On the Daily Show, Obama is the last laugh (WaPo)

[chimpymustgo]

I'm curious what DU'ers think of the President's performance.

********

By Dana Milbank
Wednesday, October 27, 2010; 11:49 PM
On Comedy Central, the joke was on President Obama Wednesday night.

The president had come, on the eve of what will almost certainly be the loss of his governing majority, to plead his case before Jon Stewart, gatekeeper of the disillusioned left. But instead of displaying the sizzle that won him an army of youthful supporters two years ago, Obama had a Brownie moment.

The Daily Show host was giving Obama a tough time about hiring the conventional and Clintonian Larry Summers as his top economic advisor.

"In fairness," the president replied defensively, "Larry Summers did a heckuva job."

"You don't want to use that phrase, dude," Stewart recommended with a laugh.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/27/AR2010102709035.html?hpid=opinionsbox1

[rug]

1. He did a heck of a job.

[travelingtypist]

2. Stopped reading at 'by dana milbank'

http://firedoglake.com/2010/09/04/late-night-dana-milbank-is-an-absolute-tit/

[zbdent]

4. well, with the concerns raised about the firing of Juan Williams,

will D.M. drop the pretense of being "unbiased" and admit favoring righties?

[underpants]

6. Thanks for the morning laugh at Milbank's expense

Dana Milbank believes he is witty. Dana Milbank believes he is fun. Dana Milbank is a smug halfwit cretin in whom a lack of elementary ethical principle, or indeed simple human feeling, is grotesquely coupled with an appalling absence of anything remotely resembling a critical intelligence. In a just world his scribblings would cause him to be flung headfirst into a sewage pit and savagely pelted with darts, mice, and garbage, or else he would merely be forced to read a choice selection of his own fucking asshole columns with a sense of motherfucking perspective about what “good writing” actually constitutes.

[malaise]

7. Same here

Milbank is no Jon Stewart. Fuck him.

[peekaloo]

19. I tried but once I hit "messianic figure" I bailed.

*douchebagsmilie*

[Enrique]

41. +1,000,000

I see no reason to read Dana Milbank.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

51. Yeah, he's on his way to being fired again.

[AsahinaKimi]

3. Watched that on

http://www.thedailyshow.com/

Wow it was not only fun to watch, but educational. Obama asked Jon Stewart if he could make a plug, and then asked people to make sure and vote. That was an awesome interview.

[NYC Liberal]

5. Totally inaccurate portrayal of the whole thing

www.dailyshow.com - everyone should watch the whole thing. Jon Stewart had tough questions, but Obama had good answers. This piece gives a lot of the questions, but almost none of the responses. They quote one of the responses as Obama simply saying "Not true!" when in fact he had a reasonable, fact and reality-based answer.

"He spoke for the millions who had been led to believe that Obama was some sort of a messianic figure. Obama has only himself to blame for their letdown. By raising expectations impossibly high, playing the transformational figure to Hillary Clinton's status-quo drone, he gave his followers an unrealistic hope."

Who, exactly, believed that Obama was "some sort of messianc figure"? The Obama/messiah thing is a right-wing meme.

And what letdown? The VAST majority of Democrats and liberals approve of the job Obama is doing and has done.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[seabeyond]

10. maybe the difference is people like you bough and are disillusioned with messiah

thing. the more realistic people arent there are dont need the sneer of messiah complex. saying, there is so much he has done, that is not recognized. one of the things i liked that obama said, that many dont recognize is how these programs begin. this is only the beginning. some people recognize that. it isnt us with the messiah complex, it is those that throw trash at him that fell for that. we know better, so are not in the same place as you. we cant help you fell for that

[chimpymustgo]

12. If you read my response and inferred that I was "disillusioned with messiah thing", your reading

comprehension is wanting.

[seabeyond]

13. i turn the tables around. i know who you are pointing the finger at

i chose to believe that the ones with the messiah complex are the ones that thought obama had a wand and are now outraged he didnt. after all, he promised....

