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Jon Stewart Gets Fed Up: Dems Set The Bar So Low They're Tripping Over It
Jon Stewart took on the race for Ted Kennedy's Senate seat last night, taking jabs at the Democrats in the process. Upon hearing that Republican candidate Scott Brown was leading the polls, Stewart was dumbfounded that the Kennedy legacy could be lost to "a naked guy who owns a truck."
Confounding him even more were the actions of Democratic candidate Martha Coakley, who has made a series of gaffs in her campaign and few attempts to be likable. After running the down the series of insults she's made to Boston, Stewart jokingly added: "Coakley went into the bar in 'Cheers,' and didn't know anybody's name."
But what irked Stewart the most was the mindset among Democrats that if they lose this seat, they'll lose their chance of passing health care reform. Reaching his breaking point, Stewart detailed the ridiculous logic:
"If this lady loses, the health care reform bill that the beloved late senator considered his legacy, will die. And the reason it will die... is because if Coakley loses, Democrats will only have an 18 vote majority in the Senate, which is more than George W. Bush ever had in the Senate when did whatever the fuck he wanted to."
After explaining more of the Democrats inability to defeat the Republicans' strategies, he closed, saying:
"It's not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It's that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs."WATCH:
© 2010 The Daily Show
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48 Comments so far
Show AllBut of course the Dems ARE doing, whatever the BLANK they want to. You just have to understand, what Obama wants, is not and never was, what you want.
perhaps it is a little clearer now why people who want peace and universal healthcare among other popular policies have been turning to other political parties.
Yes, Obama prayed for an extra five minutes last night in hopes that Brown will win, thereby giving Obama another scapegoat to rationalize his pro-corporate, anti-working class agenda.
I agree that Obama is pro-corporate, and anti-working class, however, the atrocious health insurance bailout bill that the Democraps want to pass, is indeed pro-corporate, and anti-working class, thus, Obama would be praying for a Brown win after all, no? I'd be so happy if this monstrosity was blocked by any Senator, Republican, or Democrat. Imagine how much fun it will be, if the bill passes, to be forced by law to buy insurance, that you can't afford to use. If that isn't pro-corporate, and anti-working class, then I don't know what is.
i agree.
the supposedly "REFORM" health bill is nothing but an entrapment of americans into the Privatized Insurance profiteering business.
all it is is:
INSTEAD of universal, single payer health care for ALL under government or "SOCIAL" management - it is wholesale turned over into private hands. that's all. what it does is, it LOCKS IN people into "buying" PRIVATE insurance..with no controls on the insurers...which is even worse than the way things already ARE. if anything -- that is the Private Insurer's WET DREAM come true, disguised of course as "reform".
but then -- in the USA - "REFORM" is always , ALWAYS- a code word for PROFITEERING over people. ALWAYS.
this is the Nature of the American Capitalism Beast.
it shouldn't be saved.
The Democrats are again playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic! A winner every time!
I'm increasingly with a number of other posters here on CD: Stewart ought not be surprised about the Democrats lack of accomplishment: they may very well be accomplishing exactly what they set out to accomplish (to render futile a lot of left-leaning voters out there who believed their promises of change while pocketing vast sums of money from the status quo).
It's well understood that our gov't is more beholden to dollars than voters. But in a country where the wealthiest 1% of the country OWNS HALF THE COUNTRY, how much of this money is in progressive hands? Almost none of it. Hence, the best gov't money can buy is one where Republicans are activist free-marketeers who 'get the job done', and Democrats are in-activist progressives who don't get the job done. And this is exactly the government we have.
The American people need to make a return to 1950's level progressive taxation their number one issue: a populist issue uniting left and (gulp) right. It has to be taken to the streets because obviously the gov't now exists to kill such movements in committee. Wealth redistribution is the only thing that will increase the diversity of voices speaking in Washington, the only thing that can eventually rescue BOTH parties from the iron grip of corporate money and the extremely wealthy who own the corporations.
