06 September 2005

John Stewart: Impending Liberal Implosion

John Stewart can be a very funny guy, even though he's a screaming liberal. Unfortunately for him and most other high-profile liberals, he's joined a downward slide into the depths of insanity and irrationality. For the last several years, viewers of his "Daily Show" on Comedy Central have seen it in his face, and tonight it was more evident than ever, especially when he talked about President Bush's response to Hurricane Katrina. Stewart is no longer the good-natured satirist he once was. Tonight, he showed the true extent of his liberal lunacy.

After several primal screams at the beginning of his show, he spent his next ten minutes presenting a variety of monologues and the usual fake news stories deriding the Bush Administration. Here's the meat of his opening commentary:

"There's a lot of confusion over blame and pointing fingers, and the response to the obviously-horrible tragedy of the Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and whether or not the Government did enough; whether or not there were some missed communications; whether or not there was some beaurocratic bungling -- let me just say this, and the short answer is this: Uh, yes.

The long answer, of course, uh, YYYYYYYYESSSSSSSSS!!!!!!

Uh, the real question is, in the four years since 9/11, you have to ask yourself, has the government's advancements, procedures, etcetera, made us safer, given us more comfort, that they will have effective, or more effective, response to catastrophic events. And I think it's very clear that the answer is, "Oh shit, we're in trouble."

Now, for people who were saying, "Well, stop pointing fingers at the President, it's a left-wing media, [unintelligible] .. all right. [Pointing forcibly at camera:] No, shut up, NO. This is inarguably...inarguably... a failure of leadership from the top... of the Federal Government."


Stewart spent another couple of minutes talking smugly about how the President was on vacation during the storm, and expressing astonishment that he didn't rush to the flooded areas of the Gulf Coast on Monday morning. He presented a supposedly-humorous "Timeline of Bush's Journey Back to Being President," an "exposé" of how Bush practically ran from the storm instead of flying directly into its path and landing the moment the winds were sub-galeforce. He sarcastically mocked everything about the President's actions during the tumultuous week of August 28th he could find, from the food he ate in Crawford to his complementary comments about FEMA Director Michael Brown. It was pathetic. I rarely feel like picking up my TV and hurling it out the window, but this kind of crap is the very definition of clueless, moronic, liberal thought processes that pervades much of American TV programming.

OK, liberals: I'm gonna explain a few things to you. The President of the United States is not supposed to be an omnipotent, all-knowing, all-capable seer whose very presence instills calm and organization during a catastrophe. A President's calming influence comes later, not as the dust is still setlling, so to speak. He's not supposed to be the first one out the door of the Blackhawk when a Special Ops team infiltrates enemy territory; he doesn't lead the first wave of F-15s into battle; he's not expected to fight forest fires in the mountains of California, no matter how bad things are; he can't be there as a first responder if a terror attack occurs in one of our cities. And he will not fly into a recently-hurricane-wrecked city just to be there first. There are rescue people and agencies for that. In this case, it's utterly clear to me that the local leaders of New Orleans and the states of Louisiana and Mississippi were the ones in charge. It's their job to assess the situation, determine their needs and, if appropriate, ask for Federal help. This is exactly what was done. The situation there was bad after the winds died down, but no Federal help was requested. I even saw CNN reporters standing on Burbon Street on Tuesday afternoon, reporting that things were not nearly as bad as everyone had thought. Things escalated dramatically when the levee broke, and it took over 24 hours before a formal "SOS" was sent by local officials. Compounding things was the fact that, in many places, this was a natural disaster of truly monumental and unprecedented proportions. There was a physical inability to help people, even if an unlimited supply of food, water, and dry clothing had been pre-positioned just outside the city limit. There was no electricity, no cell phones, no emergency communications, no ability to travel to check out the situation, no nothing -- for the first day and a half. So what should the Federal government have done? If the people in Waveland, Mississippi aren't able to call in and notify someone that their town has been totally, completely wiped clean by a 30-foot storm surge, how is anyone supposed to do anything about it? It takes time for people to dig out, make it to someplace where they can assess the situation, realize how bad it is, and make contact. This is exactly what was happening in countless locations all across the Gulf Coast region in the first three days after the storm. If a truck full of supplies cannot physically make it through 9 feet of sludge-filled water to provide food to refugees on a bridge, whose fault is that, exactly? If the mayor of a town cannot notify FEMA because the primary power and backup power are both out, and City Hall is a pile of rubble, is President Bush at fault? Anyone care to defend that astonishing position? (It may be astonishing, but it appears to be the very opinion of many media liberals and pundits.)

Many people died in their attics because they did not leave their sub-sea level city in the face of a Category 5 hurricane. Sometimes the results of free will are tragic. Here's the thing. Sometimes Mother Nature overwhelms the ability of even the almighty U.S. Federal government to respond perfectly and save every life. The fact that liberals don't understand this -- that they are outraged when the government doesn't take care of every tiny facet of their lives (even if it's a once-in-a-thousand-years natural disaster) -- is further evidence that they just don't get it.

By "it," I mean "life."

I'll probably watch "The Daily Show" even more now. I'm morbidly fascinated to watch John Stewart implode and collapse into a black hole. He's getting close.