[chimpymustgo]

20. Never thought Obama had a wand. But he had the House, the Senate, 70% approval and SQUANDERED IT

capitulating to corporations, offering a completely compromised health INSURANCE bill, pandering to Wall Street, continuing spying, renditions, wars, business as usual bullshit.

Really, it's disillusionment and disappointment that such a historic opportunity was WASTED, when REAL REFORMS were needed and DESIRED by the majority of Americans and COULD have been accomplished.

[seabeyond]

25. or... he has accomplished more than any president in at least the last....

i want all out regulation on corp and wallstreet like before reagan. but he made a start. i want competitive health insurance and total restruction... but he made a start. i want.... you do understand the 60 vote thing, right... you get it, you know it is a reality, right....

i really wanted him to go after bushco

it is not business as usual. he has made changes. not the all that you demand. hence, the idealist, and the reality...

the messiah, the man

[demwing]

17. "we can't help you fell for that"??? Really now

The hard core Obama supporters on this board tried to sell Obama as some sort of a do-no-wrong, part-vulcan-part-Superman, grand master chess playing political emancipator, and when other bought into it, and now feel let down by the unfulfillable hype, you come back with "we can't help you fell for that"???

Caveat emptor, eh?

Buyer beware! This administration comes with no warranty, expressed or implied.

[seabeyond]

27. hm... and then there is reality. go figure. nt

[demwing]

47. Yes, let's just dismiss everything with a wave of the magic wand

and think about it later, if at all...

[seabeyond]

48. hm.... where do you get any basis for this assumption of yours. oh, you made it up

just throwing shit out to see what sticks on the wall

got it.

[SargeUNN]

59. You generalize too bad with that comment

what you seem to be leaving out is that those of us (I admit to being one) who still support Obama don't agree with everything he does, we also want more but we are grounded in the reality that things don't happen overnight, that the other side is also very active in stopping things, that we have Democrats who are as guilty as the Republicans of stopping things. I will offer an example of how real life things vs. ideals can work. I once was asked to coach a girls softball team. I had left the coaching profession and really didn't want to do it but as it got down to a week before the start of the season and seeing that if I didn't step up the girls would lose their team, I gave in and took the position. They played their first game and I saw nothing positive at first to work with. I didn't know the kind of softball (fast pitch or slow pitch), we had only 3 batters in the game and none even fouled off a pitch, we didn't even get the other side retired because we ran into the mercy rule before we got them out. It was a completely insane thing to see a way to build from. However, I found one thing and decided it was a start and that was that the girls wanted to improve. We worked hard and the second game we did slightly better but again we got beat by the mercy rule. We did get to have 6 batters in that game and we did get the other side out one inning. It was progress although for the second game we didn't get to complete the game. I didn't think of quitting and in spite of some parents feeling the team was a failure, I saw a successful team coming. It took several more games in which we got some hits and completed a full game, that we started getting close to winning. I realized we could win although the season had gone long enough that we were at the point if we didn't win the rest of our games we had no chance of the championship. We played the game and won it. Suddenly those parents who wanted to give up because success hadn't come started saying well we won but it was too little too late. The season ended and we had won every game from the first win on. We were tied for first place and had beaten the other team several times during our streak. We won the championship game in a rout.

Now before I go into the point of this story, let me reply to a comment I figure will come as it usually does, that this isn't sports and/or I don't like sports, that the story could be on most anything and the sport isn't the point but the way my team didn't quit because things didn't improve as fast as wanted, that while their parents often wanted to give up they didn't buy into it. They learned that you have to build, you have to accept small progress sometimes to get more progress, and that being negative to the point you can't see the progress will omit what progress you make. In fact in the championship game I actually used that attitude against my opposition because they didn't improve and dwelled on the negative.

We have made progress under Obama and while not to the level we would like, it is something to build on. We must be realistic in our determining things and not give up our progress just because we want more.

[demwing]

63. You both assume I don't support Obama

which says something about you, not me.

