Former Governor Tim Pawlenty was on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart last night. Per Stewart’s request the two stayed clear of the current debate regarding civility in U.S. politics that has dominated the airwaves since last Saturday’s tragic shooting. Instead, the interview circled around one point that Pawlenty either simply did not understand or just refused to answer. Stewart posed the question of whether the Obama administration is fundamentally something different in terms of tyranny, as many on the right would have it. Or–given examples such as No Child Left Behind, enacted under the Bush II administration–is the rhetoric around Big Government simply a tool to fire up a voting bloc, administered when it is politically helpful and otherwise ignored when it would be hurtful. In other words, where’s the consistency? The former governor somehow gets out of the 20 minute interview without ever directly answering the question.
In regards to that discussion of civility that this interview managed to avoid, it’s worth taking a look back at Stewart’s speech at the end of his Rally to Restore Sanity late last year. Some, apparently, have been trying to talk about this for a while now.
Source: The Daily Show