Just o going to 'campaign' for her shows he doesn't want a 'dim' to win; in essence, it was like what happened with republicans knew they were in trouble and stayed away from w and his being just associated with the repugnant candidate but dims can not only fuck up a wet dream, they can fuck up a steel ball.
things that can't go on forever, don't. - herb stein, nixon advisor
My favorite "The Republican's are playing chess while the Democrats are in the nurses office because they've once again glued their balls to their sides."
I also enjoyed that the Dem's being left with only 18 votes in the Senate is still more than the Bush ever had and he did what ever the fuck he wanted.
If Obama doesn't want to admit, see or act on replacing Rham, Geitherner, Summer's,of who and how to appoint responsible leaders and support them. If he doesn't know what they hell he's doing, or maybe this is what he wants to do, than I'm finsihed fighting and voting for a bunch of weak kneed, sabotaging, losers. I say hat's off the the Republican Party, lets tank this country and lets tank it on Obama's watch, he's earned it.
I can't wait for the pending Supreme Court decsion to pass allowing corporations to have no limit on the amount of money they can give to any one candidate running for office.
Y'know, in addition to demonstrating the weakness of the Dems, both of those quote also demonstrate the strength of the Repubs.
So, the -hopefully unconscious- acceptance of the two-party system as de facto by Stewart and the Daily Show writers not only works against the Dems when they "screw-up" but it also works FOR the Repubs at the same time since the audience is automatically presented with an either/or scenario.
Democracy will be better off when in such a segment Stewart not only balks at the Dems' shortcomings and admits the Repubs' qualities, but also mentions thw take of one, two, or even more OTHER political parties.
-matti.
Unfortunately, the Obama Dems deserve to lose, for holding the average voter in such contempt they thought they could promise change, and deliver politics as usual.
Kick their torture-protecting, chicken-hawking asses out of office.
Mr. Stewart, I'm not sure what male genitalia has to do with anything.
That it is funny to imagine it glued to a male inner thigh?
Are you making a "not all Dems are men" point or a "since when did Dems have balls?" point?
Well, what remains to be said?
Democrats have quite a track record of grabbing defeat from the jaws of victory. It's hard to accomplish anything holding one's spine while waiting in the nurse's office.
I have thought about the possibility of not voting next go 'round. After almost 40 years of voting in every election, general and local, this is a big deal to me. Yet, I see clearly what a farce it has become. Not voting may help make things worse...though, it's getting harder to see how.
This system needs to go. We don't need a third party, we need a new system. Not going to happen through elections.
I think Stewart probably provides the most incisive political analysis available in the mainstream media.
He at least makes me laugh while trying to grasp the impossibility of regaining what is left, if there is anything left, of a government of, for and by the people who in reality are the ones responsible for what is lost and what else will be lost just to keep the warm comfortably numb consumerist feeling that like the drug it is, will always take precedence over reality.
But hey, on the other hand, it is just one special election and it won't change this 1 party bifurcated facade of aristocracy representation much at all, though joe liarman will be able to sharpen his skills for another 4 years when conn. will elect him again. Shoot, he and palin may be the repub ticket in 2012, well, the people here in america are that crazy.
Thanks, but we can do without the male genatalia references: "balls taped to thighs."
There are women serving in the Democractic party, too. They do not have balls.
Let's toss this slang out.
PAProgressive sez: "There are women serving in the Democractic party, too. They do not have balls."
***
The absence of balls in the Democratic Party is not restricted to one gender.
His reference is a common cultural slang, everyone knows what he meant. The point is the democrats are a bunch of lying incompetent worthless hypocrites, just like their republican colleagues.
I say let's keep the slang (prudes) and "toss this gang out", the whole gang!
Agreed.
And I think we should also remember that this is a comedy show, not a serious political discussion.
Crude humor is to be expected.
Depends on how you view things I suppose. I always thought that women had their balls on the inside, aka ovaries.
Not apparently not, which might be why Coakley lost the election.
Coakley lost the election because that is just what the Dems wanted. They now have the perfect excuse to not get anything good passed. In 2012 the Reps will return, more evil than ever.
