Stewart awards McCain 'Dick Move of the Week' for Hilton ad
Senator John McCain's latest campaign ad equating Barack Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton as an empty celebrity who is famous only for being famous has already drawn reactions from a variety of quarters, including internet parodies and rumors that Spears is considering legal action.
Jon Stewart on Thursday's Daily Show also piled on by proclaiming the ad to be the "Dick Move of the Week" -- but not because of anything it implies about Obama. "It's a dick move by McCain because it turns out one of the fine young ladies featured in this ad ... her parents, the Hiltons, contributed $4600, the maximum you can contribute, to the campaign of none other than John McCain. John McCain's saying to the Hiltons, 'I think you kindly for your support, now if you'll excuse me I've got to go take a nationally televised dump on your daughter.'"
"The ad's part of a new line of attack from McCain," continued Stewart, "that Obama's got thousands of fans and everyone loves him -- wait, no, that's not right."
Stewart then played a clip of ABC's Jake Tapper explaining that the McCain team is trying to paint Obama as "an arrogant, arugula-eating, fancy berry tea-drinking celebrity."
"Well, nice try, guys, but reducing candidates to two-dimensional stereotypes is kind of my gig," Stewart said, adding, "The media is not going to be buying it."
He immediately disproved this with a series of clips of media figures calling Obama arrogant, presumptuous, pompous, over-confident, 'too cool for school,' and arrogant.
"What's McCain's humble strategy?" retorted Stewart. "'Vote McCain. I am nothing special and would probably make a terrible president.'? Are you insane?"
Stewart turned next to media accusations that Obama is promising more than he can deliver. "Why can't he be more grounded, like his opponent?" Stewart agreed, turning to a clip of McCain describing "what I would hope to have achieved at the end of my first term as president of the United States."
Stewart suggested that McCain had probably laid out a set of modest, unpresumptuous objectives. But what McCain actually said was that by 2013, "The Iraq War has been won. There is no longer any place in the world al Qaeda can consider a safe haven. The United States has experienced several years of robust economic growth. The world food crisis has ended. Our southern border is now secure."
"Let's just start with the first one," proposed Stewart. "'The Iraq War has been won.' President McCain, looking back, how did you propose that we had done it?"
"I've been there," stated McCain in an April interview. "I know wars. I know how to win wars."
"Point taken," Stewart agreed. "What about the economy? Obama's all 'let's sit down with a bipartisan panel of economic experts.' ... Come on Johnnie Mac."
"We'll balance the budget," McCain has promised flatly. He later insisted to George Stephanopoulos that he could cut taxes $300 billion in his first term and still balance the budget, saying cheerfully, "I'll find you a hundred billion tomorrow."
In response, Stewart strained and groaned and pulled a gold egg out of his ass.
Stewart then proceeded to a clip of McCain saying of Osama bin Laden, "We'll bring him to justice and I'll follow him to the gates of hell."
"I guess we're going to Pakistan," surmised Stewart.
However, McCain recently stated, "I'm not going to go there, and here's why. Because Pakistan is a sovereign nation."
"So you'll go to hell but not Pakistan?" Stewart asked in bemusement.
"So," concluded Stewart, "Senator John McCain will end the war, solve the fiscal crisis, and get our number one enemy in four years through a mysterious process to be divulged only in 2013. It leads us to only one possible conclusion."
He then showed Larry King asking Barack Obama, "All your speeches promise the impossible. Are you in fantasy land?"
This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast July 31, 2008.
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