Stewart: Networks preparing 'summertime erection' over Supreme Court fight

Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens announced last week he was retiring after 35 years on the bench. The cable news networks immediately began to promote the nomination fight that's sure to take place in the coming months.

But Jon Stewart says the hype has just begun. "The media is gearing up for their summertime erection," he predicted.

"Mother f**ker!" Stewart exclaimed at the news that Stevens was retiring from the Supreme Court, saying the media had just gotten through covering health care reform. "We couldn't have two weeks. You couldn't give us two weeks, Stevens, to relax and take a breath."

Cable news pundits were quick to state the obvious. "The question is how ugly will it get," CNN's legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin remarked.

"Considering last week we were fight[ing over] whether slavery was part of the civil war, I think the Supreme Court thing could get pretty f**king ugly. I'm sick of it," lamented Stewart.

The Comedy Central host then produced an bottle of liquid labeled "poisonous concoction" and threatened to gulp as news clips predicted the fight to come.

Fox's Malini Wilkes called the process an "ugly partisan nomination fight." Another Fox News anchor called it "the showdown of the summer." A third Fox anchor referred to it as a "bloody fight."

Stewart invited The Daily Show's Senior Supreme Court Correspondent, Dash Worthington, to provide some analysis on Stevens' retirement.

"Dash, what do you make of Justice Stevens' decision to step down?" asked Stewart.

"He's a quitter," observed Worthington.

The Justice is 90 and has served for 35 years but that didn't seem to matter to Worthington. "This guy is a p*ssy. A quitter p*ssy -- a p*ssy."

This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast April 12, 2010.