John, this is much bigger than any single issue (including health care). This is related to Democratic Party errors much earlier than Coakley's campaign. Lastly, this is much more dangerous than what happens to the Democratic control of Congress in 2010 --- or the entire Democratic Party.
Yes, this is a national political model (much as Brown is a model of a friendly-fascist 'Ken Doll') --- but beneath the surface, and beneath the 'Vichy' facade of polite 'center right' vs. 'center left' discussion and 'fair and balanced' coverage in the corporatist media --- lies an egregious
strategic error by the Democratic Party of where the political center of America really lies, and a gutless misjudgment and appeasement born of that error which could well make Neville Chamberlain's appeasement and negotiation of a "lesser of two evils" pale in comparison.
Yes, the Brown model is a "template" and 'national model' of seminal political significance in our waning Republic --- our 'commonwealth', our common interests, and our fading 'common good'.
The seed of real Democratic Party strategists' error in misjudging the 'center' of real popular democracy in America was first diagnosed by Ralph Nader in his 2000 campaign when he said, "the Green Party platform actually represents the majoritarian view of all average Americans". But even in
2000 the Democratic Party's error was already a decade old, and the wound from their error was mortal --- they tried to play a game of tackle football with the corporatist Empire's first string 'R' team and tried to run to what they thought was the center left of the line.
Nader was not a friendly 'Ken Doll' candidate, and the corporatist media had no trouble excoriating, ignoring, and easily blocking his true majoritarian popular center campaign (which was far to the left of where the Demos dared run) to the delight and payment of the ruling-elite Global corporate/financial/militarist EMPIRE that now even more fully controls 'our' former country by hiding behind the façade of its fully captive two-party 'Vichy' sham of democracy.
To the extent that the 'Brown model' is the 'national model' of not only the GOP (as some in the media suspect) but of the entire two-party 'Vichy' front for this Global corporate Empire (which it most certainly is), then 2010 is going to be much more dangerous than a few gutless Democrats losing Congress. 2010 to 2012 could well be a much more visible example of 'shock doctrine', with a slow-motion train-wreck and burial of the entire American founding and noble 'experiment in democracy' --- as the R&D parties openly exercise the power of a single R&D Party confident enough to begin its new R&D "experiments in Empire" on the US population.
Alan MacDonald
Sanford, Maine
Yes, for those of us who post on this site who aren't sneering rich ex-pats the next several years in Amurka are going to be like being ants on the inside of the only ping-pong ball at the Chinese national ping-pong championships with all the players doped on methamphetamine. If I could report on it for the British Commonwealth in the comfort and style of Howard K. Smith dressed in one of those fancy kevlar suits they make for the drug cartel leaders down in S. America it might even be somewhat interesting. But I'm not looking forward to what's coming because the failure here isn't just that of the Dimocrats and Rethuglicans--but of all of America's progressives and other members of the Left who are still failing miserably to organize an effective resistance movement against the now obscenely criminal and stupid Two Party masquerade.
odoco
Excellent analysis - thank you Alan.
yes, i live in 'the bluest of blue states'. this has been one of most inept campaigns i have ever witnessed. and that goes back to 1960! i actually crossed out brown's name and wrote 41 over it. then i crossed out coakley's name and wrote 60 over that. that is exactly what this election came to be about. with all of the people's business out there to be addressed this election was turned into a referendum on health care! we, in this state, have been robbed of our right to choose our representative. there is no way of fixing this country except for the 'people' to take it back! we have a one party system, that alternates names to protect the guilty. we get what we deserve for putting up with this crap. i hope that word didn't offend anyone! good luck america!
Maybe the Dems will go the way of the Whigs. Good f*ckin riddance. Hopefully the absence of the Dems will dispel some illusions about the political balance of power. You'll have a blantantly in-your-face pro-elite party (the GOP) and a scattering of anti-elite + wacko parties; there will be no more fake "progressive" pro elite party (the Dems) to serve as an easy target by the corporate media. The standard narrative will have to be altered to a more complex and fluid political reality, which will make it more difficult for the elites to control people.
So I say get rid of the Democrats, as quickly as possible, the sooner the better.
