JON STEWART OPENING : In the battle over abortion and women’s productive rights, pro-life groups have opened up a new front.
RICK SANTORUM (1/24/2011): For the first, well, more than 100 years in this country, when we denied personhood to human life, in the form of black people in America… now, the Supreme Court, 100 years later in 1973… they’re going to say that this group of people, human life in the womb, is going to be denied personhood.
JON STEWART OPENING: Yes, oddly enough, the pro-life movement is using the black community to make their point, equating abortion with slavery. And… throwing in a little bit of the genocide for good measure. Eh, you gotta watch it.
SEAN HANNITY: They say black women abort their children at 5 times the rate of whites in America.
RICK SANTORUM: The black population should be almost double what it is today.
JON STEWART OPENING: It’s what they’ve always wanted. For more, I’m joined by Senior Women’s Affairs Correspondent Kristen Schaal and Senior Black Correspondent Larry Wilmore. Guys, thanks so much for being here, appreciate it.
JON STEWART: The new pro-life campaign touches on both of your areas of expertise obviously, so I wanted to get both your spins on this. Larry, why don’t you start?
LARRY WILMORE: Sure, Jon. Oh, white people, I am so sorry. I had no idea that black people get 5 times more abortions than white people. I mean, I know we already kick your ass in sports and music, but… we’re dominating in that area as well? Hey, you can have abortion back, we’ll get good at math. Watch your back, Asians!
STEWART: I’m sorry, Kristen, you… are you OK? You seem upset. Are you upset by this?
KRISTEN SCHAAL: I… I don’t want to be a slaveowner. I didn’t realize that being pro-choice meant perpetrating slavery. I mean, forget about abortion, I mean, what about pregnancy? That’s keeping a fetus captive for 9 months in our middle passage, sloshing back and forth in the 100-degree heat, chained to an umbilical cord like an animal! It’s so inhumane!
STEWART: But… I don’t know if they mean it metaphorically, women obviously are not slave ships. I mean, don’t we have to balance the competing interests of the mother and the fetus? Is that…?
SCHAAL: Well, all I know is that on the next Census, I’m declaring all 300,000 of my eggs as whole people. And I’m going to give them reparations!
WILMORE: Great, even your ovaries get reparations before I do. Look, listen, I know these guys want to make a point, but you don’t do it by appropriating the worst thing that happened to other people. Equating anything you don’t like to slavery trivializes centuries of suffering. It’s like the Holocaust of analogies.
STEWART: (stunned pause) This campaign isn’t really just about slavery, it also reaches out to African-Americans in other controversial ways. Take a look at this.
AP (2/24/2011): This massive billboard standing tall over a busy street reads, “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.”
WILMORE: Come on, Jon, the womb is the most dangerous place for black people? At the most, it’s 17th, behind the Magic Johnson Theater at the premiere of a Big Momma movie.
STEWART: Wow. 17th?
SCHAAL: Yeah, Jon, 17th. We did the research, didn’t we Larry?, for a new show we just filmed for the Discovery Channel.
STEWART: What’s….? Can I ask, and again, I’m not an ad executive, but why is there a fishing boat in the promo?
SCHAAL: Oh, you’d rather if it was a giant picture of a gaping vagina?
STEWART: OK, OK, OK.
SCHAAL: I fought for that.
STEWART: Fair point, fair point. Um, is this new anti-abortion campaign an effective message for the black community?
WILMORE: Well, Jon, if politicians are so concerned about what’s killing black people, how about curing diabetes or sickle cell? Or ban something that kills us on the inside: Tyler Perry’s House of Pain.
SCHAAL: And speaking for women, those politicians should stay the hell out of our wombs.
STEWART: Oh, is that because for you, abortion is a private matter?
SCHAAL: No, because it’s not safe in there! Weren’t you listening? Deadliest Snatch!
STEWART: Please don’t… please don’t show the poster again, if that’s…. But isn’t there a valid point though to be made about, shouldn’t we work to reduce the number of abortions? Especially in the black community, or really, any community.
WILMORE: Yeah, I get their point, Jon. We need to make more black babies. And if black women’s vaginas are as dangerous as they say, I know what we have to do now.
STEWART: (confused look) Reduce rates through education and…?
WILMORE: No, Jon, we need to make black babies in a safer, cleaner alternative: white women’s vaginas!
SCHAAL: You know, if it’s interracial, it counts as black!
WILMORE: That’s true. C’mon Kristen, let’s make a black baby. (starts to take off jacket) That’s right, we’re going to start it right now, Jon.
SCHAAL: I thought… well, I thought this was just a bit.
WILMORE: Kristen, no, remember? We were in the Deadliest Snatch, I said if we ever get out, you would owe me one.
SCHAAL: One black baby?
WILMORE: Yeah!
STEWART: Larry, I really don’t think….
WILMORE: Jon, not now, not now. C’mon Kristen, think how adorable they are.
SCHAAL: Aww, and their little Timberland boots?
WILMORE: Yeah! (fist bump)
(online video cuts off here, what follows did air on TV)
SCHAAL: OK, let’s do this!
STEWART: We’re going to go.
