I did not know this about Jon Stewart.

Let's face it:  there is too much to keep up with.  I think most everyone understands this at some level or another.  Still, I admit that this caught me by real surprise:

This morning, I saw Kurt link to this fairly amazing Daily Show clip on...Project Gunwalker:

Wow!

What's most amazing is how well he captured some of the dynamic in this.  (No, not all of it--but more on that later in this post.)  As satire, it was well-done;  the absurdity of actual events comes right through and it's funny because of it.  As he says in the middle of the segment,

You're baiting me...

So the head of the ATF didn't just know about this plan...
he was TiVo-ing it.

Even for those of us who have been following this since Mike and David broke it in January, that's just funny.  And as "The Birdcage Liner Of Record" and "Pravda on the Potomac" continue to run their hitpieces of denial in unquestioned support of the Establishment's bullshit story(ies), one can't help but grin a little bit as The Daily Show lays the gist of it right out there.

Now...please do not misunderstand.  I have not suddenly started believing that we'll solve our problems by politely and officially appealing to the mercies of those who foisted it upon us in the first place, despite Mike's and David's heroic efforts (which have gone further than I ever expected them to in the first place--those guys are nothing if not inspiring).  There is also the (significant) issue that "solving" Gunwalker will not only return us to the uninterrupted victim-disarmament-parade-in-progress, but in the end will have "shown" (just you watch) that even the most ardent ATF critics aren't really contesting the need for Federal gun laws, but rather just the competence with which they are enforced. (No, this doesn't have to be at all related to what people actually think, but you understand that already, right?)

But, and please forgive me for the simple prurience:  dang, it's sure fun to watch 'em hoisted by their own petard, innit? Seriously, this could not be happening to a nicer bunch of fellas!

___________________

It was in chasing a link in Kurt's article above, talking about how this was not the first time that Stewart had made it (favorably) into a Gun Rights Examiner piece, that I realized I had missed John Pierce's article from last September, here.  In it were two real surprises.  First, check out this segment.  Be sure to catch the whole thing to get the full effect:

Did you catch this quote?  Pierce has it as text in his article:

He said the apology was for “connecting irresponsibly the actions of two psychotics to an entire group of reasonable people expressing their Constitutional rights... the point is, I was wrong and Heston was right.”

I'm not saying we're suddenly dealing with a Rothbard libertarian here, but my respect level for Stewart has definitely just gone up.

The biggest surprise, though, was that Pierce quietly linked to this segment, without so much as a word about his own (obvious) involvement in it:

Dang!  Again, I did not know this about Jon Stewart.  That's an amazingly forthright piece, given the subject, and again, his satire works as a foil to the absurdity of moral relativism based on which rights you like and which ones you don't.

___________________

Which brings me back to Gunwalker.  (Told you I'd get back to it.  :-)

As good as the segment was, Stewart didn't even touch what may be the real zinger behind Gunwalker:  that the whole thing may have been a cynical political ploy to manufacture support for domestic gun control.  (You laugh.  "Was Watergate just a third-rate burglary?")

I'm guessing that he just may not know about that part yet.  But given all the above, I do wonder now just what he'd do with it.