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Jon Stewart Tells President Obama: "It's Chow Time."
Last night the funny man with the fake news program was on a roll on the subject of Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In typical Daily Show fashion, he showed clips of past and recent statements on the subject, which are highly contradictory (and really poorly phrased of late). He also managed to go off on a cruise ship buffet-themed rant about the fact that if you never actually start dealing with something, odds are you're never going to get around to dealing with it. In two minutes time, he manages to sum up the entire gay rights movement's problem with President Obama: we're just not a priority.
But rather than continuing his takedown of DADT, Stewart took painstaking effort to draw out the differences in say, allowing women to serve on submarines (which is a simple Naval policy decision that Mabus is already changing) compared to allowing gays to serve. There Mabus' hands are supposedly tied, since DADT is a law that Congress has to change.
Don't get me wrong — Stewart may be one of the greatest allies our community has, and the only reason I feel let down is because he dropped off at the end and failed to live up to the high standards that he set for himself. What did you think? Submitted by on Wed, 2009-10-07 09:51. |
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75% agreement
Hi Ed,
I agree with you that Jon Stewart did a clear and pithy job of presenting the crap that Obama's DADT floundering has become. However, I don't feel let down about the Secretary of the Navy. Yes, Jon gave him the opportunity to take a stand or voice an opinion on gays in the military (or attempt to speak for the Navy at large), but it's not really the guy's job to be political that way. And Jon Stewart tends to be a hospitable host, which I think serves him well. I think he served the cause of human rights well last night, and it made me sad to be reminded that our president isn't doing the same thing.
Now hurry up and start live-blogging a show I don't ned to watch in Pacific real-time, so I can show up and say brazen and rowdy things.
The blog likes brazen and rowdy things.
Instructive
My affection for Jon Stewart has started to wain recently because he's gotten a little lazy with his coverage (specifically as it relates to his coverage of ACORN and the Cap and Trade Bill). People will defend him by saying it's just a comedy show but we all know he's more than that...and if someone else had covered ACORN the way he did, they'd be eviscerated on his show.
That said...
It's instructive, I think, about the challenge that the LGBT community faces that this post is about Obama's failings on our issues rather than Congress' inaction on any of our issues. He's the easier person to scapegoat, I guess, but I think it allows Congress to escape accountability.
[FWIW, it's worth noting that the editorial that Stewart talks about in the opening segment was approved for publication by the office of Admiral Mullen (the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs). Most reporting about its publication suggests that the Obama administration is quietly "laying the dynamite" to blow up DADT.]
While Stewart was having his conversation with Mabus last night, Rep. Patrick Murphy was leading a special speeches hour on the House floor on DADT. We were well represented by Murphy two out members of Congress, Reps. Tammy Baldwin and Jared Polis, and numerous others.
And then, after that was over...
Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX (shock!)) took to floor and gave one of the most unbelievably offensive speeches I've seen on the House floor since Rick Santorum's days.
Contact information for Rep. Gohmert's office is available at his website: http://gohmert.house.gov/.(h/t to the Law Dork for his comprehensive coverage on twitter and on his blog)
--
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught inan inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment ofdestiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." - MLK
Yeah, there's insubordination...
I agree with the poster above. It's a career killer for anybody (in the military power structure or the private sector) to criticize a superior on a national fake news show. The military, in particular, has to toe the line even when they know the orders are ridiculous. During the segment I was actually frightened that Stewart was going to trick the guy somehow into offering criticism and potentially destroying the guy's career just to get a sound-byte for the evening (real) news. Luckily that didn't happen.
Can we clone Jon Stewart?
Jon Stewart rocks. Can we clone him and put him in charge of HRC? He'd be the perfect ally president of HRC, calling people to task on their b.s.
Considering how many gay people work for Congress, they should have plenty of time to deal with DADT and other gay human rights issues. If politicians in Congress can't multi-task then they should not receive any money for their paid staff who do much of the work nor should they get any vacation time. It is ridiculous.
The politicians must think that we don't realize that these issues have existed for YEARS - there isn't anything novel or groundbreaking for politicians to do to get these repeal laws and nondiscrimination laws passed. They just need to vote. It really comes across like they are delaying the votes because they don't want to reveal which "conservative" democrats are going to vote against the changes, since they don't want to risk losing those "democrats" in their primaries in 2010 when the democrat base boots them for being dinos (democrats-in-name-only).