TheStar.com - Stewart gets serious, why won't reporters?

TheStar.com - Stewart gets serious, why won't reporters?: "The Bush administration continues to massacre the truth with almost no contradiction from the media. Last week, there was Vice-President Dick Cheney, lying again, in a speech in Minnesota, where he repeated the popular Republican refrain of how Kerry and Edwards are the number one and four 'most liberal'' members of the Senate.

It's a line that the right has been using to beat up the Kerry-Edwards ticket for weeks — but never had I seen it explained or sourced by anybody on TV. Not, at least, until last Tuesday's Daily Show.

Stewart interviewed the too-slick-for-his-own-good Texan congressman Henry Bonilla, who worked on the Republican's truth squad during the convention. It was his job to counter the Democrat spin.

Fair enough. But not fair when it's a load of bull re-heated and served up by Big Media. Those who watched the convention coverage picked up the stink.

Stewart, on the other hand, did not allow Bonilla off the hook. He kept jabbing until Bonilla looked like an obfuscating fool. The best moment came when Bonilla implied that all kinds of objective groups were involved in compiling the rankings.

'You have conservative groups on our side, there are business groups, there are people who track tax bills and spending bills and things like that, trial lawyers track us, unions, and all of these groups are kind of the, ah, understood authorities,' he said.

Replied Stewart: 'You know who seems to be the only people not tracking you? The American public. We're the only ones!'"