Matt Ortega

Recently, the Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz stated on Good Morning America that he believed newscasts from 2005 and 2006 turned the tide against the war. Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show, mocked this answer by nothing, “Yes, the network newscasts with their recording of ‘things’ and the ’showing of them’” turned the tide against the war.

Stewart goes on to show how news organizations fomented the fear that was instilled in the American public by the Bush administration, and how FOX News is still doing so on Iran.

Last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, stepped in it while discussing worldwide terrorist attacks since September 11. According to the White House and a wide swath of conservatives, the U.S. has not been hit with a terrorist attack since 9/11.

Satyam Khanna from Think Progress reports:

Yesterday, Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Cheney, reiterated this point on The Daily Show, claiming that terrorists regularly struck between 1993 and 2001 but not since 9/11. “It’s been more than six years. And that is not an accident. … There were many attacks between 1993 and the World Trade Centers coming down in 2001,” Cheney said.

Stewart rebutted Cheney’s claim by listing off the many terrorist attacks around the world since 9/11:

I mean, there was the anthrax thing. … [Terrorists] have been doing that all these past six years. The Spanish bombings, the English bombings, and then all the bombs in Iraq.

Cheney replied that attacks on other countries were not relevant to the discussion: “Yes, yes. But we’re talking about American interests.”

The lives and welfare of U.S. allies are not “American interests.” It is a callous statement to make, rank with smugness.

Remarks Khanna at the conclusion of his post:

Evidently, according to Cheney’s logic, even though almost 170,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq, bombings and terrorist attacks there don’t have anything to do with our nation’s “interests.”

Last night on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, correspondent John Oliver examined the issue of torture.

It is incredibly shameful that the use of torture by the U.S. is a matter of contention at all in this country, much less between opposing political viewpoints. (Sign me up with Denzel on this one.)

Conservatives like to play with words and so “torture” becomes “enhanced interrogation techniques,” a term that originated in Nazi Germany, to hide the embarrassing reality and its illegality. The Daily Show’s Oliver parodied this strange defense while arguing the conservative torture-enabler line, “If we do do those things, they must not be torture.”

It is another chapter in the absurdity of what has become of the post-9/11 national security policy: defend our values by completely abandoning them at home and abroad.

(Hat tip: Nicole Belle, Crooks & Liars)