Last night, Jon Stewart covered the David Petraeus sex scandal, and turned to how Fox News was covering the story by coming up with all sorts of insane conspiracies.
It's an age-old story. Boy meets girl, boy marries girl, boy gets promoted, boy bangs underling. Nothing more, nothing less. Or is there?
GRETCHEN CARLSON (11/12/2012): This was announced on Friday, three days after the presidential election. Was it held?
PEGGY NOONAN (11/11/2012): When was the White House told? You just have to wonder what the heck is this?
PAUL GIGOT (11/11/2012): Awful convenient to be told on Tuesday at 5pm of Election Day, which is the story now. It just... it frankly doesn't pass the smell test.
It has a yucky smell!
Conspiracy #1: The FBI held back the Petraeus affair story to prevent Obama from losing the election. Why Petraeus's affair would have any impact on the election, I'm not really sure. The point is, if only a Republican had known about this prior to Election Day, ha-hah!
BARBARA STARR (11/12/2012): House Majority Leader Eric Cantor said an FBI employee told him in October about the Petraeus affair.
Oh. The real question is, why is Eric Cantor protecting the President? All right, conspiracy 1 down. Why would the administration want to take out Petraeus now?
REP. JASON CHAFFETZ, R-UT (11/10/2012): This is highly suspicious in its timing.
KT MCFARLAND (11/12/2012): A few days before Petraeus is set to testify about what he knew about Benghazi and what the CIA did. It just doesn't make sense.
STEVE DOOCY (11/12/2012): So many people are saying, well that's kind of suspicious.
REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, R-FL (11/11/2012): This is very suspicious.
JENNIFER GRIFFIN (11/9/2012): The fact that he no longer will have to testify.
GRETCHEN CARLSON (11/12/2012): And now he's not going to testify, folks.
They jacked him! Right before he was about to testify on Benghazi! Conspiracy #2! Now we'll never know what Petraeus knew! Unless quitting is different from dying. And has no bearing on whether Petraeus will have to testify.
FOX BUSINESS CHANNEL MAN (11/12/2012): That's a little bit nonsense, because he will be summoned up to the Hill, and he will testify.
Or will he? (listens to earpiece) Oh. He will.
Of course, Petraeus has already spoken once to Congress about Benghazi. We know what that's worth.
GRETCHEN CARLSON (11/12/2012): What did David Petraeus do right after we started finding out about Benghazi? He seemed to side with the White House in the analysis that it was the videotape. ... Why did David Petraeus side with the White House in that testimony? He knew he was under investigation for his personal life. But is there more to this story about why he said that?
Conspiracy #3: Either the President of the United States blackmailed the head of the CIA, forcing him to agree with the administration's lie, or that theory is stupid. Can't be both! (audience cheering and applause)
Still though, while we don't have facts, we do have... feelings.
PEGGY NOONAN (11/11/2012): This is one of those "What the heck is going on?" kind of moments. ... This feels a little Homeland, almost.
Really? Like the show Homeland? 'Cause it's not Homeland, it's Melrose Place.
Here's the conspiracy. A powerful man had an affair with a fawning admirer. Then all of a sudden, she saw some other girl flirting with him, and she was all like, (e-mail) "Why are you flirting with my man? Better step off, because (text) I stole him first!" And then the other girl's all "I'm gonna call my friend who works at the FBI because you're scaring the shit out of me!"
My God! This goes all the way to the top! Well, not necessarily the top. To that area between the pelvis and the upper thigh. We'll be right back.
Video and full transcript below the fold.
Meanwhile, Stephen also briefly
looked at the Petraeus scandal, before seeing the danger Karl Rove is in with his super PAC, resulting in him
shutting down his super PAC and
moving the money to a different 501(c)4.
He then had another
Blitzkrieg on Grinchitude segment.
Jon had on Mike Huckabee, who got two segments. It still went long, so here's the whole interview in two parts.
Part 1
Part 2
Stephen talked with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.