Jon Stewart Rocks

I love The Daily Show. Jon Stewart and his writers -- several of whom, as I learned from Jesse earlier today, are graduates from the UW -- are really just damn funny... and damn right.

Tonight, Rob Corddry argued that "there is an enormous gap between what John Kerry means and what the Republicans say he means." Jon, of course, objected, so Rob clarified: "John Kerry has had a really hard time being straightforward about admitting what the Republicans say he believes!"

Now that's funny.

It all stemmed, of course, from a discussion of the Republicans' death grip on Kerry's use of the phrase "global test" in the debate last week. They're all insisting that he meant that, before we go to war, we must get the approval of other countries; that we would be giving "countries like France" the power to veto it. Here it is in context:

JIM LEHRER: What is your position on the whole concept of preemptive war?

JOHN KERRY: The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.

No president, though all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons.

You be the judge.