WATCH: Jon Stewart hates everyone in Washington now

(Image credit: Daily Show)

America isn't all that interested in the various controversies buffeting the Obama administration, says Paul Brandus at The Week. Instead, with lawmakers seemingly obsessed with "trying to put the political screws to the other party," not doing the people's business, "the American people are right to hold their elected leaders in contempt."

On Monday night, Stewart continued his half angry, half gleeful coverage of "Hurricane Scandy" — the IRS and Benghazi flaps — and he threw in another, little-covered disgrace involving the Department of Veterans Affairs (watch below). The Obama administration is pleading ignorance, the Republicans are turning the outrage dial to 11 even while admitting they don't have all the facts, and the press is flubbing its role by becoming part of the story and letting itself get played by partisan sources.

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

"Can anybody do their jobs in that town?" Stewart laments.

In the second half of his monologue, Stewart takes the Obama administration to task for not modernizing and streamlining the VA medical-claims backlog as it promised. The digitization process is going so slow, Stewart says, that the mountain of paper files is threatening to collapse a floor at a VA field office. If only the Obama team put the energy into fixing the VA snafu that it did to getting elected, Stewart laments. Is it fair to compare trying to fix a giant bureaucratic mess you inherited (with resident bureaucrats) to building a campaign from the ground up? I have no idea, but it makes for compelling television:

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.