Bill Moyers interviews Jon Stewart

Bill Moyers recently interviewed Jon Stewart for his show Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. If you have the time to watch it, I recommend it. I sat in front of my computer and watched the whole thing, something I didn’t expect to do when pressed the “play” button.

Jon Stewart likes to say “I’m just a comedian,” and it’s fun to watch Bill Moyers needling him, essentially saying, “Oh no you’re not” and Stewart says “Oh yes I am.” But in the ensuing interview, it’s obvious that years of spoofing the news have given him some lucid insights into the political process in America.

Here he is talking about Alberto Gonzales.

For instance, Alberto Gonzales … is either a perjurer, or a low-functioning pinhead. And he allowed himself to be portrayed in those hearings as a low-functioning pinhead, rather than give the Congressional Committee charged with oversight, any information as to his decision-making process at the Department of Justice.

And here he is talking about the tightrope the president has to walk between stirring up fear about Iraq but not stirring up fear of his administration.

You know, one of the things that I do think government counts on is that people are busy. It’s very difficult to mobilize a busy and relatively affluent country. … I’ve always had this problem with the rationality of it, that the President says, “We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children’s children all suffer. So, what I’m gonna do is … send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad.”

So, there’s a disconnect there between — you’re telling me this is fight of our generation, and you’re going to increase troops by 10 percent? And that’s gonna do it? I’m sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can’t, because he doesn’t have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country’s not so damn busy anymore.

Even if you don’t have time to watch the show, Moyers’ site was good enough to post the whole transcript.