A Brief Lapse of Concentration

Last week America's darling Jon Stewart implied that Harry Truman was a war criminal. Oops! Realizing his fatal error, he quickly apologized:

The other night we had on Cliff May. He was on, we were discussing torture, back and forth, very spirited discussion, very enjoyable. And I may have mentioned during the discussion we were having that Harry Truman was a war criminal. And right after saying it, I thought to myself that was dumb. And it was dumb. Stupid in fact. So I shouldn't have said that, and I did. So I say right now, no, I don't believe that to be the case. The atomic bomb, a very complicated decision in the context of a horrific war, and I walk that back because it was in my estimation a stupid thing to say.

Dennis Perrin rightly places Stewart in this epoch:

At best, Jon Stewart serves as a corporate release valve, letting off permissible steam when the American machine overheats. This is pretty much what "satire" has been reduced to. The Realist, Terry Southern, and the original Lampoon have never been deader.

Let's be honest here. Harry Truman has thousands more gallons of blood on his hands than Gee Dub could have ever achieved in his eight years. This is just another case of you can't be a war criminal if your side won the war - and our pal Jon has succumbed to this fiction hook, line and sinker. Or he just wants to host the Oscars again, and doesn't want this controversial blip on his resume. 

I'm struggling the remember the last time I really laughed at Stewart's humor. Perhaps it was their Indecision 2004 coverage? The show hasn't been the same since the departure of Steve Carell and Steven Colbert. Well, at least Colbert is still on the money.

Comments

[Montag]

hey, that's just how they did wars back then. civilian casualties were a feature not a bug in military strategy. which is to say, back then you didn't have to lie about killing civilians being the primary means to realizing objectives in all war.

as for Stewart, i stopped watching when he crossed the line to work during the writer's strike.