Because it's harder to argue with him than with us.
However, we do welcome your reactions to this video (which unfortunately cuts off at the 9:21 mark) and Stewart's take on the race as it stands. Yes, it's biased, which is why you would do right by your candidates to duke it out in the comments. While we take the day off...
It was this particular segment that made me think that it's CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. that should be airing on Comedy Central, while John Stewart should be given free reign over the "non-comedy" news media.
That said, I was a bit unhappy with the fact that he implied that the words "elite" and "elitist" mean the same thing, when they don't.
Which is why I welcomed last night's comment from Stephen Colbert, where he argued (although less eloquently) that Clinton's unabashed pandering to the public and the press is far more condescending than anything Obama has said or done.
Anyway, to sum it up:
1. There was nothing wrong with Obama's comment in the first place. People have taken one sentence of a speech completely out of context and given it a completely different meaning. This story is based on nothing but spin.
2. Obama's entire campaign is based on an ANTI-elitist philosophy. That the whole point of the "yes, we can" slogan. The "we" is not there by accident. Obama has been advocating for an approach to governance that works in partnership with the people--which is a radical departure from tradition. Clinton, on the other hand, has been promoting herself as being better than everyone else, and therefore better able to make decisions on our behalf--which is the traditional ELITIST approach to governance. Listen to the way the two candidates speak: Obama's campaign has been all about US. Clinton's campaign has been all about HER. To argue that Obama is elitist because of one sentence he uttered that was taken completely out of context is beyond ridiculous.
3. You can assume that if a person is running for President, that they are members of the elite. You don't get to run for President by being like everyone else: the people who get a shot at President are the country's elite: they have more power, prestige, connections, and money than the rest of us. The trick is to identify the elite person who will best able to handle the challenges of being President, not the person who would be most likely to bowl a strike.
Oh, right, and as Stewart said, we should be wanting someone who is better than us to be President anyway. Someone who is better than us, and who has enough integrity not to cave to silly peer/media pressure. Clinton seems awfully good at doing and saying whatever is necessary to appease the public and the media. Obama listens to the criticism and responds, but in a way that manages to be consistent with the values and policies that he claims to support. Even his pandering to the media is on-message. It's a sign of integrity, something that Clinton's campaigning seems to be lacking.
The exception to this is Obama's recent support for "clean coal" in Montana, saying that it would protect Montana's beautiful mountains. Which is totally ridiculous--clean coal is extracted the same way regular coal is, by strip mining and blowing the tops off of those beautiful mountains, which result in horrific environmental contamination. THIS was something I found incredibly offensive, yet the media chose to ignore it. Perhaps because Hillary supports it too. Ugh...
tartlet, you said it all
