Protective of my blood pressure, I've stopped watching the Daily Show but curiosity about his response to Obama's press conference led me to risk it yesterday. I was shocked to discover what an ignoramus he is. I am not just referring to his beginning the monologue with the news that two American servicemen returned from Djibouti. Djibouti? He kept repeating the name in wonder. His obvious, if erroneous, implication being that the place which controls the passageway from the Suez Canal to the Indian Ocean has no strategic value and, therefore, the idea that any American soldiers were ever there is ridiculous.

Then came some inane comedy wannbe entitled"Land of the Spree" starring Aasif Mandvi. I would not have minded it had it not included Aasif brandishing a large MACHETE. Sorry, but there is nothing, absolutely nothing funny about machetes as weapons of choice. It is the weapon of choice of genocidal Africans. It was used to murder over a million Rwandans and, more recently, thousands of Kenyans. Next, Jon will use crematoria for his comedy routines.

But it was in his attempt to validate the Rev. Wright's pronouncement that 9/11 represented American" chickens coming home to roost" that his ignorance reached its peek. To my surprise, Newt Gingrich failed to set him straight. Jon said:

Don't preachers by their nature believe in a causality that God lifts his veil of protection based on our actions? Isn't it by the nature of preachers to believe such things? Don't white preachers have similar beliefs? But when they counsel a candidate no one really focuses on them?

The short answer is that I most certainly hope not. Such a theology would mean that slavery, not to mention Jim Crow and all other African and African American misfortunes, was nothing more than African" chickens coming home to roost" and the Holocaust Jewish" chickens coming home to roost." And, yes, the death of a child is its own or his parents'" chickens coming home to roost." It is the simplistic theology adhered to by Job's friends and strongly repudiated by God.

That Jon Stewart will try to sell his audience the notion that such a crude answer to the problem of"why bad things happen to good people?" is mainstream is truly disturbing. That he would do so for ideological reasons would be even worse. Let's hope he is simply an ignoramus who fails to understand the implications of his own pronouncements. Unfortunately, his audience thinks him not only clever but knowledgeable. Hence, the sad and dangerous rub.