glad the teevee had a moment or two of amusing and revealing enlightenment this month... but it sure has tons-to-infinity of shit...

thanks for the vids, steve, fer us barbara bush devotees who dont want to waste our beautiful minds...

What a pathetic, embarassing performance. This tired old skank doesn't know anything does she? Still, Stewart was too easy on her. He should have followed every statement she made with the words, "Prove it!".

*.

now i know ... mhr is a self-admitted scoundrel

mhr, like most of the crackpots in the repugnant party, you've lost sense of the concept of "patriotism" -- but i'll grant you, you've found a unique way to express it...

How any MSM types can watch a comedian brilliantly doing the job they're too incompetent to do, and not commit hara-kiri out of overwhelming shame, is a mystery.

Beautifully played by Mr. Stewart, though it shouldn't surprise anyone. It's the original shtick that from the beginning made the Daily Show unique: Finding crazy people who desperately want to be on TV, then taping a deadpan interview that frames just how bats*** insane they actually are. Colbert just did the same thing recently in his interview segment with Orly Taitz, the crazy dentist/realtor/attorney Birther lady from California. They've recently gone a step further by incorporating the gag into the main interview segment of the show, and they seem to be pointedly using this to discredit people with whom they disagree. More, please.

It's her teeth.

There's something to do with her teeth, that's just like Karen Black in Trilogy of Terror.

The truth is that Obama's efforts are failing because of sheer incompetence.

And remember, the Republicans are experts at incompetence since they've done such a fine job demonstrating it for the last ten years.

Watching her performance, I couldn't help but think it was if she's never before been challenged on any statement during an interview. Her panic stricken page flipping each time Stuart asked her to show him where the bill was written as she claimed leads me to believe she fully expects every statement coming out of her mouth to be taken as gospel truth. Now where in the world would she get that idea? Oh wait...

Watched the interview (on tv, not the full version online), I agree with Sam Simple: Stewart was waaaay too easy on her. Just as most of the media has been way too easy on Sarah Palin and her contemptible comments about "death panels".

Why is it so hard for anybody in the media to say to imbeciles like these two, "Look: there are really only two conclusions that a reasonable person can draw from your comments. One, you are inexcusably uninformed about the proposed healthcare reform bill, and until you bother to learn a bit more about it, you really need to STFU. Two, you are simply a pathetic, fearmongering LIAR."

Why does nobody in the Obama administration or the leadership (and I use that term loosely) of the Congressional Democrats have to balls to say this?

No wonder Obama is losing this battle.

But the more frightening part is that so many Americans are falling hook, line and sinker for this unconscionable crap.

Take violent deaths out and we're ahead?

What if you take violent deaths out of others' statistics?

This bill is deadly to seniors? Because more people might live to become seniors?

I saw the part that ran on tv last night and Stewart did a fine job in what I saw.

One absurd point she made is that it's BAD for doctors to be held to the patient's wishes. She tried to support that by saying that people might change their minds, but that is completely beside the point since people can change their directives.

It's sort of like saying that it would be bad to require that an executor follow a will while presuming that a later will would not apply.

If only non-fake newspeople would do as well as Stewart. He was clearly prepared and bright as a tack. And it was so clear that she thought that waving her big manuscript would give her authority. She never thought anyone would actually require her to read from it or to support what she claimed was in there.

But again, why in this country is it only comedians who actually practice something resembling journalism??!!!!

These right wing morons appear on TV all the time spouting their nonsense while "real" journalists just treat it as one side of a legitimate debate. But as Congressman Frank said, you can't have a debate with a dining room table.

"They've recently gone a step further by incorporating the gag into the main interview segment of the show, and they seem to be pointedly using this to discredit people with whom they disagree."

No, Jim, Stewart and Colbert are far more talented than that. They don't discredit anyone. Rather, they take advantage of their guests' utter cluelessness and lack of self-awareness, engaging in a kind of rhetorical jiu-jitsu to make these poor unfortunates discredit themselves.

End of life directives like living wills only come into play if the patient is incapable of responding at all, as when they may be in a persistent vegetative state.

None of that applies if the patient can communicate in any way, which this goofball woman seems not to know and hopes you don't either.

Amy wrote: "If only non-fake newspeople would do as well as Stewart."

The only reason that Viacom International Inc. -- one of the half-dozen giant media corporations that own virtually all of the mass media in the USA -- allows Stewart to do what he does, is precisely because he has a comedy show on the Comedy Central cable network, where he does fake news as entertainment.

