Jon Stewart dedicated the bulk of Tuesday night's show to the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. But based on Russia's new anti-gay laws and semi-official tolerance of violence against gays, Stewart had a very specific variant of the Winter Games in mind: The Homophobic Olympics.
The team to beat, though, is Mother Russia, Stewart said. He awarded Russian President Validimir Putin style points for head-faking tolerance before not-so-subtly conflating homosexuality and pedophilia. Stewart illustrated Putin's homophobic sleight of hand by offering a colorful analogy involving Russians and bears.
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Next, Stewart brought out Senior Olympic Correspondent Aasif Mandvi to handicap America's chances in this Homophobic Olympics. "Team USA has been regressing all winter, and I think we have a shot," Mandvi said, with some enthusiasm. Stewart was skeptical. "Oh ye of little bigotry," Mandvi responded, trotting out Juan Pablo Galavis of The Bachelor and a Utah man who went on a hunger strike to end his state's brief dalliance with gay-marriage.
Stewart still wasn't sold, telling Mandvi Team USA needs a "Lake Placid, hockey-like miracle" to even medal. Mandvi stepped up with a late entry, Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) comparing same-sex couples to brother-and-sister incest. Stewart, Mandvi, and the audience erupt in cheers of USA! USA! USA! So that happened.
The wild card segment is a piece by Jason Jones, but it doesn't really aim for humor. Instead, Jones highlighted a Catch-22 affecting hundreds of thousands of Vietnam vets that makes them ineligible for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). He interviewed two of them, who say that the military won't cover their treatment because they were less-than-honorably discharged due to... PTSD from Vietnam, and also because PTSD wasn't officially diagnosed until the 1980s — based off of studies of Vietnam vets.
This "raises a fascinating question," Jones said: "What the f—k?"
After punching a hippy and hiding in a closet, Jones found solace in some Yale Law students who have filed a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the PTSD-afflicted Vietnam vets. Jones had his own way of helping, involving training for "bureaucratic warfare," but clearly his biggest contribution is publicizing the situation through his loud megaphone. Watch:
