More On:
Coronavirus
COVID-19 cases surge in poorest nations with vaccine shortages
WHO warns of COVID surge in Indonesia fed by virus variants
Belly flop: House Democrat gets too comfortable in Homeland hearing
US will spend $3B to develop antiviral pills for COVID-19
Jon Stewart is getting attacked by his usual lefty admirers after fully throwing his support behind the belief that COVID-19 leaked from a Chinese lab.
The former “Daily Show” host started going viral after a blistering appearance on “The Late Show” Monday in which he scoffed at anyone who doubted that the pandemic originated in Wuhan could not be tied to the major coronavirus-studying lab in the same city.
“The disease is the same name as the lab!” he repeatedly said, saying, “That’s f–ed up.”
His support of the theory — long rubbished by the left after being touted by former President Trump and his administration — appeared to irk host Stephen Colbert, who flailed around for comebacks.
“And how long have you worked for Sen. Ron Johnson?” Colbert asked, comparing Stewart, 58, to the Republican Senator who last week said that evidence of a lab leak “has been hiding in plain sight for months.”
Amid a barrage of outrage from leftist commentators on social media, Stewart’s appearance even drew an op-ed in The Washington Post.
Opinion writer Paul Waldman openly admitted that much of his beef was that Stewart “always delighted more in skewering Republicans,” suggesting that his new direction meant he was no longer an “immensely important figure.”
“This [lab-leak] theory has become associated with conservatives trying to prove that former President Donald Trump was right about everything,” he said, ignoring the fact that President Biden has ordered a major investigation into it.
Stewart’s lengthy tirade came when he was asked about scientific measures tied to the pandemic as he appeared on Colbert’s first “Late Show” back in front of a live audience.
“Science has, in many ways, helped ease the suffering of this pandemic … which was more than likely caused by science,” he said to nervous laughter and applause.
Colbert made it clear he does not support the lab-leak theory, asking his guest, “Do you mean perhaps there’s a chance that this was created in a lab? If there’s evidence I’d love to hear it.”
“A chance? Oh my god!” Stewart replied with clear incredulity. “There’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China, what do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab.
“The disease is the same name as the lab! That’s just a little too weird, don’t you think?” he said.
He then pretended to be a Wuhan scientist claiming that the pandemic started when “a pangolin kissed a turtle” or “a bat flew into the cloaca of a turkey, and then it sneezed into my chili and now we all have coronavirus.”
“There’s been an outbreak of chocolatey goodness near Hershey, Pennsylvania — what do you think happened?” he said of another make-believe scenario.
“Oh, I don’t know, maybe a steam shovel mated with a cocoa bean … or it’s the f—ing chocolate factory. Maybe that’s it!” he said.
At one point, Stewart walked straight up to the camera for a soliloquy to make sure his argument was clear.
“‘I have been alone so long, and when I realized that the laboratory was having the same name — first name and last name — of the evil that had been plaguing us, I thought to myself, ‘That’s f–ed up,’” he said.
Despite conceding that even White House disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is open to the lab-leak theory — one that President Biden has ordered an investigation of — Colbert continued to push back.
“It could be possible that they have the lab … because in Wuhan there are a lot of coronavirus diseases because of the bat population there,” he suggested.
“It’s the only place you can find bats,” Stewart replied sarcastically, pointing out that “Austin, Texas has thousands of them that fly out of a cave every night at dusk” but “there doesn’t seem to be an Austin coronavirus.”
“The only coronavirus we have is in Wuhan where they have a lab called – what’s the lab called again, Stephen?” he asked his host.
“The Wuhan novel coronavirus lab,” Colbert responded.
One online commentator noted how Colbert seemed “hilariously uncomfortable” at the theory supported by “one of his heroes.”
“Six months ago he’d have to condemn Stewart as a right-wing xenophobic conspiracy theorist,” journalist Michael Tracey wrote.
Lawyer and TV pundit Clay Travis also noted that “until a month ago Facebook would have blocked this from being distributed.”
“In the space of a year left wingers and their allies in big tech have moved from ridiculing and silencing anyone who suggested covid may have come from a Chinese lab to ridiculing anyone who doesn’t believe covid came from a Chinese lab. It’s head spinning,” he wrote.
Even Donald Trump Jr. noted the irony of Stewart’s support of the theory, which he called “always the most plausible argument.”
“Imagine the people laughing with Jon Stewart if you said this about 3 weeks ago?!? They’d tar and feather you,” he tweeted.
Share this article:
Source: Read Full Article
