Tag: Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart Responds to Hannity’s Apology

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Sean Hannity Apologizes to Jon
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Jon Stewart responded to Sean Hannity’s apology saying nothing is worth sitting through Hannity’s show. And then there was this, narrative courtesy The Huffington Post:

Stewart went on to praise Ramin Hedayati, the young producer who caught the Hannity flub. (Full disclosure I know Mr. Hedayati personally.) "He" came came out on stage to take a bow and despite having graduated college in 2002, Ramin looks surprisingly old and begged Stewart to kill him so he could stop watching Sean Hannity’s show.

It was worth it. Watch the above video. Stewart even suggests a wonderful new slogan for FOX News: "WE ALTER REALITY. YOU ARE SOLD A PRECONCEIVED NARRATIVE."

Good catch to Mr. Hedayati.

Related: Hannity Claims He "Screwed Up" for "Incorrect Video" Revealed by Jon Stewart


Hannity Claims He “Screwed Up” for “Incorrect Video” Revealed by Jon Stewart

I know the report on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart happened a couple of days ago. I just want to give this video a home on Turning Left. This is the story where Stewart reveals that Sean Hannity used video footage of a September 12 rally in Washington, D.C. to give the impression that an anti-health insurance reform rally by Congresswoman Michele Bachmann had more people than actually attended.

From the Huffington Post:

The tea party protests continued last week, as Congresswoman Michele Bachmann held an anti-health-care-reform rally on the steps of the Capitol. While she estimated that 20,000-45,000 people attended the event, the Washington Post reported it was actually more like 10,000.

Still, that is a sizable number of Americans exercising their right to free speech and assembly, and that warrants news coverage. But Sean Hannity and his team did more than cover the event. They not only inflated the number in attendance with their words, but actually used footage from a heavily-attended protest this summer to make this health care rally appear more popular. Hannity even pointed out that this was a huge crowd for a Thursday, when the protest footage they used was from a Saturday.

Why did it take a couple of days for me to post the Stewart video? Permit me to blow off some geek steam. The HTML purist in me gets frustrated with Comedy Central’s embed code, which is always invalid. If anyone from Comedy Central happens to stop by, here’s your problem: your captions always include an improperly closed anchor tag:

<a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-10-2009/sean-hannity-uses-glenn-beck-s-protest-footage'>Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage<a>

This, of course, should look like this:

<a target='_blank' style='color:#333; text-decoration:none; font-weight:bold;' href='http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-10-2009/sean-hannity-uses-glenn-beck-s-protest-footage'>Sean Hannity Uses Glenn Beck's Protest Footage</a>

No charge for the design tip. Just fix it, please! That error is in every video released by The Daily Show! It’s a pain to fix!

Sean Hannity claims he "screwed up" for airing "incorrect video" of the 9-12 protests while discussing the Bachmann rally. (Tip of the hat to MediaMatters.org for this video — which doesn’t have broken code.)

Hats off to Jon Stewart and his team for this great catch.


Gail Collins on Sarah Palin’s Implosion

Once again, the best I can say is I have no idea why Sarah Palin resigned as governor of Alaska.  Why show you’re not a quitter by quitting?  Why leave the highest office you’ve ever held?

Nothing about this move makes sense.

Gail Collins shares her thoughts at the New York Times.  Collins quotes from Palin’s rambling press conference:

“And a problem in our country today is apathy,” she said on Friday as she announced that she would resign as governor of Alaska at the end of the month. “It would be apathetic to just hunker down and ‘go with the flow.’ Nah, only dead fish ‘go with the flow.’ No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time … to BUILD UP.”

Basically, the point was that Palin is quitting as governor because she’s not a quitter. Or a deceased salmon.

Sarah Barracuda made her big announcement Friday afternoon on the lawn of her home to an audience that appeared to include only Todd, the kids and the next-door neighbors. Smiling manically, she looked like a parody of the woman who knocked the Republicans dead at their convention. She babbled about her parents’ refrigerator magnet, which apparently had a lot of wise advice. And she recalled her visit with the troops in Kosovo, whose dedication and determination inspired her to … resign.

“Life is about choices!” declared the nation’s most anti-choice politician.

Is this a brilliant move (as Mary Matalin asserts)  for a rising star launching her run for the White House?  Collins comments:

So if she’s starting to run, it will be as the same reporter-avoiding, generalization-spouting underachiever that she was last time around.

Now we know she not only doesn’t have the concentration to read a policy paper, she can’t focus long enough to finish the job she was hired to do.

I want to hear George Will try to spin this one.

And you betcha I’m looking forward to commentary from Rachel Maddow, Keith Olbermann, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and David Letterman.


Barack Obama on Baracknaphobia, a la Jon Stewart

A great interview with Barack Obama by Jon Stewart.