Sure, it's "edgy" comedy -- but it's just for laughs. And it helps Viacom sell "liberal" eyeballs to advertisers.

Have you noticed how much of the actual air time of the Daily Show or Rachel Maddow's show or Keith Olberman's show consists of commercials?

I watched the whole thing now. This woman wants people to believe that the party that fought for seniors to have public pensions and health coverage wants to deny them health care. In her bizarro world, it's those opposed to a Democratic administration that care about the health needs of citizens.

McCaughey, as with so many of her like-minded change resisters, comes from an intellectual locus of opulent protection, and is working to block reform because she sees an inherent danger in allowing common American too much decision-making power! -Kevo

I think one big problem she's having is that she imagines that the "adhere" portion of the bill means that, if the patient is still able to talk and make their own decisions, doctors will be penalized if they listen to the patient instead of following the medical directives. But that's absurd, as these sort of directives NEVER apply if the person is able to make their own decisions. So she's completely stupid about that.

And secondly, she's hung up on the "shall" part of the bill, in which it describes what the counseling services entail. But doctors are only required to do that if they want to be paid by Medicare. But if the doctors DON'T want Medicare to pay for the services, they can do any damn thing they want.

But overall, I completely disagree with the folks who insist Stewart was too nice and should have called her a liar. She's not lying. She's a sincere idiot. We need to separate these two groups. Had Stewart called her a liar, she wouldn't have listened to him because she sincerely believes what she's saying. I definitely felt he came out strongly enough against her, and I honestly felt bad for her. Sure, she deserved it, but again, I really do think she sincerely believes that she's doing the right thing. Attacking her directly would have served no purpose other than to let people feel good about themselves by watching her get blasted.

I was a little annoyed when she started talking about $500 billion from Medicare and Stewart wasn't aware that she was trying to decieve people into thinking that cutting Medicare Advantage will reduce coverage. Otherwise, it was a good interview.

I've got a PhD!

The worse part was where she tried to validate her reading of the bill by noting she has a PhD.
Anybody who has to appeal to their degree, is a shameless huckster.

Crissa: Take violent deaths out and we're ahead?

Isn't it interesting that the side that wants to remove violent deaths from the statistics to make them more favorable to the status quo includes all the people bringing guns to townhalls? Because everyone should have a gun in public, nothing could possibly go wrong with that. Wait, we have many times more violent deaths than any other democracy in the world? How could that be?

I usually fast-forward thru the interviews, and I especially squirm when the guest deserves to be destroyed. That's because the only possible outcomes are A) Stewart or Colbert drop the ball and give the guest unwarranted publicity, or B) the hosts unavoidably treat the guest harshly, making anyone wonder why the guest agreed to come on the show.

Though Jim at 1:03 explained why, and why it's not new.

I offer up a contrary point of view:

Her arguments are consistently phoney in just the way we have come to expect from her ilk; passionate gross distortions-to put it mildly- of the meaning of the language she cites for support on any particular point and a constant stream of reference to false authority. My standard for judging fair argumentation is 'what would a reasonably well informed lawyer be willing and allowed to argue on behalf of a client before a court without risking a laughing dismissal by the judge or a threat of contempt'?
She fails that test by a mile, he does not adequately call her on it.

By my standard I say Jon's performance/comebacks are too mild. He makes all the correct points sure, but, he repeatedly cushions the blow; he says something like 'that would be bad if that's what it actually said'. I think her behavior warrants more heat and more acid: 'C'mon Betsy, that's just not what it says on page 422 and you keep distorting the language' ( give example, short to the point) and them hammer her: 'Please stop trying to Bull Shit the American people!'

Jon's words do correctly dispute each of her false claims, but his manner and his body language is not sufficiently dramatic. Her passion exceeds his by quite a bit. I think the audience that is up for grabs- many of the people who watch him because he is funny- will not be reached by words alone. So I say he let her off easy; at several points he had her down but did not put her away.

In the 1960s Republicans were shrieking Medicare would be the end of America. Now they're simultaneously shrieking that Democrats want to kill old people by taking away their Medicare AND shrieking that Medicare for all will be the end of America.

McCaughey first argued that removing politicians from healthcare issue decision-making is a terrible thing, but then swung neatly around to argue that politicians should have no involvement in ... healthcare issue decision-making.

Does she even hear herself?

