Stewart bashes Obama and media over drone leaks

Jon Stewart on The Daily Show has been one of the few consistently excellent critics of the Obama administration’s penchant for barely restrained warmongering. Last night was no different, as he not only took the President’s office to task for their blatantly unlawful and revisionist approach to blowing up civilians (and later relabeling them as “militants”), but also typically obfuscatory Congresscritters for getting all upset that someone would dare leak information about the secret extrajudicial drone assassination program, rather than focusing on the fact that the administration is actually running a secret extrajudicial drone assassination program:

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My transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →)

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JON STEWART: Earlier in the program, we were discussing the amount of sometimes personally humiliating things that you have to do to raise money if you wanna be President of the United States. The question is, why? Why would someone put themselves through that? Well, pretty good to be the President. Room and board, free travel, all the podiums you can stand at – and some other perks.

CNN’S JOHN KING [05/29/12]: The New York Times reports that the President has given himself the final word in a top-secret nominating process to place terror suspects on a kill list.

[…]

KING: President Obama is intimately involved in the discussions of suspected terrorists and the decision over who dies next.

STEWART: Obama has a kill list? I’m assuming it goes along with a marry list and a [fuck] list and this is all – it’s just one big mistake, it’s a confusion – “Oh, uh, Osama bin Laden, Kate Upton and Michelle! That’s an easy one! I got that one.”

But with a kill list, how do we make sure we’re minimizing any sort of non-supposed-to-be-killed-related kills?

JAY CARNEY [05/30/12]: We have at our disposal tools that … make avoidance of civilian casualties … much easier.

STEWART: Phew! Guess the drones are probably doing, like, biometric readings and instantaneously cross-referencing databases of known criminals and – that’s probably how we do it, I would … guess.

MALE REPORTER 1 [05/30/12]: President Obama has ordered that all military-age males killed within range of a drone strike be counted as enemy combatants.

STEWART: … Or we could just change the meaning of words. That’s another way. You could just change the meaning of the word ‘civilians’ and maybe any females that we end up killing, uh … they’re not women – they’re ninjas.

Look – if the President can just change the meaning of words, why can’t the rest of us? Hey, you know what?

[Stewart takes out a glass of marijuana.]

STEWART: You don’t have to worry about decriminalizing pot! From now on, I’m just gonna call it “smokeable beer”. Now it’s legal! Woo-hoo!

Please tell me people are upset about this?

MALE REPORTER 2 [06/10/12]: Anger on Capitol Hill is mounting.

FEMALE REPORTER [06/10/12]: Lawmakers in both parties are calling for Congressional hearings on the matter.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-AZ) [06/07/12]: There should be an investigation, and I think it cries out for special counsel.

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CA) [06/06/12]: It’s very, very disturbing.

STEWART: Yes. Finally, bipartisan agreement on something important. I’m often [?], but are we sacrificing our values? That is what’s … upsetting everybody, right?

SHEPARD SMITH [06/07/12]: Somebody is leaking secret national security intelligence to the public.

SEN. MCCAIN [06/10/12]: These leaks have to stop.

REP. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER (D-MD) [06/08/12]: This is one of the most serious breaches in the last couple of articles that’ve come out that I have seen.

REP. PETER KING (R-NY) [06/10/12]: This is the most shameful cascade of leaks I’ve ever heard or seen in government.

SEN. FEINSTEIN: An avalanche of leaks. […] People just talk too much>.

STEWART: That’s what you’re upset about? “IT IS AN INCONCEIVABLE BREACH OF UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHTS! … to tell us about the kill list! The President’s killing people with flying robots, and you should not know that!”

MALE REPORTER 2 [06/10/12]: The big question: Was anyone in the administration responsible, and if so, did they do it for political reasons?

SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R-SC) [06/07/12]: We’ve had three leaks of intelligence that paint the President as a strong leader.

SEN. MCCAIN [06/10/12]: The only conceivable motive for such damaging and compromising leaks of classified information is that it makes the President look good.

STEWART: [Motherfucker’s killing people with flying robots!] Are you redefining the word ‘good’ as well? Here’s a leak that would make him look good: “Ooh, the President has a secret program to answer every child’s letter to Santa Claus.” Like that! “The President keeps a classified list of things he loves about his family.” “I just heard from an anonymous source that the President fights crime at night as Batman.” Like that! That makes him look good!

Of course, the President has defended his administration … the only way he knows how.

PRES. BARACK OBAMA [06/08/12]: If we can root out folks who have leaked, they will suffer consequences.

[Stewart panics and runs away.]

You know we’ve officially entered Bizarro World when news breaks that a sitting U.S. President has thrown out the Constitution and secretly declared himself judge, jury and executioner in order to bomb countless innocent brown people overseas with absolute impunity … and it’s the leakers who are accused of wrongdoing.

Edit (06/14/12 7:27 PM) – Added transcript and replaced “typically lapdog media” with the more accurate “typically obfuscatory Congresscritters”.

Tags: Jon Stewart • The Daily Show • Barack Obama • Obama administration • terrorists • militants • drone attacks