So who's brilliant idea at the Daily Show was it to give [Shlaes] an uncritical forum there? Now she has resorted to twisting Paul Krugman's arguments against him, in her neverending warpath against the New Deal & progressive economists.
..............
Well, as I often tell my friends who're periodically disturbed by some of the interview choices made over at the Daily Show: it's important to remember that our heroes and heroines are comedic writers and performers with a conventional left-ish lean, not coherent critics of American power, neoliberalism or plain old capitalism.
In other words, yeah, we all laughed at the daggers-out Bush jokes and clever dissections of the self important MSM, but don't think these people have a real critique up their sleeves
No doubt, everyone on staff is very smart, but it's a safe bet they don't think about political systems in a comprehensive way (or at least, not in a comprehensive way outside of the Democrat vs. Republican framework).
A year or so ago, some wanker (his name escapes me) who authored a book about the ultra super critical red alert threat an anti-matter bomb armed Iran allegedly poses to freedom throughout the nine worlds was given a respectful interview by Stewart ("wow, a scary and timely book" Jon said at the segment's end).
It was clear that Stewart didn't know that much about the topic and was willing to be pulled along by a breathless argument (plus, liberals are notorious for being all too willing to support cruise missile launches if the right set of totems -- human rights, women's right -- are supposedly threatened by the sinister Other).
.d.