thy name is Marc Thiessen.
The Daily Show aired interview basically went like this: Thiessen raved on a McCarthyite tirade for three quarters of the airtime, venting how legal defense of criminals in a court of law is treason so long as the Feds declare said criminals “enemy combatants” first, and wanted the names of such public defenders released publicly so that they could be hunted down in this all-encompassing witch hunt. John Adams? Fuck John Adams. Our terrorists were freedom fighters. Their freedom fighters are terrorists. Even when they’ve never actually done any fighting.
That was the substantive portion of the rant. The methodology was equally awe-inspiring: He spoke over Jon Stewart most of the time – just straight through him – in a rage that quickened his words, raised his voice and had him literally shaking by the end of the interview in sheer will that he be able to dominate the debate by sheer volume of words, and the brief moments he wasn’t talking he was berating Jon Stewart for not letting him talk. It was as if he had expected all viewers to have suddenly lost the capacity to tell time – where the laws of physics would bend to his worldview.
It’s at times like this, coupled with on-air chink in Glenn Beck’s conspiracy theories during his ill-researched interview with Eric Massa, that I wonder whether people are watching the same hypocritical bullshit I am – that the terms “conspiracy theorist,” “faux-populist,” “extremist nutjob” aren’t strong enough to describe the barefaced hypocrisy prominent in the kinds of people allowed to be on the air. Reporting isn’t dying. Reporting is dead, and The Daily Show has been a ten year eulogy on its corpse.
