Jon Stewart returned from his lengthy summer hiatus and immediately hit the big story of the day, which is how the US can best rescue Barack Obama’s credibility. He called the exercise a “d***-measuring contest” that offers nothing more than a lesson in hypocrisy — or perhaps a demand for more organic massacres in the future:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsVW9pjjA7g

“You got to see the red line,” the “Daily Show” host said after returning to the show from a 12-week absence. “You can’t use chemicals to use your own people. You have to do it organically. America and the world want to make sure Assad uses only locally-sourced free long-ranged land of ordinance. Now, back in the early 80s, we knew Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran and were likely to use them again. Not only did we not attack them we supported Iraq, we supported Iraq in doing that and of course, we still get to use bunker-busters, cluster bombs and mark-77, which is not, not filled with napalm, technically. So given the fact that we have no idea who has control over these chemical weapons in a failed Syria, remind us again why we have to do this?” …

“We have to bomb Syria because we are in seventh grade,” Stewart said. “And the red line — the red line that they crossed is actually a dick-measuring ribbon. Why does holding back look like weakness? Isn’t it maturity? It’s like the guy who is picking on Clark Kent and he doesn’t do anything, even though he knows he could throw that guy into the sun. I’ll tell you what would be real weakness — Clark Kent laying waste to a town because someone called him a pussy.”

Actually, I think that describes what happened in the last thirty minutes of Man of Steel.

Stewart also had some blunt words for the parade of politicians advocating American intervention in Syria, calling them the “idiot parade” and demanding that they, er, shut up.  It’s definitely worth a watch, and perhaps more importantly, a peek into how Obama’s demand for war powers is playing with his core audience of younger voters.  This isn’t the “hope and change” they expected.