Monday night, The Daily Show presented a great segment on the government shutdown. Luckily, this clip cuts off the start where Jon Stewart provides a lame comedic apologia for why he allows Bill O’Reilly on the show. And of course, Bill O’Reilly got two broadcast segments where he did his “this is all just a character” act. It’s interesting to see how different O’Reilly acts when he is on his own show. So most of The Daily Show was a great big smooch to O’Reilly and a plug for what appears to be a terrible book, Killing Jesus.
But in this segment, there is no false equivalence—Stewart lays out exactly what the government shutdown is. He doesn’t fall for the conservative narrative that, “Oh, the Democrats just won’t negotiate with us!” It is great to see, because Stewart often falls for these kinds of narratives. And I’ll also note that many other people are falling for these narratives. Anyway, take a look: