticize the new president. In the era of Obama, mainstream American political humor is now officially on the defensive.Stewart lumped me with Sean Hannity, Mark Levin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican — a cross section of people you might expect to be critical of an administration implementing very liberal policies in a very short time.
The “joke” was that these right-wing zealots weren’t giving the new president enough time, that the previous president did worse things, and that I, in particular, was ridiculous for blaming the president for “St. Patrick’s Day” becoming “Potato Day” at my kids’ public school. (Yes, the name change took place. No, I did not blame President Obama — specifically.)
As is his style, Mr. Stewart took wildly out of context my clip from Fox News’ “Hannity” in which Sean and I discussed the Obama administration’s decision to call the “war on terror” an “overseas contingency operation,” and “terrorism” a “man-caused disaster.” As an aside during that discussion, I pointed out that leftist bureaucrats in Los Angeles, eager to rip the religious context out of a widely celebrated holiday, opted instead to offend an entire ethnic group.
“Potato Day!” Take that, pasty white limey oppressor! And if you pinch me for not wearing green, I’ll sue you for sexual harassment.
Orwellian language shifts are usually ripe material for true comedians. But Mr. Stewart ripped me for talking about the road to pure-form political correctness that the new president has set us on.
Jonathan and his amazing technicolor dream-teleprompter (yes, he has one too) has for 10 years used sophisticated character assassination to slyly annihilate the political enemies of the Democratic Party.
The show’s multitude of liberal, Ivy-League-educated writers — another Obama echo — feed the mildly successful former stand-up comedian irony-laden words that he offers up with his signature goofy facial expressions. And Jon Stewart has a studio audience of pliant seals commanded and trained to flap their fins at every smirk or sarcastic joke.
Conservatives, who are cosmically slow on the pop-culture uptake, are just now beginning to understand the disastrous impact of Mr. Stewart’s decade-long barrage of unanswered snipes, especially among the college-aged crowd. The ironic gripes have lowered Republicans into an even-less-attractive caricature than schlockmeister Michael Moore was able to deliver.
If the targets were switched and Democrats had the same five-day-a-week bull’s-eye placed on their heads, no one doubts that financier George Soros and Media Matters would wage a well-funded rampage to destroy Mr. Stewart and his scribes. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) would be demanding a comedy Fairness Doctrine. And “The Daily Show” and its partner in crime “The Colbert Report” would be taken off the air within 30 days of electoral primaries and within 60 days of general elections to comply with McCain-Feingold.
You can read the column in full here.
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