The response to the first podfisk has been extremely positive, with some advice and caveats:
I must admit, the first minute or so of it did not instill great confidence. Commenting on whether or not the President is bored sets a tone that conveys an inclination to reject whatever he says. Certainly, you are completely justified in doing so at this point in the Administration’s history, but I still think it’s unnecessary.
However, once the speech got rolling, you did well, and I found your commentary to be excellent. More broadly, by doing this for an entire speech (as opposed to the one-off line analysis typically found on Russert and the others), you are simply unable to take a line out of context and truly get away with it, because such a stunt would easily be exposed as the speech continued. Finally, through your podfisk, you made me do something I never thought possible – I actually listened to an entire radio broadcast by the President.
Yes, my other half said the same thing about the snarky beginning and edited some of it out. He was right. He tends to be. Another reader notices something:
Could I make a suggestion if you do what you call "podfisking" again? Don’t be drinking or smoking or whatever it was you were doing when you recorded that – very distracting.
They’re suppressed belches, alas. I’d just eaten three sloppy joes and knocked back a Jager shot. I’ll do the next one on an empty stomach. Meanwhile, on the substance, a recently married gay reader writes:
Marriage is absolutely nothing like being partners/boyfriends/lovers. It is so incredibly richer than I ever imagined it could be. Even though our marriage is Canadian and isn’t recognized in the U.S., it is recognized by our families and friends and coworkers, and most importantly by us. You have no idea the treasure that has been kept from gays and lesbians because we haven’t been able to marry. It isn’t just a one-time act in front of an audience, it is a life-altering event joining two people as one.
Having attended one last year and basically bawled through the whole thing, I know. It is life-altering; it is ennobling; it’s experientially more intense than anything most gay people have ever experienced. It heals emotional wounds many gay people don’t even know we bear. And that’s why some want to keep it from us. They want to keep us from those feelings of being one with our own families; they want to keep us outside the society we grew up in; they want to deny us the love and support heterosexuals take for granted. Marriage humanizes gay people and shows us in the context of love and commitment, rather than merely sex. This corrodes the far right’s attempt to portray us as "subhuman" or "objectively disordered" or "sinners". That’s why they are so adamant on keeping us as second class citizens. But we have to trust the good sense and ultimate tolerance of most Americans. They have every right to be leery of such a change; and we have a duty to explain and argue and persuade them why they’re wrong. Person by person, state by state. But it’s great, I might add, to be getting so much support from so many straight people as well. Thanks, Jon Stewart. We won’t forget who stood with us in this.
The Dish 