Our goal for the 2010 and 2012 elections should be to get rid of the Democratic party. Forever. This is a goal that the rank and file GOP voters, the independent voters and the progressive rank and file of the Democrats would go for. It is possible, and should be brought about swiftly. As it is now, the Democrats are just a tool of the to manipulate the electorate. The passing of the Democratic party will allow American politics to advance in favor of the majority of the voters. So let's do it now! Persuade everybody you can to vote for anything but Democrats.
Oh right...vote for the GOP...that AIN'T gonna happen DUDE!
Vote 3rd party. Vote for the name you never heard of. Vote for anyone who isn't trumpeted by the mass media.
Sure, let's put another pair of brainless neo-cons into the White House and "allow American politics to advance in favor of the majority of the voters." As if the Republicans hadn't already done enough during the Bush era which left America in smoke and ruins and the voters poorer. Who do you expect to fill the vacuum? The Independent party has no support from the monied classes and the corporate-complex.
Really that should guarantee Palin for the next 8 years come 2012 by 2020 we'll be a third world country. After all corporate America is already selling the "American Dream" to China and India. Not to mention Iraq and every other country were trying to take over. Corporate America doesn't need democrats anymore. They can and have sold more cars in China the last couple of years. Lets face it China probably owns your mortgage. So you just go ahead an tell all your friends to vote for anything but a democrat. That should do the trick. WAKE-UP The elite have controled the world for millenniums. That's a lot of decades! America is becoming the old world China's the new world. That or Dubia for the elite.
The Democrats are not a real party, they've been a sham for 40 years. The sooner they're destroyed, the better are the chances for the creation a real pro-labor and pro-justice party.
To quote Bill Maher: "There are two parties here in the United States; The Conservative Party and the Batsh*t Insane Party."
It is all too clear that no third party can win in today's scene, so maybe the best strategy would be to demand a choice of "None of the Above" on every ballot. This could gain momentum a lot faster than a push for any single outsider or party.
Assuming, of course, that Diebold doesn't have the system rigged by way of their highly developed electronic voting machines that don't leave a paper trail. Dan Hopsickers "The Big Fix" adds insight.
I watch Jon Stewart because he makes me laugh a decent number of times in the 22 minutes I give him. But politically he really makes me mad. He gets more Obama administration members and top Democratic Party politicians than any other show, by a wide margin, and he treats every single one of them like he's reading gracious prepared remarks that were vetted by the chief of staff. He becomes headline news for ripping a new one for some turd on a kooky cable show who wasn't really tremendously responsible for the financial meltdown -- bombards him with contradictory tapes of himself, accuses him of doing his job poorly, blah blah blah. But he has these morons he's screaming about ON HIS OWN SHOW ONCE A WEEK and it's always a hug fest.
I'm sorry, Jon, but you can't have it both ways. Now YOU'RE the Jim Cramer. Don't make me bombard you with all those clips of yourself being all kissy with the people you're now blaming for their weakness. You gave every one of them a polish when they were sitting at your desk.
OK, I couldn't help myself. Here's where to find the kissy interviews:
Ken Salazar, Secy of Interior: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-may-7-2009/ken-salazar
Ray LaHood, Secy of Transportation http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-december-15-2009/ray-lahood
Joe Biden, Vice President: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-17-2009/joe-biden-pt--1
Susan Rice, UN Ambassador: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-november-5-2009/susan-rice
Janet Napolitano, Homeland Security: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-october-12-2009/janet-napolitano-pt--1
Austan Goolsbee, Chief Economic Adviser on Recovery: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-august-11-2009/austan-goolsbee
Steven Chu, Secy of Energy: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-july-21-2009/steven-chu
Kathleen Sibelius, Secy Health and Human Services: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-july-15-2009/kathleen-sebelius-pt--1
Lisa Jackson, Administrator of the EPA: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-may-14-2009/lisa-p--jackson
And I'm not even going to put up the senators, generals, etc. Watch it and weep. Look in the mirror, John. Don't tell me if you're not nice they won't come on your show. That's nonsense. If they suck, and you care more about having them on your show than the fact that they're getting you to help them create these problems, then you suck, too. Just like Jim Cramer, whom you hypocritically ambushed and excoriated for doing nothing worse on his show with his Wall Street guests than you do on yours with your Democrat guests.
