Last night, Jon Stewart looked at how Fox News is trying to use the volatile situation in Ukraine to attack Obama by comparing him to their hero Reagan.
The real problem isn't how future presidents might handle Ukraine. It's how could our current President have let this happen.
BILL O'REILLY (2/20/2014): Ukraine and other countries try to get some freedom, but the President has lost moral authority.
SEN. KELLY AYOTTE, R-NH (2/23/2014): The President needs to up his game and send a clear, unequivocal, public message to Putin.
STEPHEN HAYES (2/19/2014): We continue to let Vladimir Putin push us around.
FOX NEWS GUEST (2/19/2014): When you project weakness, people don't fear you, and they do what they want.
We're so weak! So mad at our weakness! Thanks to Obama's lily-livered Chamberlain-esque appeasement of the be-teated ruler of the Caucuses — Ivan Nippolovich. (picture of shirtless Vladimir Putin) Now, he gets to pull the strings, and once again, claim Ukraine for the — what do they call it now — Putinistan, whatever they're calling it over there.
Obviously, the only thing wrong with that interpretation is that by all measures, it appears that the Putin forces are losing handle on Ukraine. But really, eh, never mind, I'm sure a populist uprising against Putin's puppet is part of his plan. And we all know which President would have the medicine for this Ukraine mess.
OLIVER NORTH (2/21/2014): What he oughta do is ask himself, what would Reagan have done?
FOX NEWS GUEST (2/19/2014): Ronald Reagan would lead the free world.
GRETCHEN CARLSON (2/19/2014): He tore down the wall, he ended the Cold War.
OLIVER NORTH (2/21/2014): No red lines, he simply acted.
"Yes! I should know, because my name is Oliver North. And when I worked for Ronald Reagan, I illegally sold weapons to Iran, and then illegally took that money and illegally gave it to Nicaraguan death squads. Or as we called it back then, simply acting."
But point taken. Reagan wouldn't let these freedom-hating Russian Ukrainians push us around. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Reagan simply acted.
KATIE COURIC (10/6/2009): When the Soviet Union invaded in 1979, a group of Afghan Muslims declared a holy war. They were known as the Mujahedeen. ... Both the Carter and Reagan administrations gave the Mujahadeen $3 billion dollars in military aid to fight the Soviets.
Problem solved. (audience laughter) Reagan style!
KATIE COURIC (10/6/2009): The most militant, extremist faction of the Mujahideen turned into the Taliban.
(audience laughter)
Right. But we didn't have to fight those guys for at least 12 more years, and Reagan was simply gone by then. And when the freedom-loving Iraqis got into a war with Iran, Reagan simply acted, allowing Saudi Arabia to sell Saddam Hussein American-made weapons. But we didn't have to fight that guy for like two more years. And then again 12 years after that.
The point is this! Reagan acted! No matter what the fuck was going to happen! (audience laughter) Not like ol' President Sits on His Hands, content to do nothing but fire Hellfire missiles into foreign countries, and arm Syrian rebels, and bomb Libya. You know, passive stuff. (audience laughter)
Anyway, the point is, while we were dilly-dallying, Putin got the advantage. I'm sure his man Yanukovych was strengthening his grip on authority, while loosening the grip on his shirt, and then the two of them were going to do some sort of Slavic man-boob power transfer.
FOX NEWS (2/22/2014): President Viktor Yanukovych, fleeing the capitol city of Kiev.
KATE BOLDUAN (2/24/2014): An interim president has been appointed, and the country is set to vote for their new president in May elections.
Wait. The Putin guy fled? Forces of freedom prevailed? I think it's pretty clear what happened here: the ghost of Reagan! (audience laughter) Haunted Yanukovych, told him to leave Boo-raine. There's no other explanation!
ABC7 (2/25/2014): Two days before he fled, an Obama administration official says he was on the phone for more than two hours with Vice President Joe Biden. Biden told him the window for a resolution to the crisis was quickly closing.
No wonder he got the fuck out of there. (audience laughter) Two hours on the phone with Joe Biden? (audience laughter and applause) We'll be right back.
Video below the fold.
Jon also covered the
capture of Mexican drug lord El Chapo.
Meanwhile, Stephen looked at a HuffPo article on your child possibly being
Hitler in a past life, before moving on to the right-wing outrage over the
Pentagon's proposed budget cuts, leading to another
Wørd segment.
He then noted how the
paper lobby is trying to prevent Congress from moving to paperless technology.
Jon talked with theoretical physicist
Michio Kaku, and Stephen had on
St. Vincent, who performed "
Digital Witness" and "
Birth in Reverse".