“Somewhat dishonest” for sure

from The Gray Area:

Jon Stewart is a very funny man and his “Daily Show” is always current and popular. Therefore, it is no surprise that his show the other night took on President Obama’s, “If you like your plan, you’ll be able to keep it”, selling of ObamaCare, was equally topical and funny.

After a convincing indictment of the President’s actions, Mr Stewart said “So did the President lie? Prevaricate? Fib? Stewart then ruled that he was “somewhat dishonest.”

Considering The Daily Show‘s leftist political leanings, taking on the President straight up on this subject is admirable and his evidence was convincingly damning of the President’s actions. But, after proving the President did misstate the facts multiple times, Stewart could not go as far as saying the President “lied”. Instead he soft pedaled his conviction with (a tongue in cheek?), “somewhat dishonest.“

That soft pedal actually served as an effective transition into his usual leftist attack on the opposition from the right. In this segment, which incidentally lasted almost 3 times as long as his indictment of Obama, he was equally convincing of the nefarious intentions of President Obama’s opposition and sold the fact that he believed they are not being truthful. And, he did not soft pedal his conclusion, but stated the Republican accusers were “lying like MFers“. Wow, what a difference. Fair and balanced presentation for sure.

So the accuser in this episode is the one guilty of lying, but not the actual fabricator? I guess I expected too much.

But let’s look at the evidence of “lies” from the opposition that Stewart displayed:

He made 8 points to condemn those who were calling attention to President Obama’s “somewhat dishonest” approach.

On the first point, he showed a clip of Republicans statements about the cost, taxes and deficit impact of ObamaCare. Stewart said the “CBO says wrong” to these assertions. Sorry Mr. Stewart, the CBO said YES, Mr Obama’s Affordable Care Act costs have doubled over original estimates, will cost $4B to the deficit (the guy on the clip said $6B, okay …) and new taxes have steadily risen.

On the second & third points, he took conversational clips out of context and then calling one “B—S—“. Since I couldn’t find the entire conversations, it appears to have been a presentation slight of hand to help create the image of a case.

On the 4th and 5th points he went after Dr. Ben Carson, commenting on his statements with “Holy S!” As it turns out Mr. Carson was right about the use of his quote attributed to Lenin. It was also used by the Communist Workers Party, The Socialist Workers Party and American Socialist, Norman Thomas. On the 5th point Dr. Carson gave his opinion, so it cannot be wrong, it was his opinion. But on the left, if your opinion is different than theirs, that vaunted left wing “tolerance” escapes them and you are wrong and must be condemned for it.

The 6th point was a good argument, but did not address the sound bite he presented. It was the wrong argument to the point being made. But again it helped present the image that he had a case building.

His last two points were simple spin, reselling Obamacare with cherry-picked soundbites to hype his condemnation of the opposition.

He was fast and loose with “facts”, obviously playing to his liberal audience. He ran through his evidence so fast no one had a chance to absorb his assertions before moving on. The false image that he had a factual case was thus made.

Many are persuaded by such slick, biased television presentations. I could not understand what he had done until I replayed the bit, paused, made notes and researched the items as much as possible. Most people won’t do that.

And that is the bottom line with Mr Stewart’s presentation of the President’s selling of Obamacare. Stewart’s presentation of the evidence was also, “somewhat dishonest”.