Jon Stewart Lampoons Sen. Stevens’ Net Nonsense

Jon Stewart teed off on Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Ted Stevens’ instantly infamous speech about Net Neutrality, in which the 85-year-old in charge of regulating Internet commerce betrayed a stunning ignorance of Net fundamentals.

Watch it:

After playing a clip of Stevens’ nearly incoherent speech, Stewart said:

All right, that might have sounded more like something you’d hear from, let’s say, a crazy old man in an airport bar at 3 a.m. than the chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee. Uhhh, I’m sorry sir, I don’t think I understand your dump-truck-tube symposium.

After playing another clip in which Stevens referred to “an enormous amount of material” clogging the Internet, Stewart responded:

There’s apparently an enormous amount of material clogging Ted Stevens’ tubes. Perhaps a little fiber ... optic cable might be the answer.

Also, in his speech, Stevens said that he didn’t receive “an internet”—by which he probably meant an e-mail—until a few days after it was sent. Stewart had this to say about that revelation:

Actually, why didn’t Sen. Stevens get it until yesterday? Well, this is just a little bit of a guess, but maybe it’s because you don’t seem to know jack shit about computers or the Internet. But hey, you’re just the guy in charge of regulating it, so what difference does it make?