Watch The Daily Show mock Fox News' confused man-crush on Vladimir Putin

Watch The Daily Show mock Fox News&#039; confused man-crush on Vladimir Putin

(Image credit: Comedy Central)

last updated 8 January 2015

Russian President Vladimir Putin is a "semi-delusional autocrat" who governs over a propaganda-dishing, state-censored media, said Jon Stewart on Thursday night's Daily Show. Almost everyone can see that Putin is living in an alternate reality — even Germany's Angela Merkel — so why are the hosts at Fox News and their Republican guests being "fooled by this guy's bullshit?" Stewart asked.

Republicans have been holding up the "strong" Putin as a favorable alternative to the "weak," "mom jeans"-wearing Obama. (Seriously, the "mom jeans" line is a thing.) In one of Stewart's clips, Rudy Giuliani gushes that while Obama dithers, Putin the leader acts quickly and makes the world react to him. That's not the definition of a leader, Stewart said, incredulously, "that's what you call a toddler." Also, when the Fox News crowd isn't calling Obama weak, they're calling him a "dictator king," Stewart said. And then he hit on a possible explanation for this cognitive dissonance... --Peter Weber

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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.