I watched it twice. Jon Stewart acted the part of the clown through parts of the interview (maybe that's his schtick - I don't watch him usually) but Soderberg is quite serious throughout. Was she speaking tongue in cheek? Doesn't look like it.
************************
Our first post on this topic generated some consternation from one of our loyal readers and set a record for comments. Our original post referenced Kurt Andersen's (a liberal himself) piece in New York magazine which harshly criticized those on the left who hoped against victory in Iraq due to their loathing for Bush.
James Taranto, in OpinionJournal, relates an interview (transcript via Tivo) done by Jon Stewart with Nancy Soderberg, a former aide in the Clinton administration author of the book "The Superpower Myth, the Use and Misuse of American Might". The snippets are edited for length - click title to read the whole thing.
Stewart: ...But boy, when you see the Lebanese take to the streets and all that, and you go, "Oh my God, this is working,"...
Soderberg: Well, I think, you know, as a Democrat, you don't want anything nice to happen to the Republicans, and you don't want them to have progress. But as an American, you hope good things would happen.
**********
Stewart: This could be unbelievable!
...
Soderberg: It's scary for Democrats, I have to say.
**********
Stewart: ...I think, I don't care for the tactics, I don't care for this, the weird arrogance, the setting up. But I gotta say, I haven't seen results like this ever in that region.
Soderberg: Well wait. It hasn't actually gotten very far. I mean, we've had--
Stewart: Oh, I'm shallow! I'm very shallow!
Soderberg: There's always hope that this might not work. No, but I think, um, it's--you know, you have changes going on in Egypt; Saudi Arabia finally had a few votes, although women couldn't participate...
Freudian slips? You judge.
No comments:
Post a Comment