Here’s Jon Stewart Leibowitz doing his best Levi Yitzhak of Berditchev: Ribono Shel Olom, what the @!*#! are you doing?
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Jon Stewart calls “Most of the Confederacy went for Mitt Romney.”
And Florida continues to be “a huge clusterf*** - Florida, of course, being the place where Cubans go to live and Jews go to die.”
Despite the widespread system failures that deprived thousands of viewers live streaming footage of the Bill O’Reilly vs Jon Stewart smackdown your Forward live blogger was here glued to a computer that was working and plugged in and was live blogging it.
7:45 Tension is mounting as the first entertaining debate of the presidential election beckons. Tall Fox pundit Bill O’Reilly, against small Comedy Central funny man, Jon Stewart. Stewart has promised to have O’Reilly saying Stewart’s “Haftarah” by the end of the event, O’Reilly thinks he’ll be fine without Stewart’s 18 writers helping him out in the background.
7:50 Not to spoil you with too regular updates but, assuming that the internet holds up its end of the bargain, the tedium, mendacity, obfuscation and poor moderation of Wednesday’s debate can be left behind. No altitude sickness, no Big Bird and no votes at stake.
7:55 The debaters are in the auditorium. Repeat, people who care passionately about their positions, who have significant followings and who can speak articulately and entertainingly about the issues that matter in Election 2012 are about to engage in infotainment. They are currently quipping about air conditioning.
Jon Stewart skewered Mitt Romney for his “culture” comments that suggested that Israelis are somehow superior to Palestinians.
With frequent references to Romney’s gaffe-prone ways, Stewart reported on Romney’s controversial comments during his visit to Israel that attempted to pay homage to Israeli know-how and ingenuity.
The late-night comic pointed out that there must be more than culture that left Palestinians less prosperous than Israelis (how ‘bout the occupation, Mitt?).
“Romney seems to be saying that the Palestinians are purely the architects of their own poverty,” Stewart said, giving his trademark dead-pan stare into the camera.
Then, he cut to the punchline, that Romney may have inadvertently spouted a nasty stereotype about Jews, too.
“Or, if you prefer to look at the converse: that Jews are just culturally some money-making m—– f—-ers.”
Jon Stewart delivered an inspired rant last night comparing the charms of Easter vs. Passover. The key line: “As a father of mixed-faith children who are exposed to both holidays, I can’t help but feel that we Jews are getting our asses kicked out here.”
Some other key lines:
Hey, five-year-olds: A basket filled with candy and jelly beans — or horseradish, still in root form? Would you like the treats a magical bunny brought you — or a bone from a dead baby lamb? Don’t worry — we used its blood to mark the door…
Mishpoche, we gotta take it up a notch. They’re crushing us. I’m not saying we lose our traditions. We gotta adapt it, with a slight nod towards recruitment. I’m not saying we gotta go Jehovah’s Witnesses on this thing. But what’s wrong with a little zazz? Thinking outside the box? We’ve got a great story here. Moses parting the Red Sea? How have we not turned that into a water park?
Jon Stewart treads where others don’t dare: skewering America’s decision to defund UNESCO for recognizing Palestine. And this was no mere tweak: Stewart skipped his interview segment last night to air a special, two-part “investigation” by John Oliver on the UNESCO flap. Oliver actually traveled to Gabon in West Africa (not a fake blue-screen standup), which apparently donated an extra $1 million to the UN agency toward making up the U.S. shortfall. And he visited schoolchildren in Gabon who benefit from UNESCO’s programs – and suffer from the defunding. More innuendo than fact – it’s the Daily Show after all – but pretty harsh.
Note that they barely mention Israel, much less the, um, U.S. domestic influences that pushed for the defunding-UN-over-Palestine policy. Even Stewart isn’t that suicidal. Nonetheless, it’s very pointed. Here’s Part One:
Part Two (after the jump):
If you haven’t seen Jon Stewart’s hilarious Wednesday night report on the aftermath of the Norway massacre, you’re only hurting yourself. He brilliantly skewers the protests of Fox News and the right over the bigotry of the media’s identifying the accused shooter as a “Christian extremist.” There are numerous layers of hypocrisy to peel away, and each one is funnier than the last: It’s bigoted to call Breivik a Christian just because he calls himself one, but the Fort Hood shooter is definitely a Muslim terrorist because he called himself one. Christians in this country are the victims of relentless bigotry by the left, but anyone else who complains of bigotry is playing the victim card. Et cetera and so forth.
Part 1:
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