This clip contains what might be the single greatest indictment of the mainstream and cable news media I've ever seen. ...and it comes from Jay Carney.
First posted at Real Clear Politics earlier today, it's a segment from an event called "A Conversation with Jay Carney" which took place at George Washington University. In the clip, Carney discusses the decision to appear on the Daily Show in 2012. He claims that the President did the show not because Stewart is a painfully obvious ally, but because he thought it would appeal to young voters.
Then Carney announced that out of all the interviews Obama did, his appearance on Comedy Central was the "toughest," "most substantive" and most "challenging."
"I remember we had some discussion during 2012 about well, is it appropriate for the president, the sitting president and candidate, to give interviews with Jon Stewart and others. And the answer was yes, again because the young voters we were trying to reach are more likely to watch The Daily Show than some other news shows. But also, I think if you look back at 2012 and the series of interviews the sitting president of the United States gave, probably the toughest interview he had was with Jon Stewart. Probably the most substantive, challenging interview Barack Obama had in the election year was with the anchor of The Daily Show."
Wow.
If that's actually true, what does it say about the lapdogs who populate the newsrooms at NBC, CBS, ABC, MSNBC, and CNN? We all know they were completely in the bag for Obama's 2012 campaign, but was there seriously no one who dared ask a tougher question than a funnyman who proudly describes his show as "the fake news?" For that matter, if Jon Stewart is so hard on the President, why is the administration always crying over the supposed evils of Fox News?
The national press corps should be utterly ashamed that Jay Carney is openly calling out their impotence. How very sad that Obama's "toughest interview" came not from a journalist, but from a comedian.
