Now regard the following video:

It’s shocking how many times Colbert is cut into Taitz’s conversations. It’s not just basic interruption, a good ear would catch that most of her words have been edited out so that the only voice is Stephen’s. Sure it’s satire, but to invite someone on and make them a foil by post-production is disgusting and cheap. I thought better of you, Colbert. You don’t win arguments by erecting a straw man.

1. What exactly is Obama’s health plan. Yeah, I’ve seen the sound bytes. I’ve watched the Daily Show interview. I see the Republicans bitch about it. But what exactly is the plan? You haven’t once talked about the details. If there are none, tell us so!

2. What the hell is going on in Iraq? Obama got elected and suddenly there’s nothing important to report from our first major war since Afghanistan. Which brings me to:

3. What the hell is going on in Afghanistan? The Economist is reporting we’ve had one of the worst months of casualties in the EIGHT YEAR CONFLICT. Why the hell isn’t this a nightly discussion?

4. What the hell is going on with the economy? Ok, ok. Every economist disagrees with every other economist. That still doesn’t explain whether I’m going to have to temp for the next five years. Sure, it’s impossible to tell the future, but for God’s sake at least tell us what the possible outcomes are.

5. How much is the TARP and stimulus money helping? You were all over the debates like a fat kid on chocolate last October. Now the whole thing is treated like an amorphous blob that hangs without our periphery. There MUST be some kind of metric that can determine whether what was enacted EIGHT MONTHS AGO is having an effect.

6. What’s happening in Iran? You’ve had one night of passion with the temporary revolution and now you won’t call her back. Huge things are happening there still; you’d never know by your coverage. Is she not sexy enough for you?

7. Why are you ignoring China? The Uighurs have been rioting against one of our largest trading partners, lenders, and governmental opposites. Why is this almost completely ignored?

You want to save journalism and the newspapers? Start reporting the news, you idiots! I don’t give a damn about Sotomayor. I couldn’t care less about Goldman Sacks. Just explain to me what the hell is happening in the world!

What he has shown — and it is an important accomplishment in itself — is a mastery of the art of managing the presidency.

Trans: Obama hasn’t screwed up yet. Yes, this is a major feat.

And it is surprising, because there was no reason to assume that he had the skills to direct such a large enterprise.

Trans: We were expecting a shite-show considering his complete lack of executive experience.

Obama had a few stumbles in assembling his Cabinet and, as a result, lost the services of one potential major asset, Tom Daschle, his original choice to manage his health-care initiative.

Trans: Sure, six known tax cheaters seem like a lot, but isn’t it better to keep people above the law if they follow your political agenda?

Hardly a day has gone by in the first three months that Americans have not seen Obama on their TV screens in a variety of roles — chiefly as economic salvage director for seriously shattered housing, credit and employment systems.

Trans: Nope, we’re not sick of showing him on the TV yet.

But they’ve also seen him as commander in chief of armed forces fighting two wars, diplomatic traveler engaged with world leaders, and agenda-setter for Congress — to say nothing of first father, first fan, first consort of Michelle and first master of Bo.

Trans: “Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.”

But the overture has gone well, and so far, the cast seems to know its parts.

Trans: I’ve memorized my lines, now where’s my appointment?

Q Thank you, Mr. President. My name is Matthias Kutsch (ph). I’m a student from Heidelberg, Germany. (Cheers, applause.) And my mother tongue is German, but my French is not good enough, so I ask my question in English.

You mentioned in your speech that we are a lucky generation; we live in peace, we live in democracies and free states. And we are very pleased to have this situation in Europe. But this is not the case all over the world, even not in Europe. Look to Belarus, for example. There’s an autocratic regime.

And so my question concerns the many children all over the world that live in poverty, under human rights violations.

They have hunger. They have no education and other problems. So what is your strategy, Mr. President, to solve this problem?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, it’s an excellent question. And the — first of all, I think one of the things that we should be very proud of, from the G-20 summit yesterday, was that we made a significant commitment to additional resources through the IMF and other mechanisms to provide assistance to emerging markets and poor countries that, as I said, are bearing the burden of a collapse in the financial system that they had nothing to do with.

