(Video) Hayes: Bush Administration never called anyone a traitor

Jon Stewart is one funny man -- we all know that.  But sometimes you can tell when guests get under his skin.  Last night, Stephen F. Hayes -- author of the book Cheney: The Untold Story of America's Most Powerful and Controversial Vice President -- was on.  Around the end of the interview, as you'll see, Stewart was noticeably irked when Hayes claimed that neither Cheney nor any prominent conservative insinuated that any American opposing the war was a traitor.

Stewart even lashed out at Fox News' Jon Gibson.  Just days ago, the Fox host labeled Stewart a phony when he broke down in tears after 9/11:

STEWART: Then stop making the rest of us feel like idiots when we question their strategy in the war on terror ...and I don't mean you, I mean them.  I think they've gone out of their way to seemingly belittle people, you know -- he's actually literally come out and said if you don't elect us, we might get hit again.  To me, that is -- I can't jibe the portrait you paint of the steadfast leader with the fear-mongering, not bright guy that I have seen.

HAYES: Yeah, but I, no really, I mean isn't that essentially the case of what this debate has been since 2001?

STEWART: No.  They keep saying that we don't understand the nature of this war.  And critics keep saying, "We do understand the nature of it, you've just been doing it wrong."

HAYES: Yeah, so why -- what is the quality of difference there?

STEWART: Well no, the difference there is we're not calling them traitors.

HAYES: Yeah, but I don't think the Administration has called anybody a traitor.

It's easy to down-play rhetoric when you are the one dishing it out.  But when your patriotism gets personally challenged, as mine has and maybe all of you as well, it's like a punch to the gut.  And we're done putting up with it.

Comments

[Tony]

Jon spanked Hayes. It seemed like Hayes wouldn't betray Cheney no matter what...he made excuse after excuse for Dick.