WILMORE: Jon, can we use this right here? (points at desk)
STEWART: No, you can use that, that’s fine. We’re going to go. We’re going to be right back. Kristen Schaal and Larry Wilmore, everybody. We’ll be right back.
(h/t BruinKid for the transcript)
jibeaux
“It’s what they’ve always wanted.” ahahahhahaha
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
I can’t watch Stewart anymore, not after he smeared the demonstrations in Madison, lumping them in with the teabaggers.
TheMightyTrowel
Most excellent.
As a dirty furriner (by residence if not by citizenship) I thank you from the bottom of my pixelated persona for the transcript, ABL.
eemom
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
did he really? Damn. :(
ruemara
@eemom:
yeah, he really did. He pushed the meme that they should “stay and fight” instead of knowing that this is a filibuster tactic. Stewart is 75% correct but, that’s still better than regular news.
Is it ok if I’m kind of annoyed that the Right to Life movement used a darned near pickanniny styled child for their ad? Yeah, I know, priorities, but I find it discomforting.
Paul in KY
ABL, I’d be honored to attempt to make ‘Angry Mulatto Gentleman’ with you. I’m very white, and very angry (a twofer, if you will).
Plus, I like Timberland boots ;-)
trollhattan
Good lord that’s funny. Note to self: make sure kid is in bed before watching last night’s TDS recording.
Elvis Elvisberg
Yeah, I’d been kinda “meh” on Schaal as a TDS correspondent, but this segment, & another recent one on the GOP’s War on Women have won me over. Informative and darkly hilarious, both of them.
Brachiator
Too. Damn. Funny.
The Bobs
@Elvis Elvisberg: I like her. She has been doing good work.
Besides, someone had to fill in for Samantha Bee who has been busy having Canadian anchor babies.
Bob
I am thinking that people who grew up dodging bullets and know what dangerous living really means to Black America, and who realize that the tragic circumstances of the poor often lead to abortions, are not going to look kindly on a billboard created by a bunch of crackers living in warm homes in suburbia.
Dr. Psycho
@ruemara: What, you didn’t think they’d show a boy, did you? Especially not a boy of reproductive age.
That would not only trigger a “hey, let’s do prevent black births” response, but also hint at men being possibly partly responsible for unplanned pregnancies.
I notice myself feeling sick to my stomach as I write this. The hostility of American society towards young black men was easier for me to tolerate before I became the adoptive father of one. My poor gentle, loving son….
Jamey: Bike Commuter of the Gods
Something about funny gals, but I want to be the father to Schaal’s 300,000 babies.
Or maybe Santorum and Hannity pretending to care fuck-all about black people’s anything is a signal of end-times, and I’m just obeying my primal urge to propagate the species….
Hob
@ruemara: I’m confused. If Stewart said the legislators should’ve stayed and fought, well that’s a dumb thing to say IMO, but it has nothing to do with “smear[ing] the demonstrations in Madison, lumping them in with the teabaggers”. When did he do the latter?
Mark S.
I loved Schaal in Flight of the Conchords.
trollhattan
@The Bobs:
Yeah, she’s worked at finding a voice at TDS and I think has arrived. I look forward to her stuff. Wilmore has been funny from day 1.
Loved her wackjob groupie on “Flight of the Concords.”
Angry Black Lady
@TheMightyTrowel: you’re welcome. @eemom: stewart makes missteps. ACORN? he really fucked that one up. but his show helps soothe my angry soul, so i will allow for some missteps.
kindness
One of my ‘true blue liberal’ friends refuses to watch Stephen Colbert “because he’s so conservative”. I try to tell him Stephen is MOCKING conservatives with his schtick. He doesn’t buy it. What can you do….same guy won’t watch South Park any more because Trey & Stone are libertarians and made fun of liberals a few times. I love the guy dearly but some people..in the words of Cartman: ‘How do I reech these keeeds?’. Some you just can’t.
cleek
@trollhattan:
i think Willmore is consistently the best of the occasional correspondents. i’ve grown to hate John Hodgman’s bits, and i find Lewis Black tedious. John Oliver is usually pretty good, but Willmore is awesome – and they don’t use him enough that he wears out his welcome.
BruinKid
Aw shucks. :-) FYI, my original diary appeared here. It’s what I do. Daily Show/Colbert Report transcripts when I can find the time.
BruinKid
@Hob: Here’s the original clip Jon Stewart did that started the controversy: Crisis in Dairyland – Revenge of the Curds.
It wasn’t so much comparing the protesters to the Tea Partiers, but rather the media’s portrayal of such. And as such, he showed how Ed Schultz railed against the Tea Partiers as just “wackjobs” when they had their big rallies, but then called the Wisconsin protesters “real Americans”. I mean, astroturf or not, the Tea Partiers are “real Americans” too, are they not?
I think this subtlety was lost among some people who were too easily offended at Jon making a “false equivalence” argument.
Besides, from that same episode, the very next segment was again some great snark and satire at corporate America’s treatment of the American workforce, so you know where Jon’s allegiances lie. As Jon has pointed out several different times in the past few weeks, his mother is a schoolteacher, and he’s taking these attacks against teachers quite personally.
