Lisa Rein, Clarke, etc.
Lisa Rein has done us all a huge favor. In recent days she’s linked a large number of video clips from The Daily Show, 60 Minutes, and elsewhere. I’m just working through the clips now. The Daily Show’s longish coverage of Clarke’s testimony is, of course, funny, and actually a lot more insightful than you’d get from network news. The Daily Show is a lot like the Shakespearean fool: it’s funny and spends a lot of time acting ridiculous, but it’s subtly telling us the truth. My friend Josh this weekend wondered whether this is how The Daily Show manages to attack the Bush administration so routinely without drawing any fire from the administration. Maybe satire is the only effective — or at least most effective — political commentary nowadays. I don’t know that I have the skill to carry off effective satire, but I’m glad that there are people who do. And I hope it works.
On to 60 Minutes’ report on a fake Halliburton subsidiary in the Caymans, which Lisa tells us we cannot miss.