Betsy McCaughey made a great show of bringing her prop on set in the form of the voluminous House bill, but when Jon Stewart asked her to show him items she claimed were in the bill - for example, that the bill mad "end of life" discussions mandatory - she suddenly lost her ability to read page numbers.

"Don't you know, it's onpage 432!" "Well show it to me." "I can't find page 432".

You would think someone with a PhD would at least know how to count.

RE: McCaughey statistic that the U.S. would lead the world in life expectency if car accidents and violent deaths were calulated out of the equation.
1) The researchers she was quoting (John E. Schneider, Robert L. Ohsfeldt) calculated the life expectancy using only the 30 countries of the OECD.
2) The researchers used a system that calculated the life expectancy of the U.S. to be 75.3 years compared to 78.11 in the CIA World Fact book). The calculations for Australia for example: researchers 76.8 CIA 81.6 No country gets more than a 78.7 year life expectancy, while the CIA report has 23 countries with higher than 80
3) The researchers (John E. Schneider, Robert L. Ohsfeldt) are two of the three principles in the Health Economics Consulting Group, a health research group during research primarily for the private health industry. The quote below is directly off their website.

"HECG has conducted a large variety of research projects for a wide range of clients, including large pharmaceutical manufacturers, health plans and managed care organizations, investment firms, trade associations, medical device manufacturers, public relations firms, and contract research organizations."

robert,

That is essentially what I was trying to say.

Right now, the Democrats - Obama included - are like a deer in the headlights. They seem to have no idea how to respond to the despicable tactics of the Republicans. Pelosi is in la-la land. Reid? For God's sake, did he ever have a pair in his life? If he did, he certainly lost them somewhere along the way.

How ironic is it that Republican supporters are comparing the Democrats with Nazis, when it's the Republicans who are resorting to the Nazi-like tactic of appealing to and exploiting the basest, most ignorant fears of a significant part of the populace?

It's really time for Obama and the Democrats to lead. They're up against an organized, cynical opposition that is wholly commited to killing any type of healthcare reform. This despicable bunch is landing hard body shots right now. Cowering on the ropes is not the appropriate response. It's time to fight back.

I'm very disillusioned with the entire Democratic leadership at the moment. If they don't wake the fuck up and get off their asses, the healtcare initiative will die, and Obama will lose a huge amount of political capital.

But again, the scariest part is that so many Americans are so ignorant of the proposal, and of the current system... "No government involvement in my Medicare!" How can you even bring yourself to honor such an utterly IGNORANT comment with a civil response? Is half of this country brain-dead?

Jon Stewart; The only one asking relevant questions of public figures, the best T.V. interviewer of our time.

Which is really sad that a comedian asks better more important questions then ALL other news outlets on television combined.

One problem in this debate (certainly unavoidable) is the technical, sophisticated, leagalistic language in this, and all congrsssional bills. People who are sufficiently motivated, either ideologically or emotionally, can find in the language reasonable grounds for their fears. What is missing from all the presentations of health care reform is a clear and detailed description of what is being offered by the public plan or by the new regulations, and how this compares with the coverage currently offered by private companies. What will coverage include? What will be the deductibles? Copayments/out of pocket expenses? If there are new taxes, will the increased taxes be compensated for by reduced premiums? These are the things that matter to most people, especially if they already have health insurance. Of course, numbers could be produced and people would either believe them or not, and this would itself be a highly technical and controvertial issue. However, these details are what people relate to, and to expect the public to support reform without providing some idea of what they are supporting in a way that is relevant to their lives seems anti-democratic.

Betsy "Idiot" McCoughey is a notorious idiot, well-known in New York State for her antics when Lieutanant Governor.

When Gov. George Pataki gave his State of the Union address, she stood up behind him the whole time to draw attention to herself.

Also, I worked with someone who worked with her when she was Lieutanant Gov. I asked her, "Was she as crazy as she seemed to be? My co-worker replied, "Crazier. I saw her throw a laptop at an assistant one day with no provocation."

And for this idiot we have Andrew Sullivan to thank. He's the moron who first published her writings on the Clinton Health Plan.

>>> Is half of this country brain-dead?

Bluecrab: Half is a little harsh. Given the huge amount of political apathy in America it only takes about 25% of Americans to believe Fox Noise propoganda to destroy meaningful public debate in this country. Which would confirm what Stan said on South Park: "25% of Americans are retarded."

What Betsy failed to highlight is the fact that Obama only wants to kill old "white" people. Anyone of any other ethnicity can either go without health care, get a debit card for angioplasty or continue "living large" on Medicare till it runs out of money!

