Jon Stewart: Election losers do their best to 'polish that turd'

Following Tuesday's elections, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart focused on the efforts of the losers to "polish that turd" by portraying themselves as having won no matter what the outcome.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tim Kaine insisted that even though incumbent New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine lost to his Republican challenger, he "was down by 15 points essentially in the middle of the summer and came within an eyelash of winning that all back."

"He lost by four percent," Stewart commented. "Those are some thick fucking eyelashes."

When it came to the election in New York's 23rd Congressional District, Fox News commentators confidently predicted early in the evening that Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman would "ride a tidal wave of support all the way to Washington, DC." When Hoffman lost to the Democratic candidate, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele was reduced to proclaiming confidently, "We have a chance to get the seat back in about a year -- which we likely will."

"You got 'em right where you want 'em!" Stewart agreed enthusiastically. "I mean, if you'd have won, you'd just have to spend the next year and a half worrying about keeping the seat. Who's the Jedi Master now?"

"Turns out the only loser-loser of the night was the only person not actually running," Stewart continued, showing a series of TV pundits like Fox's Bill O'Reilly proclaiming the Republican victories in two gubernatorial elections to be "a huge, huge defeat for President Obama" and Charles Krauthammer pontificating, "I think what this night does is it completely explodes the mythology of the meaning of the '08 election."

"Damn it!" Stewart exclaimed. "The only chance for Barack Obama now to retain the presidency would be to take a page from the Palin playbook. Resign, write a book, see if he can get his head together, start working for change through the only effective avenues -- Facebook and Twitter accounts."

This video is from Comedy Central's The Daily Show, broadcast Nov. 4, 2009.