Political Irony

A few days ago, Jon Stewart appeared on ‘Fox News Sunday” with Chris Wallace. But as Stewart points out on his show, Fox selectively edited the interview before broadcasting it, removing the most interesting part: where Chris Wallace admits that — contrary to their claims — Fox News is not fair or balanced, but is intentionally and unmistakably conservative, acting as a counterweight to the liberal media. Watch it here:

Even more fun ensues as Stewart points out how often Fox News lies:

In this video, Stewart also notes that PolitiFact rated one of his statements false, and he apologizes for the mistake. Interestingly, PolitiFact did a followup because, as they put it “When we gave a False rating to a statement by Daily Show host Jon Stewart, the response from readers was swift and virtually unanimous. They said we were wrong.” So was Stewart wrong? As Fox News likes to say, I’ll just present the facts and let you decide.

UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan sums it up nicely:

I have to say I thought Jon Stewart’s correction on Fox News viewers was about as perfect as these things can be. He copped to his own hyperbole, and then provided a list of outright uncorrected untruths that Fox has propagated. The point here is not the untruths – although they are embarrassing for a news channel – but the lack of any correction.

Which is to say that a comedy channel has more dedication to accountability for factual errors than a putative news network. Which tells you almost everything you need to know.

“President Obama said he’d be OK being a one-term President. And with that he shoved an iPhone down his pants and pressed ‘send’.” – Conan O’Brien

“When asked about the Congressman Weiner scandal, President Obama said that if it were him, he’d resign. When Bill Clinton was asked about the same thing he said, ‘If it was me, I wouldn’t be surprised.'” – David Letterman

“Anthony Weiner asked Bill Clinton for advice, and actually followed it for awhile. Of course eventually he was forced to tell the truth.” – Jay Leno

“Derek Jeter is only six hits away from 3,000 base hits. What a coincidence — Anthony Weiner is only six nude photos away from 3,000.” – David Letterman

“The New York Daily News is reporting that Anthony Weiner’s car isn’t registered at the DMV. Oh man — he must be so embarrassed right now.” – Jimmy Fallon

“What is Weiner guilty of? He’s guilty of being too photogenic. But is taking pictures of your junk and e-mailing them something you’d expect from a Congressman? No. This is something you’d expect from a priest.” – David Letterman

“Congressman Weiner has checked into the That’s Not Mayo Clinic.” – Conan O’Brien

“Arnold Schwarzenegger’s maid said when her son was told that Schwarzenegger was his father he said ‘cool.’ It was a big improvement. Up to this point, the kid thought his father was Jean-Claude Van Damme.” – Jay Leno

“Arnold Schwarzenegger’s housekeeper says Maria Shriver became suspicious after noticing similarities between Arnold and her 13-year-old son. For instance, after serving as class president, he left the sixth grade with a $42 billion deficit.” – Conan O’Brien

“The housekeeper said the affair wasn’t all Arnold’s fault because ‘it takes two.’ Then Anthony Weiner said, ‘Actually, it only takes one.'” – Conan O’Brien

“One of bin Laden’s wives said he was a sex machine. In fact, he was the only man who could find her jihad spot.” – Jay Leno

“Happy birthday to Donald Trump, who turned 65, allegedly. We still haven’t seen the birth certificate so we don’t know for sure.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“Happy Birthday to Donald Trump, who was born 65 years ago today! It was sweet. Today Obama sent him a nice Hallmark card that said, ‘Prove it.'” – Jimmy Fallon

“Donald Trump is 65 today. Had a big party. He likes to play Pin Everything on Obama.” –David Letterman

“President Obama said regarding the economy, ‘The sky is not falling.’ The poll numbers are falling, the market is falling, support for the war in Libya is falling, Anthony Weiner’s pants are falling, but the sky is fine.” – Jay Leno

“According to the latest survey on the economy, 48 percent of the people surveyed think we’ll have a great depression. The other 52 percent think it will just be a pretty good depression.” – Jay Leno

“The first Republican presidential debate was held on Monday night. Seven Republican presidential candidates got together to agree on how much they dislike the government they would like to run. Imagine if you did that in a job interview.” – Jimmy Kimmel

“During the GOP debate, Herman Cain was asked if he likes deep dish or thin crust pizza. Then Newt Gingrich interrupted and said, ‘Wait, there’s pizza?'” – Conan O’Brien

“Newt Gingrich was so impressed with Michele Bachmann at the Republican debate that he gave her a $200,000 gift certificate for Tiffany’s.” – David Letterman

“During the Republican debate on Monday night, Mitt Romney interrupted the proceedings to announce the score of the hockey game. Well … I guess he’s already written off the black vote.” – Conan O’Brien

“Mitt Romney is the front runner at this point, mostly because he looks like the guy they would cast as the president in a disaster movie.” – Jimmy Kimmel

An article in ABC News points out the hypocrisy of how our political system deals with scandals. Representative Anthony Weiner has resigned, but what was strange about this whole episode was that both Democratic and Republican leaders immediately called for Weiner to resign. Nancy Pelosi has never called for a fellow Democrat to resign, until Weiner. Even President Obama said he should resign, which is pretty much unprecedented.

According to political historian Julian Zelizer “I can’t remember a comparable scandal when a president did that. … The irony of the Weiner situation is that there have been scandals when the leadership has been much more quiet in both parties.”

And Weiner didn’t even do anything illegal. In 2007, Representative William Jefferson of Louisiana was indicted on 16 federal counts, not to mention numerous ethics violations, but served out his term (he was later found guilty and sent to prison). But the Democratic leadership, including Pelosi, never told him to step down. And Representative Charles Rangel of New York was found guilty of violating eleven House ethics rules; the House censured him, but didn’t force him to resign.

And Republicans like House Speaker John Boehner and Majority Leader Eric Cantor called on Weiner to resign, even though they hypocritically didn’t do the same thing for Senator David Vitter (who solicited a prostitute, which is a crime) or for Senator John Ensign (who lied to the Federal Election Commission in order to cover up an affair with a former top aide).

So why did everyone jump on Weiner to resign? Maybe it had nothing to do with his sex scandal (even though there was no actual sex). Maybe it has more to do with his crusades against wrongdoing corporations.

A huge fight is happening in New York State over a bill legalizing gay marriage, introduced by Governor Cuomo on Tuesday.

Leading the opposition is Catholic Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who equated the bill (without irony) to life in China or North Korea, where “government presumes daily to ‘redefine’ rights, relationships, values and natural law. Please, not here! We cherish true freedom, not as the license to do whatever we want, but the liberty to do what we ought.” (You know, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength)

That was just too much for Republican State Senator Roy McDonald, who snapped and decided to change his vote to yes — despite intense pressure from fellow Republicans to vote against the bill. McDonald, 64, told reporters:

You get to the point where you evolve in your life where everything isn’t black and white, good and bad, and you try to do the right thing. You might not like that. You might be very cynical about that. Well, fuck it, I don’t care what you think. I’m trying to do the right thing. I’m tired of Republican-Democrat politics. They can take the job and shove it. I come from a blue-collar background. I’m trying to do the right thing, and that’s where I’m going with this.

You sir, are awesome.

UPDATE: The New York State Senate passed the bill, 33-29. Cuomo has promised to sign the bill, making NY the sixth state (and by far the most populous) to legalize gay marriage. Several Republicans in the Republican-controlled Senate voted for the bill, including one Senator who is a Catholic, but put his personal beliefs aside because he could not think of a legal reason why gays should not have equal rights.

UPDATE 2: Andrew Sullivan on why this matters. In case you don’t know, Sullivan is both a conservative and gay.