Is half of this country brain-dead?

Seeing as how that's the percentage of the electorate that voted for George W. Bush, the answer is obviously "yes".

Stetson:
A Ph.D. is no guarantee of its holder being capable of counting. Or recognizing a hard fact or number, it seems, based on Betsy's performance last night. Maybe as an undergrad she took the basketweavers' oath:
"I shall not commit a social science,
Nor shall I suffer a statistic to live."

Stewart may have gone easy one McCaughey, but only in the sense of not holding her sevred head aloft at the end of the interview. Schlepping that notebook home with her was punishment enough.

A lot of people who favor the reform legislation are getting very nervous about what's gone on this month, but I think the Democrats and the White House are running circles around the Republicans on this issue, whether you look at the short-term or the long-term.

From the beginning, Jacob Hacker's ideas for how to shape a reform that could get through the system guided the design of the bill. People forget this because we had the 2008 campaign and all of 2009 to get used to it, but the bill has a very unusual feature (for a big piece of reform legislation): It doesn't mess with anything any consumer already has. It has surprisingly little immediate effect on health care professionals. This means that there is no prospectively injured constituency to cite in opposition (except the insurers, who everyone on both sides either hates or pretends to hate). The debate has no substantive individual cost claim like "20 million families will pay an average of $1200 more per year for care", which means that the design of the bill eliminates about 95% of the arguments against it.

So the opposition has been reduced to only four arguments, all of which are either crazy, ignorant, irrelevant or entirely political rather than substantive:

1. Any of the various lunatic nonsense arguments we're hearing.

2. "It is too expensive to extend coverage to everyone." We already have universal coverage by virtue of the Hippocratic Oath and widespread availability of emergency rooms, however it's the most expensive system of universal coverage possible without actually trying to make it worse. Covering everyone will actually save money, so this argument is just ignorant.

3. "I don't want government heavily involved in the health care sector." 45% of payments for services already come from federal programs such as Medicare, so that ship has sailed. There is basically zero support in Congress for eliminating Medicare et al, so however strong the argument may be for getting government out of health care, it doesn't matter because it's politically irrelevant.

4. "I don't want Obama and/or the Democrats to win a political victory." Usually when you hear the other arguments, they are actually masking this one. It is the most valid and self-consistent of the four arguments, but because the debate is over a life-and-death issue, anyone who actually says this looks like a jerk and gives everyone else permission to ignore them.

So the Democrats have the votes and the public support to pass the bill, or something 95% similar to it, and everyone on both sides has known this the whole time. The only question was how ugly and costly the Republicans could make the fight. Since the design of the bill and their ideological positions make substantive opposition ineffective, conservatives are reduced to yelling about absolutely nothing of importance at extremely high volume. This makes them look really bad in front of the people and the media, all while they inevitably lose the fight. By the time this is over, the Republicans will have given Congressional Democrats permission to largely ignore them and just vote things through, which is okay with me.

Jim; if you could get Ashley Judd to read that aloud to me while giving me a backrub, I would just float off the edge of the earth. There'd be no need to pull the plug. You should be writing policy for the Democrats.

I almost wish "The New Criterion" had a wider reputation, so that bloggers like this one would smack it down more often. I mean, really, The New Criterion blog is just shameless hackery.

I think that like minded people like us agree that she was incorrect most of the time. But Jon's show did not adequately convey that to anyone but us.

To people who agree with her, Jon Stewart gave her a remarkable forum for presenting her incorrect views. I'm afraid that her cause was hugely aided by this interview.

Oh well... journalism.

"25% of Americans are retarded."

Yes. And 25% of them live in my county. And there are only 20k people who live here. Can you please take some of them back?

And for this idiot we have Andrew Sullivan to thank. He's the moron who first published her writings on the Clinton Health Plan.

There's a reason gawd infected Sullie with HIV.

Ya'll are criticizing Stewart for not being tough enough on her, but that's not his job. Look up the take down he did of Crossfire many years ago to for a perfect explanation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE

He succeeds by giving these wingnuts enough rope to hang themselves, exposing them for the frauds that they are.

What Stewart's performances also reveals in interviews like this, is the absolute incompetence of the main stream media when it comes to detailed, intelligent debate. And that's on both sides of the aisle. MSM is interested in nothing but commercialized pedaling of their corporate masters agenda's.

good article, but the video is crap.... can't watch more than a few seconds before it stops for buffering. please get a different service or codec.

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