Watch The Daily Show catalog everyone's lies about ObamaCare
President Obama got caught in a pretty big fib, says Jon Stewart, so why do his opponents have to add their own?
Jon Stewart started out Tuesday night's Daily Show by following up on Monday night's takedown of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, who just admitted to smoking crack cocaine in one of his "drunken stupors." But Stewart spent the better part of his monologue on all the lies that have been told about ObamaCare.
The most prominent lie was from President Obama himself, Stewart said, when he repeatedly vowed that if you like your insurance plan or doctor you'll be able to keep them under the new health law. Obama really didn't leave any wriggle room, said Stewart, playing a string of clips of the president's various iterations of the same promise. That makes Obama's new caveat on Tuesday — about how you could keep your insurance plan if it wasn't changed after March 2010 — just embarrassing.
So Obama was "somewhat dishonest" about ObamaCare, Stewart said, "but here's the weird part: His opponents have been lying like motherf—ers about its effects." Roll comically annotated video clips of people telling various untruths about ObamaCare — you might have to pause the video to read some of them.
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Look, Stewart said, "if something is bad, telling the truth about it should be sufficient." That's why the movie 12 Years a Slave doesn't have vampires and zombies: "It doesn't need them." Some of the critiques of the law don't even make sense, he argued. And even though there will be losers, let's not pretend that the pre-ObamaCare system was idyllic. Stewart ended the segment by noting that some of the commentators feigning concern about the losers in the new system were downright dismissive of the losers in the old one.
Back to Rob Ford. The Toronto mayor's refusal to step down until October 2014, when he will actually run for re-election, shows "this guy's got huge balls," Stewart marveled — before staging a Comedy Central intervention. "You need help," he told the embattled mayor, then dismissed him to address the people of Toronto.
Ford's approval ratings actually went up after news of his crack smoking came out, Stewart noted. "You know what that makes you as a city, Toronto? Enablers, eh?" Sounding a serious note, he added that while Ford is fun to mock, he wouldn't be fun to eulogize, "and that's where this thing's headed."
Stewart ended his non-interview part of the show by jabbing at his new favorite punching bag. No, not Arby's — alright, he did get a poke in at the fast food sandwich spot towards the end — but CNN. Specifically, the CNN morning program's new ad-sponsored "walk to the couch" transition where the anchors literally walk from their desk to a couch, with a commercial running on split screen. The couch walk is "so gloriously, cravenly unnecessary," Stewart concluded, "that I think I'm in love with it." But there's a catch. Watch:
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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.
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