Via Crooks and Liars, you can watch the video of Jon Stewart making Bill Bennett babble like an idiot trying to defend a ban on gay marriage. Stewart makes a great point about Dick Cheney. Cheney is a social conservative right down the line, yet he is against the gay marriage amendment. Why? Because he has a lesbian daughter who is in a committed relationship. He gets to see up close that the relationship between Mary Cheney and Heather Poe is the same in every relevant way to opposite sex relationships. They love each other, they're committed to each other, they laugh and love and fight and exalt and have good times and bad times, just like every other relationship on the planet. And because they get to see this with someone they love, it's not an abstract for them. It's not just a hypothetical "them" out there doing "that", it's a real life person in a real life relationship. And just once, I want to see James Dobson or Jerry Falwell or any of the other anti-gay bigots look Mary Cheney in the eye and tell her that we can't allow her to have the same recognition and protection that everyone else takes for granted for their most cherished relationships because if we do, marriage will be destroyed forever. It's easy to throw out empty words at people they don't know; let them tell it to someone they do know and I bet they choke on their own words.
P.S. There appears to be no truth to the rumors that Bennett offered to bet double or nothing on the outcome of their next debate.
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John Stewart makes great points but unfortunately, he didn't let Mr. Bennett really dig a deep hole for himself.
John's interviewing style is. often, to interupt his guest. If John would have just let Mr. Bennett talk for a few more seconds, it seems Mr. Bennett would have said what was really on his mind: "gays just aren't worthy of our respect." Instead, John likes to interrupt with his point. This detracts from the power of the point he is trying to make.
That being said, Mr. Bennett did look pretty stupid.
Ed says:
Well, Alan Keyes could do it. I wonder whatever happened to him?
I'd like to see that myself. If they choke, your point is made. If they actually manage to get the words out, Cheney might end up in the news for shooting someone in the face again.
But seriously, I think your point is sound. It's easy to believe any propaganda you hear about "them"...until you meet a few. Then you might start to realize that "they" are just like "us", and it all falls apart.
Which is probably why the Dobsons and the Falwells get their knickers into such tight twists when they see some bit of popular culture that presents homosexuals as normal people: it doesn't just challenge the bigotry that they consider to be a key article of their faith, it undermines their own propaganda.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
Is it just me, or does Jon Stewart seem to be more willing to take on his right-wing guests these days instead of lobbing softball questions at them?
I seem to recall getting very frustrated with him over his powder puff interviews a few years ago, but now he seems more willing to engage in meaningful debate with his guests.
Good for him. Someone needs to do it. To his credit, he really does seem to do his homework and is rarely at a loss for words. (I guess being a comedian helps). Though I do wonder, if he's too successful in debating the right-wingers they'll probably stop appearing on his show altogther.
Perhaps, and I hope you're right. But keep in mind, these are often the same folk who believe that people who don't accept Jesus the right way are damned to hell. This usually includes most everyone else on the planet. Although some people become uncomfortable when they realize acquaintances, close friends, and even beloved family members are going to be burned forever by an "all-loving" God, many don't seem to blink or get fazed a bit. Yes, it's hard, but fair. It's what we all "deserve." Everyone had their chance to accept the offer of the blood payment, so tough. Burn forever.
I suspect that forming the comfortable habit of objectifying human beings when it comes to damnation will lead to other comfortable habits, and being close or knowing people personally won't make much of a difference.
Do you have any idea how much it hurts when Coca-Cola passes through your nose?
I don't think he's ever thrown softballs. He's just generally respectful and doesn't take everything as seriously as most political commentators do. I think that why he can get such a variety of guests. Guests come on his show without fear of having their heads chewed off.
It's hard to demonize someone when it's your own flesh and blood, or a close associate anyway. Cheney, for all his faults and bad aim, is at least somewhat human.
I think Stewart gets the guests he does because he skewers them so deftly that they don't know they're bleeding until they fall down. Stewart wields a rapier rather than the bludgeon that the Fox News talking heads use.
That was an acknowledged problem with Naziism, too. You could get a German Christian to hate abstract Jews, but he was convinced that the Jews he knew were fine people. There was some strategy for making German Christians believe that that even "fine people" were somehow poisonous to the body politic.
Ed,
You wrote "And because they get to see this with someone they love, it's not an abstract for them."
I don't think "abstract" is the problem for the Bennetts and the Dobsons and the Falwells. It's the S-E-X. They seem to be obsessed with sex. For the Cheneys it has become about his daughter and her relationship ... and not about the S-E-X.
I have to agree with both David Brayton and Tacitus. I do wish he would let his guests finish their points before coming back. His own points are strong enough that he doesn't have to be Bill O'Reilly without the bluster. But on the other hand I was impressed with how he just stuck at the same subject and didn't let Bennett off the hook once.
All that said, I don't think Bennett did all that badly, considering the nonsensicality of the position he was defending. I'm not really familiar with him apart from the gambling revelations, so I don't have anything to compare the performance to, but unlike most conservative moralists he didn't come across as a blowhard.
Bennett starts off by pointing out how important the institution of marriage is to mankind, and then Stewart points out that marriage is a relatively modern invention, and then Bennett says oohhhhh but the family relationship is an old institution. Man, is that some classic comedy, or what. You can see the full interview here, by the way.
I'm not really familiar with him apart from the gambling revelations, so I don't have anything to compare the performance to, but unlike most conservative moralists he didn't come across as a blowhard.
He does have sort of a friendly teddy bear kind of demeanor, but just imagine somebody like Falwell or Coulter saying the same things and I think you'll agree that he comes across as a big bag of horse pucky.
I'm not really familiar with him apart from the gambling revelations, so I don't have anything to compare the performance to, but unlike most conservative moralists he didn't come across as a blowhard.
He does have sort of a friendly teddy bear kind of demeanor, but just imagine somebody like Falwell or Coulter saying the same things and I think you'll agree that he comes across as a big bag of horse pucky.
Just like our friend Stanley Kurtz (in one of Ed's earlier posts), Bennett tried to slip in a knock against the Netherlands (and Norway for good measure), suggesting that gay marriage has wrought disaster in Dutch marriage. I suppose he figures that his audience knows nothing about Holland and thus he can get away with maligning it.
According to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics (a venerable and highly respected government institution), the divorce rate in Holland has declined since gay marriage was approved there. Moreover, the overall divorce rate in increasingly secular and tolerant Holland is significantly lower than in the United States (not that I think this statistic has any meaning, but conservatives get off on it.)
In 1980 the Dutch divorce rate was 24%. In 1990 it rose to 28.1%. In 2000, the year prior to gay marriage there, the rate had climbed all the way to 33.9%. In 2003, after gay marriage was approved, it fell to 32.2% (and in 2004 it was 32.3%.)
The relevant table can be found at:
http://statline.cbs.nl/StatWeb/Table.asp?HDR=G1&LA=nl&DM=SLNL&PA=37425n…
(It's in Dutch, but not hard to understand; I'd be happy to translate.)
Dutch customer service sucks, its weather is generally abysmal, and if anything the country can be a bit dull. But by any measure of social and political health compared to the United States, Hollanders live in paradise.
Dave Snyder