@hingehead,
From snood's earlier link, Stewart inspired Shepard Smith who took it and ran with it. Even Rachael Maddow had a segment in which she said, "All Hail, Shep Smith at Fox News... And I'm not kidding!"
Source with video
snood's earlier HP link wrote:Smith said he had watched Jon Stewart's Thursday show, which was devoted exclusively to the bill. He called Stewart "absolutely right," and said the holdup on the bill was shameful:
He made it his cause celeb and didn't drop it until it passed. At one point he ran 37 seconds of nailing Coburn on air.
Quote:In an act of public shaming, Smith displayed a photo of Coburn as if it were a wanted poster, urging his viewers to get a good look at “the man who is vowing to slow this down or block it, so the necessary funding for the illnesses of the first responders…doesn’t make it through”:
SMITH: Again, this is the picture of Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma. He is the man who is vowing to slow this down or block it, so the necessary funding for the illnesses of the first responders who made it to Ground Zero to try to save lives on the day that America changed — remember? This is the senator who is vowing to block it. So that it doesn’t make it through. Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, the man who vows today to block or delay the 9/11 first responders bill despite the fact that Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York say they have the votes to get it done.
video
I doubt highly that Stewart's show alone was enough to trigger the Republicans to move on this before next year. It was getting nailed by their own supporters -- which does come back to Stewart via Smith -- that got it done. 37 seconds of having Coburn's picture on air with a diatribe from SS didn't hurt any either, I'm sure.
