Stewart Pwns Thiessen

Mark Thiessen would be an embarrassment to conservative kind if they didn't already have an abundance of embarrassments.  But he went mano-a-mano with Jon Stewart last night, apparently under some illusion that all he had to do was spew the bullshit he considers wisdom, and all of us dirty fucking hippies would suddenly be swayed to his way of thinking.

Alas for him, Jon wiped the floor with him and then wrung him out:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Exclusive - Marc Thiessen Extended Interview Pt. 1
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Steve Benen followed up with a little floor-wiping of his own:

The two covered a fair amount of ground, but there was something Thiessen said early on that stood out for me. In the process of defending the smear campaign against nine Justice Department attorneys, the speechwriter-turned-columnist insisted those attorneys who successfully challenged Bush administration detainee policies deserve to be attacked.

"Some of these people have very radical views. Jennifer Daskal is one of these lawyers who has been raised questions about. She has written that any terrorist who is not charged with a crime, even though they're being held as lawful combatants, should be released from Guantanamo and set free -- even though we know they may go out and kill American soldiers."

Thiessen was referring to Jennifer Daskal, an Obama-appointed Justice Department attorney, who worked on detainee issues at Human Rights Watch during the Bush/Cheney era. I can't say for certain if Thiessen characterized her writings accurately, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt.

Stewart responded by arguing that Daskal's position had been bolstered by Supreme Court rulings. But let's go one step further, and note that none other than Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) articulated a position on national television that was identical to the Daskal position that Thiessen described on "The Daily Show." McCain said on "Meet the Press" in 2005:

"Now, I know that some of these guys [at Guantanamo] are terrible, terrible killers and the worst kind of scum of humanity. But, one, they deserve to have some adjudication of their cases. And there's a fear that if you release them that they'll go back and fight again against us. And that may have already happened. But balance that against what it's doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it's enhancing recruiting for people to join al Qaeda and other organizations and want to do bad things to the United States of America.

"I think, on balance, the argument has got to be -- the weight of evidence has got to be that we've got to adjudicate these people's cases, and if it means releasing some of them, you'll have to release them... [E]ven Adolf Eichmann got a trial."

What's the difference between McCain's post-9/11 position and the one Thiessen ascribed to Jennifer Daskal? There isn't one.

As such, by Thiessen's logic, John McCain is a dangerous "radical," whose opinions on national security disqualify him from having a role in shaping government policy. 

Of course, that was pre-terminal insanity John McCain, but the point still stands.

I think the moral here is that, despite the occasional slip, Jon Stewart is not someone Con assclowns should be going up against.  He's just too brutal, and he's got far too many facts on his side.  Of course, I hope they never learn this lesson, because watching this torture-loving shitheel get his ass handed to him with emphasis made me a very happy woman indeed.

This clip should be circulated among the Sunday morning talk show hosts to show them how real journalism is done.