You're funny, but you're as much a hypocrite as any. Get off your phony soapbox.
odoco
The dems didn't win because they have failed to use the power the electorate bestowed upon them in 2008. They didn't win because they let big pharma and the insurance companies rule the day on health care; they didn't win because the MA dem candidate ran an awful campaign; they didn't win because they have failed to actually implement financial reform in this country; they didn't win because they have lost much of their leftward base and a growing percentage of the independents and moderates who desperately see this country falling apart at the seams and are beginning to understand that the democratic national party is not much more than "Repug Light," that Blue Dogs have controlled much of the legislative conversation (against the will and temper of the masses), and that this newly elected president has supported more Bush policies than ever thought possible.
Don't blame the messenger - he didn't lose the election. The incoherence and 'politics as usual' mentality lost this one for the dems - and it will cost them alot more in the midterms if they don't respond to the fact that, despite all the bullshit right wing propaganda - THIS COUNTRY IS NOT CENTER - RIGHT. Center Right got us where we are - a failed society. If the dems don't get this - the other guys automatically win.
kassandra: He didn't make sure "every voter" knew anything. He's on cable at 11 PM. His audience is loyal, but small. They're also not interested in voting for Republicans (third-party, maybe, but absolutely not Republicans) no matter what kind of jokes he cracks. Jon Stewart played a role over the last year in making this happen, but he had no role on the night before the election.
Odoco (and even Jon Stewart) is right about one thing. This was the biggest case in history of "your election to lose," and doggonit, she/they up and did it, with the total lack of grace, style, and aplomb that is the hallmark of the contemporary Democratic Party. But Odoco (and Stewart) are wrong in not seeing all the bricks that Stewart has laid with his own hands in the wall of Obama Administration dysfunction over the last year that has led us to this grotesque point. As I've illustrated below with the links to several of the interviews with top administration officials, Stewart never challenges them on their abandonment of the populism that brought them to office from a policy point of view, nor the abandonment of keeping the base energized as soon as the inaugural address was over as a terrible election strategy. He just massages and massages, lubricating the flow of their talking points. He gives them full time to explain why the "centrist" approach will gradually win, and how hard and well they're working on delivering most of what they promised.
This is the unforgivable hypocrisy. This is where he helped blow the election, and all those that will be blown in November (since it's way too late to "go populist" now). Stewart's message to his left/liberal viewers has constantly been "stay calm, populist base, all these guests on my show are assuring us it's all in the works." He has helped suppress the urge of the populist base (which is his audience) to fight for its beliefs, and in so doing has made his regular contributions to the wiggle-room bank the centrists have been drawing from to screw everything up. In other words, he sits there night after night, giving them as much rope as he personally possesses, despite having read their suicide note, and then he's shocked -- shocked! -- when they hang themselves.
Just once, couldn't he have asked one of those guests "why do I keep reading stories about all the muscle you're applying to the Progressive Caucus, but I have yet to see you apply one finger to Joe Lieberman?" Once? Just once?
Here's s funny segment proposal for Jon Stewart: put yourself on split-screen, and ambush yourself with all the clips of you massaging your Obama administration guests through their talking points, and yell at yourself for what a crappy job you did as an interviewer, and by consequence what an incredible disservice has been done to the great harm of American citizens. No wait, I have a better idea: invite Jim Cramer on your show, and have him be the guest interviewer.
Progressives need to wake up to the fact that Barack Obama is not a true Democrat, and definitely NOT a progressive, and that's why Coakley lost. He's given billions to the banks, insurance companies, Big Pharma, continues two wars, doesn't stand up for choice, etc., etc., etc. Barack is just another corporate tool, like Bush, and I'm sure him Creepy Corporate Cabal buddies are DELIGHTED at Brown's win - they are Republicans, and the goal is to DESTROY the Democratic Party! Obama is, as one Common Dreamer pointed out, a Trojan Horse.
