Jon Stewart Absolutely Demolishes Fox News’ ‘Sh*T-Eating’ Shutdown Coverage
10/3/2013 - Jon Stewart Government Shutdown - For the third night in a row, Jon Stewart opened The Daily Show with coverage of “Shutstorm 2013? and this time his rage was aimed squarely at “Bullshit Mountain,” AKA Fox News. He noticed that the hosts over at Fox seem to have realized that “this shutdown ain’t looking so hot for one particular political party.”
Stewart went straight to the “Bullshit-anator” himself, Sean Hannity, who has been referring to the whole thing as a “liberal shutdown.” But it was Fox’s coverage of the shuttered World War II memorial that really got him going. “Could there be a higher octane fuel for Fox News’ false outrage exploitation engine than wheelchair-bound World War II veterans?” he asked. “Maybe a fetus that owns a small business and that small business makes ‘Merry Christmas’ muzzle cozies.”
The host blasted Fox for standing up against the memorial closure while forgetting that “it’s their allies’ assassin budget shenanigans that not only shut it in the first place, but also put Meals on Wheels at risk, a program that serves meals to over 500,000 veterans a year.”
After playing a montage of Republicans describing their love for “small government,” Stewart came to a realization. “You hate the government,” he said. “Yet you rail like banshees if any of the services and benefits you like are taken away.” Echoing an infamous scene from Steve Martin’s The Jerk, he said, “I don’t need any government, except these memorials, and Social Security, and the paddle game.”
Turning back to Fox, Stewart played a clip of Fox & Friends’ Steve Doocey remarking that the Obama administration sent more security to the World War II memorial than he did to Benghazi. “I’m pretty sure the news face you want to use to convey outrage and concern isn’t shit-eating grin,” he said. “The gratuitous and cavalier nature of that comparison truly shows how little they actually care about Benghazi, except as a ‘Ben-gotcha.’”
For more, Stewart went “live via satellite” to a “longtime federal employee who has seen the effects of this shutdown firsthand”: Smokey the Bear. When Stewart called him out for throwing a lit cigarette on the ground, he replied, “Oh, you want me to go put that out? How about this, fuck you, pay me, Jon, all right?”