Jon Stewart and the funny side of the Iranian regime's nuclear threat

...Even if you strip away his vile slanders, the basic message of Stewart’s rant, like that of other defenders of the rush to rapprochement with Iran, is something much more basic: they genuinely don’t care about Iran’s lies or about the deadly nature of the Iranian nuclear threat. They just want the issue to go away...

Frimet/Arnold Roth..
This Ongoing War..
24 January '14..

This is the second time today we're leaning on something written by Jonathan Tobin in Commentary Magazine. Bear with us - we think you will agree that what he says deserves exposure and analysis.

He asks a pretty timely question (the words are ours): Why are so many smart, educated people ready to buy into Iran’s current PR campaign?

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s speech [on Wednesday at the Davos Forum in Switzerland] sounded all the familiar Western-friendly themes that he has used throughout his charm offensive... Iran doesn’t want nuclear weapons and seeks only peaceful reconciliation with the West... Most of the foreign-policy wonks and government officials in attendance... were only too happy to buy into his talk of “prudent moderation” and “constructive engagement”... Israel was alone in pouring cold water on the festivities, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had the bad manners to note that Rouhani’s peaceful rhetoric was, in reality, belied by his country’s ongoing nuclear project, its ballistic missile program, its support for international terrorism, and its daily calls for Israel’s destruction.

He points out that Americans seem to be falling for the "transparent deceptions" of the Iranian regime and wonders aloud how, given all we know about their sickening involvement in some truly appalling things, this can possibly be.

The answer doesn’t come from Davos but rather what preceded the international gathering last week in a segment on Comedy Central’s Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Stewart’s political comedy is a reliable barometer of what liberals are thinking... On Iran, Stewart has gone all out for the administration’s embrace of Rouhani.

He illustrates his argument with a segment from a recent Stewart monologue entitled “Let’s Break a Deal”. All a person needs to know about why so many in the West refuse to give serious thought to the Iranian nuclear threat is there, says Tobin. Despite interweaving the analysis with some Justin Bieber references, he's pretty much right.

(Continue)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Check-it out! 
.

Comedy Channeling C-SPAN

MK
CAMERA/Snapshots
14 April '10

Open letter to Jon Stewart, host and executive producer of the Daily Show on Comedy Central (Monday through Thursday, 11:00 PM ET).

Dear Mr. Stewart:

Your popular Daily Show often tackles current news items with clever, caustic humor. In this vein, a March 31, 2010 Daily Show broadcast segment humorously and appropriately lampooned a C-SPAN host‘s feckless handling of a casually racist anti-black caller in a March 29 C-SPAN Washington Journal broadcast. However, this host merely typifies all (or nearly all) of the C-SPAN Journal hosts in their handling of a particular class of bigoted rants by sitting mutely, shuffling papers, and then thanking the callers for their input. These rants, contained in hundreds of calls aired by C-SPAN, are readily available to be mined for humorous fulmination. The documentation is concisely presented on CAMERA’s Website, camera.org, in the following articles (several of the calls documented include video clips): C-SPAN Watch, C-SPAN's Washington Journal a Platform for Anti-Semitism, C-SPAN's Washington Journal Caller Problem, and C-SPAN President's CAMERA Shy Reaction (with video clip) in which C-SPAN’s president, acting as Journal host, is completely tongue-tied reacting to a caller’s news that the historical record shows that Arab anti-Jewish terrorism had preceded Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

These CAMERA articles describe hundreds of Journal calls containing virulent anti-Jewish, anti-Israel rants handled in a feckless or foolish way by the host and (often) the guest.

We trust that you will utilize the Journal broadcast material from CAMERA (or at least make use of the CAMERA material in searching C-SPAN archives) for use in the Daily Showsince you aim (or should aim) to be an equal-opportunity satirist.

Sincerely,

CAMERA

Please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.

.