Nick Cohen: Why Bush has been a liberal's best friend

If you search on the net for 'Jon Stewart', 'finance reform' and 'Obama', you will find one of the most unintentionally funny sketches the US Comedy Central network has broadcast. Stewart dissects Barack Obama's hypocrisy with his usual goggle-eyed relish. He shows that the Democrat had been all for the public funding of presidential candidates until he realised that his privately raised campaign donations would allow him to outspend John McCain. Stewart's audience makes a far better spectacle than the comedian on the stage, however. They had roared when he mocked Bush, Clinton and McCain, but when he ridiculed Obama, a few tittered nervously and most sunk into a shocked silence. Ordinary political satire had become a kind of blasphemy. 'You are allowed to laugh at him,' Stewart said. Hardly anyone wanted to. Like other US... [read full story]