Jon Stewart tries to untangle Fox News' twisted reaction to CIA torture

Jon Stewart tries to untangle Fox News' twisted reaction to CIA torture
(Image credit: The Daily Show)

The folks at Fox News are really upset about Tuesday's release of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on CIA torture by committee Democrats. Why? It's not clear, said Jon Stewart on Wednesday night's Daily Show. He understands the desire not to talk about it — "Isn't 24 hours long enough for us to feel bad about ourselves as a country?" — but the "words speak louder than actions" arguments from CIA and Bush administration officials, and at Fox News, don't make any sense.

As an example, Stewart showed Nicole Wallace (former Bush spokeswoman) arguing both that America's enemies don't need any provocation to kill us, and that the CIA torture report is bad because it will provoke enemies to kill Americans. He did find sanity and relief in the arms of "Uncle Johnny" McCain — there's a memorable sequence involving Stewart getting his long-overdue fix of "the good McCain," hugging a puppet of the senator, and giving McCain's floor speech decrying torture the movie-hero treatment. --Peter Weber

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Peter Weber, The Week US

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.