Jon Stewart Dismantles Bernard Goldberg

Should have been taping "The Daily Show" last night, to have a record of exactly how the masterful Jon Stewart first deflated professional right-wing wind-bag Bernard Goldberg and then completely reduced him to the laughing stock he's clearly unaccustomed to being.

Goldberg has published a new book, bravely titled "100 People Who Are Screwing Up America," and in case anyone might assume it's a judicious list selected on merit, Goldberg's publisher removes all doubt: it's pure right-wing propaganda. They picture on the cover a generous sampling of the 100 baaaad people (Howard Dean, Michael Moore, Rev. Al Sharpton, Barbra Streisand, senators Ted Kennedy and Robert Byrd, etc.) and add this kicker to the title: "(And Al Franken Is # 37)." It's the kind of book that a lazy, cynical ex-journalist writes by remote control, based on shit supplied by a "clipping service." (Check out Goldberg's website here.)

Jon Stewart dismantled the pretense in 30 seconds flat. Why pick on Hollywood types, who only think they have power, when you've got a crowd down there in Washington running everything who have REAL power?

Goldberg, caught off-guard by his own arrogance, tried to kiss up. "You're one of the good guys," he told Stewart, just after denouncing trash-talk on TV as though Stewart & Co. didn't indulge in envelope-pushing obscenity every single night.

It got so bad for Goldberg that Stewart acknowledged at one point, "I'm hard to talk to" and even offered to go on with Goldberg before an audience of right-wingers, where Stewart wouldn't be getting the applause.

Stewart just simply pointed out that there really are some people in this country who are ruining the place for the rest of us, but they aren't Hollywood stars and gangsta rappers. They're politicians and crusaders willing to turn the Constitution unsidedown for power.

For example, wonder if the masterminds behind the torture policy of the Bush administration are mentioned by Goldberg as "screwing up America"? This morning's WashPost is led by a story that the Abu Ghraib "techniques" were first road-tested at Guantanamo. That's the kind of stuff being gleefully used by "Islamofascists" to recruit 16-year-old suicide bombers. But to Goldberg and other culture warriors, Barbra Streisand is the real enemy.