Stewart: 'Government misled us into war' less notable than lesbians kissing David Edwards and Muriel Kane

Published: Tuesday June 10, 2008



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Print This Email This Last week, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence released the long-delayed Phase II of its report on prewar intelligence, detailing "administration prewar statements that, on numerous occasions, misrepresented the intelligence and the threat from Iraq." The Daily Show's Jon Stewart saw this much-delayed release as major news. "Man was it worth the wait!" he proclaimed. The committee had released Phase I, which largely laid the blame on the CIA for poor intelligence, in 2004. After that, the process stalled, even though as late as November 2005, Republican Chairman Pat Roberts was promising, "We will finish it. ... I've got tennis shoes and track shoes on for Phase II." Not until the Democrats took control of Congress did Phase II become a reality. "The administration distorted the facts ... said things that they knew or should have known were not true," current Chairman Jay Rockefeller stated bluntly in announcing the release. "Wow!" responded Stewart. "There's a headline! 'Government misled us into war.' Or better yet, see the headline for yourself!" Stewart then turned to the websites of the major cable networks, looking for coverage of the story. "Check it out on Fox News," he began. "Okay, they didn't actually ... Let's check out CNN's main page. Okay, not there. Let's try their US page -- oh, lesbians kiss at a Mariners game. Wow." "Hey man, but that's the Interwebs," Stewart said apologetically. "It's a whole other world. Let's go back to the big three. That's where real Americans get their news." However, Stewart soon found that on ABC News, Charlie Gibson was more interested in a story about a French daredevil. "Yes," explained Stewart. "He was climbing the New York Times building -- perhaps looking to read the story about the administration misleading us into a war that you didn't cover at all!" Even worse, Katie Couric at CBS was covering "web gossip." Finally, Brian Williams at NBC did mention Phase II -- but only in the form of a single-sentence reference, followed by a disclaimer that "most of the Republicans on the committee notably and sharply disagreed with some of the report's findings." "You didn't say anything that was in the report!" whimpered Stewart in despair. This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast June 9, 2008.

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