Take away message: Don't let ANYONE blame progressives for Coakley's loss - it all is and should be pinned squarely on Obama and his cronies. Anyone that wants to clean up this mess needs to spread the word, because Obama's meme will be "They’ve abandoned us because we're good Democrats!" No, they’ve abandoned you because you're NOT!
No, progressives need to wake up to the fact that Obama IS a true Democrat. Some of us have been saying that since the Clinton campaign in 1992, some of us even earlier (I voted for Barry Commoner over the first Trilateral Commission Democrat, Jimmy Carter, in my first Presidential election in 1980).
There actually is a way to create a third party in this country, but it's as unlikely to happen as any other method so long as there are "progressive" Democrats who actually believe that they're the "real" Democrats. That would be if the entire Progressive Caucus, while seated in Congress, declared that they're fed up getting bullied by the DLC and they're forming not a caucus, but a new party and they will no longer caucus with, or stand for election as Democrats. They're the biggest caucus in Congress. Joe Lieberman gets his way because the Progressive Caucus always plays ball with him. If they want to keep selling themselves as Progressives, they're going to have to quit and run as the Progressive Party. It would be off to a flying start, because there are already sufficient leftist third-party ballot lines existing in this country for most of the Progressive Caucus to get on the ballot without much petitioning work. It would also be headline news -- they couldn't be ignored by the media like most third-party candidates. They also do year-round fundraising, so they all have millions in the campaign accounts they could still legally use for their next race.
But they won't do it, because like you, they think they're the "real" Democrats. Take the clouds from your eyes, all of you.
He's been a heckuva guy since leaving the White House, but he was a terrible president. He was pushed through the primaries by the newly formed Trilateral Commission following its vetting process over several "liberal" contenders, and in gratitude promptly turned our national security apparatus over to its foreign, Cold Warrior point man, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and we're still suffering from the blowback from that. He threw himself into reviving draft registration because it was an election year and the first wave of what we now call "teabaggers" was driving his decision making instead of the base that elected him after Watergate. It was in fact Jimmy Carter who initiated this "I'm a Democrat, but they're yelling so loud I have to do what they say instead of what my own supporters say" crap that finished off your party. He also happens to be the person who was President when the lower 80% of Americans' paychecks froze in time. There has been no net gain in our personal income since 1977, despite GDP having tripled. That's the legacy in the United States of the Carter/TriLat Presidency.
How dare you talk about Hillary Clinton? She supported the Iraq invasion with great gusto and has continued that support, approved almost all Bush appointees, wrote the original HMO welfare bill that killed single-payer in 1993 (when it had much wider support than today) before self-immolating, had more Wall Street, Pharma, and Military-Industrial donations than any other Democratic primary candidate in 2008, and was on the corporate board of Wal Mart, a company that did business with the state government her husband presided over, during the years they took over American retail. These are the Democrats you like? These are the Democrats whose jocks and panties I can't carry? Not can't, but won't, thank you very much.
Don't you ever have enough of all this corruption, profiteering, and corporate shadow government? Apparently not. But at least the handful of readers here can get a better sense of exactly why progressives have to stop deluding themselves into thinking the Democratic Party is interested in their perspective. Sheesh.
I never watch Steward or any 'corporate' media.. And this idea that the media is liberal pushed by the right, is a joke. NBC,CBS,ABC and FOX are for profit corporations, it's that simple.
They spend all they time dividing the voters along political and ideological lines, when the real divide is economic. They have you looking left, when the real control is on the right.
What's Steward's salary vs yours? Does pretty well no doubt, selling presidio political views in 30 minutes, for laugh, without delving to deep.
Politics for the up and coming 20 to 40 year old crowd, that don't have the time to dig to deep. Just time enough throw a frozen dinner in the Micro wave plop down the couch, then you Watch steward hit the man once or twice and you feel better about things. Like you have some control. Then it’s off too bed..
Manufacturing illusion is their job and nothing changes. Steward just makes you laugh a little about the hopelessness of it.