John Oliver Comforts Jon Stewart Over the Dissolution of American Pride

It's kinda cute the way the U.S. media jumps all over "news" stories like Casey Anthony's murder trial and Anthony Weiner's Twitter crotch and Sarah Palin's Sarah Palin. Though, it is genuinely humbling to watch Rupert Murdoch's News of the World implosion unfold from across the pond and see how far we truly have to fall…

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11/10c.

Tags: David Cameron, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, News of the World, Rupert Murdoch, The Daily Show, United Kingdom, Video

Indecision Internationale: It's the End of the News of the World as We Know It

They say a week is a long time in politics. Well this feels like a century. And I've spent much of it updating my American friends on a very British story. And each time, watching their virtual jaws drop lower and lower.

There's been a news story running around for a while that the best-selling English language newspaper, News of the World, had been a bit naughty. Published for 170 years, the last few decades of have seen it owned by Fox News' Rupert Murdoch and News International, becoming a sister Sunday paper to their daily paper The Sun. It has since moved on from exposing vicars and priests attending orgies to hacking the mobile phone voice mails of sports stars, royals, pop stars and politicians to get stories.

This is the kind of thing that seems to drop the jaws of Americans, but although illegal in the UK, it's not a type of journalistic behavior that seems outside the norm to the public in general. It was seen as something saucy and naughty. Even if the ex-Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott, who was caught out having an affair with his secretary, has kept talking about it every chance he could.

Here it is, though, in a nutshell: NOTW editor Andy Coulson resigned in 2007 over phone-hacking allegations, but NOTW maintained that there was only one dodgy private detective and one dodgy journalist who were at fault and everything else was whiter than white. No one believed them.

No one apart from Prime Minister David Cameron, who hired Coulson as his director of communications (press secretary), and who is best friends with the previous NOTW editor, and current News International executive, Rebekah Brooks (who had at one point had been arrested for assaulting her then-husband and soap-star actor known for playing a hard man).

Coulson had to resign again when the phone-hacking story reappeared, as celebrities found they could threaten to sue NOTW and get an instant six-or-seven figure settlement. That was the status quo until this week. And jaws started dropping over here as well.

Read More »

Tags: David Cameron, Fox, Gordon Brown, Indecision Internationale, Rupert Murdoch, Scandalgate, United Kingdom

Jon Stewart on Britain's Transfer of Power

I don't know about you, but this recent British election has been very educational for me. For example, on last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart talked about the process of Gordon Brown stepping down as Prime Minister and passing the torch to David Cameron. It's the most fascinating UK-related thing I've ever seen that wasn't sped up and set to the tune of "Yakety Sax."

The Daily Show airs Monday through Thursday at 11pm / 10c.

Tags: David Cameron, England, Gordon Brown, John Oliver, Jon Stewart, Queen Elizabeth II, The Daily Show, United Kingdom, Video

Indecision Internationale 2010: The Morning After the Weekend Before

Update: Brown is resigning and the British economy sinks into the Atlantic.

———————————–

The British people has spoken! And they have said "Ummm…"

With no overall winner in the British General Election, negotiations as to which political parties will form the next British government have continued through the weekend. Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats has continued to be a pricktease to both Still-Hanging-on-as-Prime-Minister Gordon Brown of the Labour Party and Leader-of-the-Opposition-But-We-Got-More-Votes-than-Brown David Cameron of the Conservative Party.

Those are the official titles, by the way, Oh yes.

So as we are a government-less country, chimney sweeps have taken to the streets in a battle with boisterous soccer fans, rising around on red double decker buses, and brandishing their unset, un-whitened teeth, while Lily Allen, Sir Michael Cain, Paul McCartney, David Beckham and any other Brits you may have vaguely heard of try to keep order. Or something like that. Look, I can fight against stereotypes, but sometimes you’ve just got to go with them.

Read More »

Tags: Conservative Party (UK), David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Indecision Internationale, Labour Party (UK), Liberal Democrat Party (UK), Nick Clegg, United Kingdom

Andrew Sullivan Teaches Stephen Colbert the True Meaning of a Very, Very Hung Parliament

The Daily Dish's Andrew Sullivan was on The Colbert Report last night to discuss the clustershag Britons are currently experiencing, and the responses are apparently pouring in…

Was that a beard, or did a beaver die on your face?

Does it have to be one or the other? Isn't compromise supposed to be the upside of a parliamentary system?

The Colbert Report airs Monday through Thursday at 11:30pm / 10:30c.

Tags: Andrew Sullivan, Conservative Party (UK), David Cameron, Gordon Brown, Indecision Internationale, Labour Party (UK), Liberal Democrat Party (UK), Nick Clegg, Porn, Queen Elizabeth, Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report, United Kingdom