I will vote for the man, he is better than any Republican alternative, but not better than every progressive alternative. I will not vote for a third party in 2012, because I believe that Nader helped put Bush in office, and I don't want a repeat. But I find myself not voting FOR the man, or his policies, but against the policies of those who would run against him.

And I am so tired of that type of voting, I have all but lost faith in the whole process.

I find Obama flawed, his most ardent supporters blind to those flaws, and the whole lot of them insulting in their attempts to ridicule and berate the left while they work to compromise with the right. If you don't like that, or dismiss it offhandedly, I guess I'm used to the treatment, because I just don't care.

[Catshrink]

14. +1

[grantcart]

33. Without question the most delusional statement on DU today

"But to deny this hasn't been the 24/7 reality on this very board is an extension/example of the great Obama/messiah delusion."


Using Avitars that include humorous quips as evidence of "messianic" worship?


Get out of the basement and go take a walk and get some sunshine.


Why would anyone who believes that this place is 24/7 worship of Obama want to hang around unless they had a self imposed martyr complex?

[seabeyond]

9. it was a poor accounting of the interview. i agree. nt

[gulliver]

22. +1

[Mass]

11. Dana Milbank. Enough said...

[deacon]

15. Wow. Talk about a stupid critique. What an asshole. n/t

[Larkspur]

16. Obama using Bush's lingo to describe Larry Summers shows the core of Obama's problem

I'm no fan of Dana Milbank, but Obama, not Milbank, said that Summers had done a "heckuva job." Summers was the guy who intentionally kept Romer's suggestion of a $1.2 trillion stimulus from Obama's eyes and of course is one of the many architects of our current economic demise with him being a champion of deregulation and the gutting of Glass-Steagal. Hiring these architects of disaster was Obama's biggest problem.

[CBR]

18. No one outside of political junkies knows who

Larry Summers or Romer are. That is not his problem.

[Beer Snob-50]

23. obama used bush's lingo describing summers

but when jon stewart made a comment about it obama did say "pun intended"

[seabeyond]

30. and why didnt the author add the "pun intended" received laughs, to the article? nt

[SemiCharmedQuark]

50. Because he's an asshole who was trying to promote a particular viewpoint.

And look, it worked! The OP ate it right up.

[seabeyond]

55. wink... lol. nt

[seabeyond]

29. comedy show. he made a joke. purposely. people laughed. then he is attacked for too serious

he explained summers. i get it. i dont like it, but i get it.

[gulliver]

21. Every time Obama spoke, he got massive applause...

...from a liberal audience. No boos, no groans. Obama got nothing but solid laughs and applause from that audience and, I'm sure, the viewers at home.

[seabeyond]

28. yup. nt

[chimpymustgo]

31. Yes, he did. And Stewart, though he asked tough questions, was CLEARLY supportive.

I thought Obama was surprisingly defensive.

[seabeyond]

32. correcting stewarts misinformation is not defensive. it is called a discussion. but good on you

validating msm storyline.

[chimpymustgo]

36. Are neither Jon Stewart nor I allowed our OWN opinions? Must we all take as gospel YOUR version

of events???

[seabeyond]

37. of course you are. as people are allowed to say you are wrong, without being told they are

defensive. or telling you, you are wrong saying they are defensive, because they are disagreeing with you

[chimpymustgo]

42. You are WRONG to say my OPINION is WRONG.

[seabeyond]

43. nu uh. there are facts. you ignore the facts to argue opinion. nt

[Radical Activist]

53. Yep. The writer is clueless.

[TeaBagsAreForCups]

24. Oh. Please....

I echo that which has been stated above me here, I stopped reading at the byline, Dana Milbank - a third rate prick who well defines the Peter Principle.

Although having stridently supported him two years prior to his election, I have become no fan of this "progressive" President. I suffer from a serious case of buyer's remorse, disillusion, and disgust.

However, the President's execution on Stewart was highly credible and at least allowed a modicum of renewal in belief in, if only, the man's intention and motives.

