Comments | ontd_political: Jon Stewart Schools Tony Blair

urban_stoop in ontd_political

Jon Stewart Schools Tony Blair

Sep 15, 2010 13:45

Former British PM was on The Daily Show last night to promote his new book A Journey. When they ran out of time on the show, Jon continued the interview for another twenty minutes, which you can watch online. And you should!

Part One (actually on the show)

Part Two (Extended- talk about Iran, mostly)

Part Three (Extended)

Source is www.thedailyshow.com

jon stewart, pwned, iran, iraq, tony blair

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I wouldn't say he schooled him... jugglingeggs September 15 2010, 12:56:30 UTC

Tony Blair is a war criminal.

It wasn't a bad interview though Jon kept apologizing for his opinions, which irritated me. You don't need to apologies to war mongers like Blair.

What Jon should have asked, "Why was torture/secret rendition so necessary? Why aren't any of these prisoners allowed fair trial? What are companies like Blackwater doing in Iraq? .. If all the UK/US ever wanted to do was liberate people from evil dictatorship regimes (that you/US set up to begin with/at the very least funded)?"

I know...I expect too much from comedy central, but I've given up on almost every real news channel.

But I liked his etcher-sketcher(?) analogy!

Re: I wouldn't say he schooled him... jugglingeggs September 15 2010, 12:57:22 UTC

oh damn, my html is all messed up! gaaaahhh always preview before post!!!

amethyst_amore September 15 2010, 13:22:19 UTC

No, he didn't, sadly, and I'm pretty certain if this were Bush or Cheney in that seat instead, Jon would've ripped them a new one.

I agree, those are fair questions to ask, but I think Blair already gets that treatment from his own people far more than the US should be doing to the likes of Cheney. (Which isn't to say that he should be treated any differently here, but at least he's having a harder time justifying himself to the UK then the US's former pres and VP is from Americans.)

I think what John was apologizing for more was his tendency to sort of cut Blair off, which, much as I love the guy, he does tend to overpower the conversation in a lot of his interviews. I have to go back and watch it again, but that's what I got out of it.

The etch-a-sketch analogy was fantastic. I also like how he pointed out the other dictatorships and nations not so friendly to the West with nuclear weapons and asked what Blair would propose we do about them. I noticed he really didn't have an answer which right there proved Jon's point.

jugglingeggs September 15 2010, 13:37:32 UTC

I honestly do hope Blair does get that treatment from his own people (I've just never read about it, probably cause I don't really read up on British politics much). The man makes me sick.

I agree with Jon cutting people off a lot, but he kept on saying 'my naive pov' which was perhaps him being sarcastic in a subtle way, but I just got annoyed and wanted to shake him and be like ARRGGHH stop saying you're sorry/naive!

Jon did point out a lot of things to Blair that were very valid which Blair didn't really know how to respond to though he kept justifying himself. I felt like for the nuclear one Blair was almost going to blurt out, we should bomb the s*&t out of them! DUH!

I also liked the cockroach analogy, that was hilarious.

spinnigold September 15 2010, 16:51:11 UTC

Nobody likes Tony Blair over here. And nobody liked Gordon Brown.

We treat our politicians with the contempt they deserve! UK, FUCK YEAH

octoberstarlite September 15 2010, 22:02:09 UTC

Oh don't worry, our political journalists tend to be pretty good at calling our politicians on their crap. Tearing up our politicians is one thing were actually quite good at.

Re: I wouldn't say he schooled him... fatpie42 September 15 2010, 19:24:03 UTC

We gave Tony Blair a lot of shit for a lot of things, but I'm not sure you've chosen the best questions. The UK politicians had no control over Guantanemo. They denied getting involved in torture from the start. Blackwater wasn't paid by or answerable to them.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that British soldiers performed bizarre humiliation rituals on their prisoners (which might well be part of a wider scheme of torture).

The UK did provide services to planes transporting prisoners to Guantanemo.

The UK were responsible for faking intelligence to claim that WMDs were in Iraq (though the reason they needed that while the US government didn't was because our parliament weren't gullible enough to believe that Al Qaeda were operating in Iraq).

Tony Blair got a highly negative reaction when he said in an interview that when he wrestled with the issue of whether to send the country to war, he looked to God for guidance.

I can't actually see what questions Jon Stewart asked because the videos aren't available in my country. :(

Re: I wouldn't say he schooled him... jugglingeggs September 16 2010, 03:06:56 UTC

Oh thanks for the info! I know that the UK wasn't directly involved in Gitmo, but they were nevertheless aware of it and allies in the war, thus the crime of torture is also on Blair et al.

Jon's questions were mostly about strategy, and how strategically the Iraq war didn't make sense and why did they decide to move away from Afghanistan etc etc. It wasn't a bad interview, perhaps you could find a torrent of it.

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