The problem is so many of these countries had export-oriented markets. And when the economies contracted in our developing nations, it made them extremely vulnerable. You know, you have a country like Botswana, which is actually a well-managed country that has made enormous progress. But their main revenue generator is diamond sales. And they have literally seen the diamond market collapse, in part because they couldn’t get trade financing, in part because the demand in developed countries has — has dropped off.

So we started to make progress there. Our most important task right now is helping them get through this crisis. Over the long term, though, we’ve got to have a strategy that recognizes that the interest of the developed world in feeding the hungry, in educating children, that that’s not just charity; it’s in our interests.

There is not a direct correlation between poverty and violence and conflict and terrorism, but I can tell you that if children have no education whatsoever, if young men are standing idle each and every day and feel completely detached and completely removed from the modern world, they are more likely, they are more susceptible to ideologies that appeal to violence and destruction.

If you have no health facilities whatsoever in countries in Africa, these days a pandemic can get on a plane and be in Strasbourg or New York City or Chicago overnight. So we better think about making sure that there are basic public health facilities and public health infrastructure in those countries, because we can’t shield ourselves from these problems.

So that means developed countries have to increase aid. But it also means that the countries who are receiving aid have to use it wisely.

And my father was from Kenya, and when I traveled to Kenya, I had just been elected to the United States Senate. Everybody was very excited and, you know, they greeted me and — you know, as if I was already a head of state. And, you know, there were people waving and lining the streets. I went to speak at a university, and I had to be honest, which was, America has an obligation to provide Kenya help on a whole range of issues. But if Kenya doesn’t solve its own corruption problem, then Kenya will never grow. It will never be able to provide for its own.

And so there’s nothing wrong with the developed nations insisting that we will increase our commitments; that we will design our aid programs more effectively; that we will open up our markets to trade from poor countries — but that we will also insist that there’s good governance and rule of law and other critical factors in order to make these countries work.

We spend so much time talking about democracy. And obviously, we should be promoting democracy everywhere we can.

But democracy, a well-functioning society that promotes liberty and equality and fraternity, a well-functioning society does not just depend on going to the ballot box. It also means that you’re not going to be shaken down by police because the police aren’t getting properly paid. It also means that if you want to start a business, you don’t have to pay a bribe. I mean, there are a whole host of other factors that — that people, you know, need to — need to recognize in building a civil society that allows a country to be successful. And — and hopefully that will — that approach will be reflected not just in — in my administration’s policies but in the policies that are pursued by international agencies around the world.

Okay. Good. (Applause.)

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has raised the hackles of many lawmakers for daring to suggest that we cut our defense budget. Specifically, he wants to reduce spending on our amorphous missile defense systems, the president’s new helicopter, and the F-22 Raptor, inter alia.

Naturally, the immediate reaction from the (ostensibly) small-government conservatives is to point out how Obama is leaving us completely defenseless. Before your mind can register the inanity of this idea, they go on to point out the disparity between the reduction in defense spending to the monstrous domestic spending that the Obama administration is trying to push through for next year. I agree that Obama is spending way to much money as it is; but, they are implying that it’s not fair that he gets to spend all this money on what he wants. Their goal is not to reduce spending overall, it is to limit increases to only what they want.

There is a big brouhaha over the Raptor cuts. Gates doesn’t want any more because he says it “has not performed a single mission in either [Afghanistan and Iraq].” Makes sense, right? We’re not using the 190 or so we have now, why buy more? Well, the warplane is made primarily in Georgia and cutting the order will most likely lead to job losses in the Peach State factories. It’s ridiculous, so the argument goes, to allow these jobs to disappear when the nation’s overall unemployment rate is climbing.

But this logic does not justify buying a whole new set of F-22s. At $65 billion a pop, this is simply corporate welfare. There is a direct correlation between buying jets we do not need and handing cash to GM and Chrysler. Just because the dollars are marked in the Defense column doesn’t make it legitimate. If the only way your business can survive is if the Federal government pumps money into it, you probably should not be playing in the open market.

I was agog when our defense budget hit $601 billion (that’s $601,000 million). Last year it was up nearly 27% to $762 billion. We spend more on defense than every other nation combined. We have had only one attack on our soil since World War II and all the military spending in the world could not and did not stop it. But one suggestion (from the guy Bush hired to fix Iraq, no less) that we stop spending billions of dollars on essentially useless war toys and suddenly we’re naked to the world. Let me tell you, we’ve been naked for a long time; no size budget will fix that.