Who doesn't want smaller government? Is it you?

Today, the new Republican leadership announced from their newly-regained bully pulpit that a new day is dawning. They will work hard to ensure we enter a new era of smaller government -- one that is less involved in our lives and less expensive.

This is a great thing- Who isn’t in favor of less intrusive government? Who wouldn’t prefer that the government spend less? Wouldn’t you?

Well, wouldn’t you?

Are you sure? Are you sure you’re not some Commie European? Answer these questions and find out!

1. Did you think what happened in New Orleans a few years ago when there was bad weather was peachy?

2. What about what happened a few years later in the Gulf of Mexico?

3. When the banking system completely collapsed under the weight of its own greed, was that cool with you?

4. Are you a fan of Enron? How about Goldman Sachs? Bernie Madoff?

5. Do you think the democratic system works better when corporations are allowed to spend unlimited money on political races? Is your favorite expression, “What I don’t know can’t hurt me?

6. Do you think when our wars are fought by contractors it’s better than when they’re fought by our armed forces?

7. Do you think unemployment benefits are too generous? Social security makes us less secure? That Grandma should just suck it up and prioritize whether she wants to eat dinner or to take her pills?

8. Has the infant mortality rate gotten too low for your taste?

9. When we find out beef is tainted do you just switch to eggs? When the eggs turn out to be diseased do you switch to dog food? When the dog food turns out to be bad are you okay with just eating your dog?

10. When Mom loses her insurance for stupidly actually getting sick, do you tell her she should have just worn a scarf?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, you’ve passed! You like smaller government! Give yourself a gold star and keep voting Republican!

Of course, if you think smaller, less intrusive, less expensive government has anything to do with staying out of a couple’s wedding plans (no matter their gender); letting women control their own reproductive organs; letting people who wish to serve their country become soldiers even when they're not attracted to the opposite sex; letting people smoke what they want to in the privacy of their own homes; avoiding multi-trillion-dollar "pre-emptive" wars; or letting people live their lives free of the fear that the government can read their email, listen to their phone conversations, and lock them up any time it wants to – well, you’re clearly an idiot who has no idea what small government is all about.

Commie.

What's going on with Jon Stewart?

Has anybody else noticed that in the couple of days since Jon's masterful interview of John Bolton (in which we saw that a basic cable comedian has a better grasp of the Constitution and democratic theory than the man we sent to represent us in the United Nations), The Daily Show has, well, sucked? I know it's only been a few days, but here's how the week wrapped up:

The day after the Bolton interview, a good chunk of time was given over to a phone interview with Doris Kearns Goodwin (who is almost always a welcome presence), during which the bulk of the conversation consisted of Doris reaffirming that Jon Stewart is smarter than John Bolton. Sure, it's true, but is it really necessary? Couldn't the time have been better used commenting on the news of the day rather than defending something that needed no defense? The liberals who watch the show already figured out that John Bolton really IS a douchebag after all, and that Jon Stewart tore him apart in a dignified and polite manner- quite a mean feat. The conservatives aren't going to have their minds changed. So, like I said- why waste the time doing a public victory dance?

The rest of the episode featured a truly bizarre interview with Chris Hansen of "To Catch a Predator." We get it- molestation is bad- but how about mentioning the sensational and salacious ratings-grabbing manner in which "To Catch a Predator" goes about its work? Or mentioning that children still face far more danger from people they know than they do from Internet weirdos? What about some indication that Jon realizes Chris Hansen comes across as more smarmy than the predators he's "catching?" (Even "The Soup" on E!, a network not noted for its penetrating social commentary, has picked up on this last fact.) Instead of asking one single insightful question about the very real issues of due process and civil liberties raised by the series (which is largely founded on the extra-legal efforts of a vigilante group), Jon lobbed softballs and basically fawned over the guy like a panicked father (which is, I guess, what Stewart is.)

Incidentally, my old friend, Legal Aid attorney Shana Skaletsky, wrote a very good blog essay about "To Catch a Predator" that raises all the questions Jon Stewart didn't. Check it (and a brief bit of added commentary from yours truly) out here: http://shanaelyse.blogs.friendster.com/potpourri_/2007/03/to_catch_a_what.html)

Finally, the last episode of the week discussed only one piece of actual "new" news- the utterly absurd (and frankly, rude) treatment that Al Gore received at the hands of Senator Jim Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) during a hearing on climate change. Rather than take a moment to skewer Inhofe (the last man on Earth who still pretends he doesn't believe in global warming), Stewart instead focused on the fact that Gore has gained weight and implied the same thing Bill O'Reilly and his ilk do- that Al's just an egotistical blowhard. You know, it's possible to make jokes that actually reveal things to people they don't already know from the news: the Daily Show used to be expert at it, and Keith Olbermann is doing a great job of it on MSNBC.

So, what's the deal? After the Bolton interview, was there pressure from within or without to be more "fair and balanced" in the show's attacks? Is there an exchange rate in place? (For every joke about Tony Snow and Karl Rove there has to be one about Hillary Clinton or Al Gore?) Or is Jon just off his feed?

© 2007, Christopher Stansfield. Some rights reserved. This work is licensed to the public under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License, and may only be distributed according to the terms of said license. To view a copy of this license, please click here.