Don't let anyone say Stewart lets his guests get away...

Jon Stewart interviewed John Bolton. I believe Bolton is the highest Bush administration official (past or present)? And he hit him pretty well to get at least interesting commentary about the administration's supposed point of view.



Bolton :
"I suggest the President has a responsibility to be true to the people who voted for him and to put people in office who are sympathetic to his positions. Otherwise, what's the point of having elections?"

Uh.... no. The President is elected to serve the people... all of them... the best interest of the American public as a whole. "Democratic theory," which Bolton refers to several times, does not believe that whoever wins the election gets to dictate for four years because 51% of the electoral college voted in such a manner on one day. The President's job is to continually address issues with regards to what will be the best decision for all of us, because we cannot all make those decisions collectively and daily.

That hurts that, according to Bolton, the administration's mentality is still that of "having" 'political capital' which means they can now do whatever they want (leaving the fact that they already 'spent' all of their supposed political capital and are sitting at 36% approval).


Another great quote :
"...The ability to have candid opinions and views in private is very important."

To which Jon Stewart gives a great response that if we could have that right, which we haven't had in a while, that maybe we could negotiate the other stuff.


But really, in this interview Steward really does do a good job of asking strong questions, and getting some articulate answers out of Bolton, not to mention, seems to have mastered the interview techniques of starting out slow so you're only punching him hard in the stomach towards the end. Really a must watch piece.


So to Tucker on Crossfire :: here, now he really hit an important interviewee with hard questions... whatchu got?

Oh no! American democracy is failing!

Apparently, according to CNN... Yes, CNN, not E!, and why they are reporting on this, I don't know, and it hurts my head, but anyway... According to CNN American Idol is becoming a joke because a guy who can't sing that well is doing well and might win.

Good. You shouldn't be able to simply produce "idols," much less musicians... you know, artists? Maybe art is actually a little beyond a silly "democratic" "reality" show?

Thoughts while watching TDS

Screw Stewart / Colbert '08 ... Picture Jon Stewart as Press Secretary instead... that would make press conferences excellent

you either get gitmo or racism

We officially have the first person to plead guilty from Gitmo.

"The guilty plea is sure to be seen by supporters of the administration as an affirmation of its efforts to detain and try terrorism suspects here."


First - yes, because when you make two of his lawyers leave the courtroom, and at first don't have him enter a plea, and give someone a chance to leave a hellhole and he was found guilty of "providing material support to a terrorist organization," and not, ya know, killing Americans, its not a surprise he plead guilty.


But if they plan on pretending this is their flagship guilty case -- can we stop racial profiling yet? He's white! Hello?! Let's hope they follow rules of reason, and only get to pick one ... if this case proves anything (arguable) then it either proves Guantanamo or racial profiling and hating Islamofascists, but not both.

Investigation over Legislation

WaPo writer David Broder whines about "Investigation, not legislation"

Accountability is certainly important, but Democrats must know that people were really voting for action on Iraq, health care, immigration, energy and a few other problems. Investigations are useful, but only legislation on big issues changes lives.

First of all, the piece doesn't really feel like it gets to his point until the last paragraph. Annoying.



But more importantly...

People did vote for the issues he lists, but the bigger problem is lack of trust in one's government. The populace has to trust that their leadership will do something about those issues, and even more so, that they trust them to do something good about those problems. Don't believe me? Corroborating evidence at Kos

So if the Dems feel the need need to clean house, and prove that the rampant corruption is at least slightly better, first, go for it. Its not just that the Dems are going to draft new policy on "health care, immigration, energy and a few other problems," but that they are going do make any policy other than "stay the course in Iraq." Apparently, Republicans were wasting so much time sending emails ranking loyal Bushies and leaking classified information in order to protect shoddy reasoning that they hardly seemed to produce any policy on anything other than Iraq -- and that Iraq policy didn't change for five years.

So, yes, investigation before legislation. We generally have too many bickering laws anyway, lets go with the KISS theory, and actually spend some time cleaning up the Capitol instead.

World Water Day

Today is World Water Day

According to Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, it would cost about $33 billion to get clean water to everyone who needs it for drinking and sanitation.

Interestingly, this is about half the amount of money that is spent on bottled water every year.

The Onion... eh...

Some of the stuff in The Onion is funny, some of it is not funny and some of it is annoying. Their shirt that reads "Stereotypes are a real time saver" are part of the slacker wannabe libretarian wannabe PC backlash mentality that is actually just stupid and pointless. This shirt bothers me because its not that witty, it doesn't point out some novel fact, all still while supporting a mentality that hinders the progress of so many problems our society faces. They're very hit or miss and while some of their stuff garners a smile, others just make me roll my eyes at a dead joke that does more harm than good.

Needless Sexist (?) Repetition

Army recruits are in the peak age range for Hodgkin’s lymphoma. It is the second most common cancer among young men 20-39 years old and the most common among young women of the same age.

(bottom)

Why say 'most common among men age x-y... and most common among women of the same age'.......... rather than saying 'most common among people of age x-y. I know, I know, because of the disbelief in the radical notion that women are both people and can be recruited as soldiers?