People who frequently find themselves the butt of Jon
Stewart’s jokes are right about one thing. Yes, “The Daily Show” is meant to
satirize political reporting, but it is true that Stewart tends to target
conservatives more than liberals. There’s a reason for that. Jon Stewart has to
do stuff like this because nobody in the straight media seems to be willing or
able to do so.
I mean, seriously. Days worth of sober, objective reporting on
Mitt Romney’s accusations that President Obama is politicizing the killing of
Osama bin Laden one year ago, and NO ONE else bothers to dig up, oh, I dunno,
Dick Cheney telling 2004 voters that the U.S. is at risk if we elect JohnKerry?
Presidents get to brag about good things that happened on
their watch, just like they get criticized for the bad things. That’s not
shameful or exploitative. It’s the game.
And it’s not as if Obama is trying to take credit for
something he DIDN’T do. He refocused defense and intelligence on bin Laden and
al Qaeda, he increased the number of troops in Afghanistan, and he ordered the
mission that ended with bin Laden floating in the Indian Ocean knowing full
well that he might’ve been greenlighting “Black Hawk Down: The Sequel.” He didn’t
stop an aircraft carrier in its tracks so he could have a badass backdrop for
his speech; he just did the hardest job a president has to do. Something no one
else managed.
Perhaps. We don’t know, obviously, and it’s pointless for either side to argue about hypotheticals. Going not on hindsight, but on what Obama and Romney each said and did BEFORE bin Laden’s death was certain, all we know for a fact is that one of these men was ready to withdraw, and one was ready to send our professional military to get him by any means.
(Who’s he kidding? If “I own a Ford AND a Chevy” Romney had been president a year ago, the fateful transmission probably would’ve gone down like this: “Go. Or not. Actually, you know what? Both.”)
This IS a relevant issue. These aren’t your two best friends that you don’t want to choose between because they’re both great in different ways. They’re applying for the same job, head to head, and it’s our responsibility to compare and contrast them. The Obama campaign ad that mentions the events of one year ago doesn’t address Romney’s 2007 “heaven and earth” comment to be mean or question his mettle – or patriotism. It isn’t trying to scare Americans into thinking that a Romney presidency would put us at risk (like Cheney claimed about Kerry). It’s just pointing out the obvious: we know what one of these men did as president… we just can’t be sure about the other.
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