Mark S.
@kindness:
I once read someone talking about conservative friends they knew who watched Colbert and were completely oblivious to the fact that he’s mocking them. I don’t know how anyone could not recognize Colbert as satire.
Angry Black Lady
@BruinKid: thanks for doing it! it’s very helpful to our international friends. :)
Pococurante
@Hob: We’re being infused by firebaggers. It happens.
Tom Q
It does seem that when Jon does a “balancing” story (i.e., one mocking Democrats) he often seems to get some key fact wrong — as last night, when he did a story on Gitmo and, like most critics, omitted the part where the whole Senate voted against moving the prisoners.
To his credit, he reversed course on the WI Dems within a day, but never corrected his initial misinterpretation.
I agree that Schaal has been a sleeper — didn’t much go for her at first, but her last few pieces have been terrific. It’s nice to finally have a female beside Sam Bee who seems to fit right in. (Olivia Munn, though, ugh — pretty, but not funny) Also think Wilmore’s a gem.
It’s amazing in general that a show could lose literally its entire roster past the leading man and still hold up as well as this show does.
cleek
@Tom Q:
maybe one of his writers is a little too credulous when it comes to wingnut versions of news stories.
“Hey Jon,” cries the writer who just read something crazy on Drudge. “You’ll never believe what Obama’s done this time!”
“OK, write it up. I’ll take a look after I finish reading this book for today’s interview.”
Elvis Elvisberg
@Mark S.:
Conservatives tend not to:
@cleek: I wouldn’t say that I hate Hodgman’s appearances, but I agree with your take on the correspondents. I wish we’d see more of Larry Wilmore. His “race card” segment was one of the show’s worst misfires, up there with on Acorn, but he’s hilarious about 90% of the time. Seems to me we’re seeing a lot less of John Oliver than we used to, tho I could be mistaken.
Karen
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead):
Have we reached a point where not only are we giving litmus tests to who are true Democrats but now we’re slamming TV comedians who aren’t liberal enough for you? Jon Stewart has slammed Scott Walker and showed the hypocrisy yet if he’s trying to compare the strikers and tea party nuts Stewart is the next incarnation of Nixon.
No one is going to agree with everything you believe in. I’ve compared the tea partiers with the far left of the Democratic party that’s constantly trashing Obama and said they’re two sides of the extreme coin. Am I smearing the left?
As I’ve been reading and commenting on Balloon Juice I’ve come to realize that there are people who have no problem if Obama really was like Bush (and Cheney, the strings of the puppet) but only if he believed every single thing they believed in.
Call me silly but to me, extremism is extremism. Dictorships are dictatorships. Stupidity is stupidity no matter what side of the aisle you’re on.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
@Karen: I still like Colbert, I guess that means I only wear one jack boot.
geg6
@Pococurante:
Firebaggers, my ass. I’m about as far from a Firebagger as you can get and I have banished Jon Stewart to the David Broder Memorial Asshole Club, starting last October with his stupid rally where he equated the Dems with the GOP with all his smug Self-righteous might. Fuck him. I’ll never watch his show again and I have as much respect for him as I do David Broder (none whatsoever; I laughed at the news of his death) or any other Villager, which is obviously what Stewart aspires to be. Give me Colbert any day. Ten times the talent and heart than Stewart.
Pococurante
@geg6: Sure, and let’s banish NPR as well.
Circular firing squad. FWIW my winger friends call Stewart smug too.
Excepting Maddow I hear more revealing truth from Stewart and NPR then I do outside any US media at all.
Sure both let wingers on – and it’s a good thing. Those punks start spewing and it is pretty obvious they are lying propagandists. Bright lights and cockroaches.
Even outside the US the choices are getting slim – the BBC has been turning Rupert for several years now.
Hillary was right about al-Jazeera.
Oh sorry, didn’t mean to get between fresh air and your spleen. Continue on please.
velouria
@geg6: I agree. I finally stopped watching TDS as well. Even more than shit like the awful rally or the initial coverage of the Acorn “sting” or Wisconsin, I just got sick of watching a show that isn’t very funny most nights.
Colbert still puts on a solid show, so he gets to stay on the DVR.
Tlachtga
I have a friend who won’t watch Colbert because he did the week of shows in Iraq, showing that deep down he supports the troops, and as we all know, soldiers, since they’re volunteers, are just fascist baby-killers; but then, she thinks Democracy Now isn’t liberal enough (I forget why). She’s kind of like a character on Portlandia. I love her, but it gets tiring.
geg6
@Pococurante:
Well, if you count on NPR for truth and accuracy, no wonder you like Stewart. I’ll stick with Colbert and the BBC, thanks. But then you sound like yu’d fit right in with the Villagers. Say hi to Cokie and Bobo for me.
gil mann
I never truly understood what’s meant by “the narcissism of minor differences” until I read those two sentences back-to-back.
Paula
@gil mann: lol
Nutella
Just had to see that again.
If we truly want to free the enslaved we’ll need to switch to free-range fetuses.
cleek
@Karen:
yes. purity of thought is of utmost importance. to fail to promote the party line on even one topic is to prove oneself the enemy of the cause.