| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | M - Th 11p / 10c | |||
| Cliff May Unedited Interview Pt. 3 | ||||
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Posts
A few things:
ReplyDeletea) They were both kind of up in each other's faces -- Cliff May shoved his finger in Stewart's face a number of times, shouted, and talked over him, so to say that the shouting and elevated emotions and inconsiderate discourse tactics were all one-sided is a little inaccurate.
b) In fairness, it IS his show. The purpose of inviting on a guest for an interview isn't so much to just let them talk as much as they want about whatever they want, but to get them to answer the questions you want answered. Given a limited amount of time, then, there are going to need to be some interruptions. That is, unless you rig up some kind of stop light system like during presidential debates, but that's kind of extreme.
c) I'm not entirely sure what's "wrong" about saying torture should be off the plate under any circumstances. We've considered waterboarding torture in the past, which means that when we turned around and did it, we did it with the understanding that it was torture. You can't say "well, it's torture for SOME people but not others". Unless, I guess, you're talking about sadomasochists, but I'm pretty sure that even THEY have their limits and can at least use safe words.
Sure, slap them around a little, scare them a bit, but the kinds of stresses involved in the activities we did -- especially when we did them in concert with each other -- are undeniably torture, and it doesn't matter whether it's Osama bin Laden or a German WWII soldier, it's about us, not them.
And if that's not the case, then the same applies in reverse for them: If they feel we've done them grievous enough a wrong, then they're totally justified in doing things as awful to us as they deem just for whatever we've done. If all rules are relative based on whose side you're on and your own quantification of the evils of the other side, then 9/11 was as justifiable as waterboarding. Hey, if they felt it was necessary because of our unwavering support for Israel, and it was the only way they could see to get us to stop...
Not to mention that the extent to which we had to do these things in order to get even a small amount of information seems like it's neither time-effective nor all that useful for the situations for which they claim torture should be allowed. ("Ticking bomb" and all that.)
d) You can't say "agree or disagree" about the issue of torture while using "being wrong" as a qualifier for "douchiness". :P It's basically saying "agree or disagree, you have to admit he's wrong about everything he said."