(Editor’s Note: The last three paragraphs of this editorial were inadvertently omitted in the May 10 print edition. The full text follows.)
Popular political commentator and comedian Jon Stewart turned to the issue of Syria on The Daily Show last week. Specifically, he took aim at some Republican senators who are urging the United States to provide more support for the rebels fighting the regime of dictator Bashar Assad.
“We begin tonight’s comedy program in the Middle East,” said Stewart, introducing the segment with a map of the region projected behind him.
Stewart played clips of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., scoring the Obama administration’s lack of action, in the face of 70,000 Syrian civilians killed by the Assad regime over the past two years. In another video clip, Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., declares, “We have never let something like that happen before.”
“Thank you,” Stewart says sarcastically, regarding the remarks by the gentleman from Georgia. “Well, obviously except for, you know, Rwanda, and Darfur, and Bosnia, and Cambodia — point taken. We as America have never let something like that happen before — in Syria, with this particular Assad.”
As for Graham’s suggestion that the U.S. should arm the “right” rebels and not Islamist extremists trying to bring down the Assad government, Stewart gets in a dig at one of the NRA’s favorites in Congress: “Maybe we can do background checks.”
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