[lbo-talk] chavez, bush, the devil and jon stewart

[Carl Remick]

>From: "sean.andrews" <cultstud76 at gmail.com>
>
>In response to this, I'd say that Chavez has far more of a responsibility 
>to seem sane and reasonable and not propagandistic (i.e. making comparisons 
>to ideological commonplaces like the devil) when he appears in public.  And 
>when you stand in front of the UN and you say it smells like sulfur because 
>the Devil, in the form of Bush, had stood there before, it doesn't do much 
>for your world image, even if it does play to the base back home.  And, 
>when anyone stands in front of the UN and says that, I don't think it's all 
>that propagandistic to point it out on a comedy show because it's pretty 
>funny.  I'll agree that they took it too far, but I don't see how the 
>people at comedy central have more of a responsibility to guard Chavez's 
>international (or domestic US) image than Chavez does.

I find it depressing that you and Chuck are as obtuse as you are -- that you 
fail to see that Chávez is the gifted satirist and Jon Stewart the hack 
propagandist.  I've written speeches for a living, and I've never been more 
impressed by any presentation than the addess Chávez delivered at the UN; it 
was an oratorical masterpiece.  Stewart, OTOH, is a mere master of phony 
transgressiveness -- a guy who, at day's end, is just as mawkishly pro-US as 
any Middle American.  Stewart's antecedents are Bob Hope, Johnny Carson and 
Yakov Smirnov, not Mark Twain or Mort Sahl.

Carl