And what world do you live in?

At least Stewart TRIED. . .

Even with an apology, Yoo comes out ahead with free publicity for the book he's flogging. Between Deborah Solomon and Stewart, Yoo might ease back into polite society because interviewers have done very little homework beforehand.

Not that Congress does much better, though: Addington has been in hearings a handful of times, and pretty much made fools of his questioners.

Thank YOU for pointing this out! I saw this last night (as well as the interview with John Yoo) and I too was struck by Stewart's apology. Although I expected it and stayed up to watch, the thought DID cross my mind is that is why Jon Stewart is 'the most trusted man in television'.

Even worse than the fact that Stewart apologized where no network news person would have is the fact that right here/right now, years after this debacle got underway, it still has fallen to a TV comic to be the first to truly challenge Yoo on the issue. I'm sorry he failed (not just because Stewart was under-preopared; partly because Yoo kept crawling into a fetal debating position, refusing to engage on the prime facts). But why the hell isn't anybody asking why network constitutional scholars haven't been put in position to interrogate yoo?

I'll give Stephanopoulos this much: after he failed to question Rudy Giuliani's assertion that "we had no domestic [terrorist] attacks under Bush," he posted this on his ABC blog:

All of you who have pointed out that I should have pressed him on that misstatement in the moment are right. My mistake, my responsibility.

However, I don't believe Stephanopoulos ever sad this on the air.

I'm trying to imagine a situation in which, say, David Gregory or George appeared on the air and said, "You know, I probably wasn't as prepared as I should have been to interview [fill in the blank]...."

You're assuming that Gregory or Stephanopoulos actually want to challenge corporatist BS. Remember what organizations they work for, and realize that passing along corporate propaganda is what they are paid to do.

I thought Stewart did okay. I can imagine how Charlies Rose or Larry King would have collapsed before Yoo's little pinpricks of legalese. Stewart knew there was a flaw in all that but he's not a law professor so he should stuck to the horror of the issue at hand. Power never wants for people like Yoo to drape togas over its most naked bloodlust. We all know that and Stewart knows it better than most journalists. Stewart didn't get there because he accepted the fake civility of Yoo's premise - the veneer of civilization forbids questioning of its foundational cruelties. The disjunction between power and morality was such an abyss that Stewart blinked. But at least he got close enough to shrink before the horror.

I'm trying to imagine a situation in which, say, David Gregory or George appeared on the air and said, "You know, I probably wasn't as prepared as I should have been to interview [fill in the blank]...."

I think in the interests of time they should just include a disclaimer in the closing credits. Otherwise they'd use up valuable air time explaining how they were wasting valuable... Ah never mind.

Editor & Publisher is gone and the best journalist in America is the host of a fake news show. Unbelievable.

Eely and Icky

Yoo's a slippery bastard...
And I, like Sullivan, thought Jon did a great job of trying to nail kool-aid to the wall.

A few minor points:

There's a reason those above Yoo (on Bush's Lawyer food chain) passed this down the line until it landed on this weasel's desk. Nobody wanted their fingerprints on it. Tells you something deep about Yoo's deep seated motivation to be a "team-player."

Second, the slime irked me right from the start by saying: "Those that can't do, teach." Anybody that says that is asshole, but any teacher that says needs to be hoisted up by his ears and thrown out on the street like rubbish.

Lastly, Yoo (a torturer enabler) needs to feel pain. Words and logic to "nail him" aren't suitable payback. I hope some innocent, tortured by dint of his legalese, takes a club to him on the street and beats his teeth out. That would be suitably karmic.

I've grown used to how devalued our political discourse has become; but there are moments, like this, that reminded me how screwed we all really are.

He also apologized for his Santorum interview years ago.

Jon would have done well to give Glenn Greenwald a call in prepping for the interview. That said, I think he did a fairly decent job in getting Yoo to say a number of things that clearly were not true. Unfortunately, he wasn't able to immediately refute them, but others should be able to provide a forceful rebuttal.

Yoo will never go up against someone like Greenwald cuz he knows he would be eviscerated.

Jon Stewart has integrity, unlike so many of the talking heads.

As for Yoo and his "free publicity" I doubt many who watch The Daily Show were going to buy his book anyway.

I thought Stewart did a pretty good job, actually. There was no way to get a shameless apparatchik like Yoo to feel remorse or admit wrong. But we got to see how hard it was to get a coherent principle out of him - that Yoo would jump to whatever reasoning justified his current position, without any connection to what he'd just said. Early on, he was talking about how the "framers" wanted a nimble powerful President, but by the end he was admitting that this is a modern argument that doesn't fit a conservative reading of the Constitution. It was clear that Yoo personified the intentionally vague, pretend-that-words-have-no-meaning approach that Jon complained about.

Jon could have ready-to-hand had more ammunition to pin Yoo down, but we got to see the weasel doing his thing, and it was disgusting enough.

I think Jon did a bang up job, the best that he could, especially this:

YOO: I don’t think they made the mistake in deciding to go beyond the law enforcement paradigm. Because it was an unconventional, unprecedented type of war.

STEWART: How is terrorism unprecedented? In the 1930’s we had anarchists bomb government buildings.

YOO: They didn’t blow up and kill 3,000 people in NYC either. They didn’t destroy the world trade center and try to decapitate the government, either.

STEWART: What? So it’s all based on how many? So if you kill 100 you can torture? [...]

(crosstalk)

STEWART: I’m not understanding why it’s unprecedented, terrorism has been around as long as people have been around … we all came to the conclusion that we would not treat prisoners inhumanely.

I didn't watch the original show. Or rather, I couldn't without putting my fist through the TV, so I just skipped it.

It's a shame Jon didn't tear Yoo down the way he did Cramer. But given that Yoo's such a slimeball, willing to say anything to justify his inhumane and disgusting actions, I'm not sure who outside of Glennzilla could have done any better. There's just too much legalese going on.

The fact Stewart is apologizing for not being more prepared is perhaps the most impressive thing I've seen from anyone in the media since ... well, ever. It just doesn't happen.

And it's a shame Stewart is relegated to a half-hour show on a basic cable comedy network. Dude should have an hour in prime time on one of the big networks, and it's a shame no network has the guts to make it happen.

Yoo is smart, slippery and the most absolute neocon apologist who ever appeared on "The Newshour with Jim Lehrer." That's going some.

I saw him perform his little fascist apologia multiple times in that venue before he went to work (in an official capacity) for Bush. Nobody ever managed to nail him there, either.

I am sure Stewart will invite him back, and I'm betting that Jon nails him this time. If he shouts his BS down, calls it BS, and uses reducto ad absurdium Jon can leave him without a shred of unmarked skin.

"So the president can decide we are at war at any time, you are saying, at essentially his own discretion. Then even well established war crimes, like waterboarding, capital offenses, become completely legal if the president authorizes them. So he could then, you say, lob predators at a few drug lords - in support of the war on drugs - and begin a roundup of everyone who supports the legalization of marijuana - for giving 'aid and comfort to the enemy.'"

"Why the hell did the framers bother writing the damned Constitution, anyway?"

Shout the bastard down and inject reality - don't try to beat him on his own ground! It can be done - but only in a trial setting, not a ten minute interview! His arguments are absurd, that must be pointed out before he gets off into his legal mumbo-jumbo act.

I doubt Stewart really failed. Yoo reminded me of Eichmann all the way through the interview.

It's hard to catch a greased pig, too.

shoulda had Jonathan Turley on there to back him up. Or Kathleen Sullivan.

Constitutional law is barely "law" at all. Stare decisis means nothing in ConLaw. Only an "expert" at the slippery thing can challenge another "expert."

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