His lackluster, timid, and feckless execution the last eighteen months, on the other hand, is another matter. Moreover, it's ninety percent of the reason that we are playing the last quarter of these mid-terms virtually hopeless in maintaining the mandate that this country gave the Democrats and this President In November, 2008.

Again. Dana Milbank. 'Nough said and good, at best, for a few chuckles.

[uncommon]

26. I thought Obama did okay - Stewart was pretty hard on him a number of times.

And he did make some admissions that he would have liked to have done a lot more by now.

The reality of the presidency is showing on his face more every day. Getting what you want done in this country is a lot easier said than done.

[treestar]

34. I'm starting to hate this Jon stewart

He's the one who had the rudeness to call the President "dude." He's the one spouting the 1 percenter dissatisfaction meme.

He's helping the Republicans, his corporate masters.

[chimpymustgo]

38. OMG. So we're throwing Jon Stewart under the bus today??? You people are FUNNY!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

49. You must have missed where he was thrown under the bus yesterday for making fun of Code Pink.

[nadinbrzezinski]

52. Oh my he actually played hardball

Unlike the media. For that he deserves kudos.

[BuelahWitch]

54. DUDE you don't know wtf you're talking about!

"This Jon Stewart" asks tougher questions than just about any so called journalists on television. He has no corporate masters, he's tough on Democrats and Republicans alike. He's allowed to do that because he's a COMEDIAN who does fake news, which often comes off better than the real thing. Poor choice of words on his part, but don't get your panties all in a wad because he used the word "dude."

[La Lioness Priyanka]

62. lol.

[Dr.Phool]

35. Let Colbert do the White House Corespondents dinner again.

[Monique1]

44. What is new here?

We throw everyone under the bus if we disagree.

I'm one of those who still respect and support Obama. Just remember Obama worked with a do nothing Senate and Congress repukes. He tried to cross the aisle - the repukes wanted their own way, no interest in the American people from the pukes.

I never once saw Obama as a Messiah - I did and still believe he cares about the middle class people. I don't always agree with Obama though but I do believe in him. It would be sad if I agreed with him on everything - but I am not for castigating the President.

I saw a few clips of the John Stewart show but I will watch the entire show tonight when it is shown here. We always see the show the day after it is aired.

[seabeyond]

45. I never once saw Obama as a Messiah

i think that is the difference. the people that never bought into it are at woes end now.

[Blue_Roses]

39. oh, as if you were such a "big fan" of Obama in 2008..

give me a break...:eyes:

Why in the hell do you even come here?

[seabeyond]

40. ya know.... nt

[Monique1]

46. Huh?

[chimpymustgo]

61. I've been coming here since 2001. How the fuck DARE you.

[lumberjack_jeff]

56. I thought it was an excellent interview. Both did well.

... but if I were Stewart, I'd be wishing I could take back the "dude".

That's "Mr President, Dude." to you, Jon.

[BlueCheese]

57. I watched the whole thing.

I give credit to Jon Stewart for asking tough questions--it seems very few reporters are willing to do that, these days.

I thought Obama was surprised by the toughness of some of the questions--he got pretty defensive despite a very supportive audience.

I guess what bothered me about Obama's answers is that he can't seem to admit that anything has gone wrong at all. If we didn't get something we wanted, it's because it was some hopeless ideal, or we're preoccupied with the last 10%. (Apparently the public option, drug price negotiations, getting insurance companies out of the way is only 10%.)

Several times Obama implied that the last two years have essentially been the most productive session in history. That he's trying to sell an inadequate stimulus and a very weak health insurance bill as among the greatest accomplishments in American history is jarring.

Are things going to be any better in the next two years, if he thinks these two years were just about perfect from what he could have done? The people he blames--the Republicans--are onl going to be stronger.

[seabeyond]

58. you might want to do some research

and see how historians and others that dont have a political toe in it rate him on his accomplishments. you will see that they say he accomplished more in last two years than any other.....

[deaniac21]

60. I think the Messiah may be Jon Stewart.