Jon Stewart was once the king of comedy as the host of The Daily Show on Comedy Central. I had once heard that during his reign, Stewart was the main source of news among college students. Now I don’t know if it’s true, or even if there are stats for that, but his take on current events was gold amongst Millennials in the early 2000’s.

Imagine the shock when this liberal icon of the intelligentsia crowd appeared on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert to ridicule the natural origins theory of Covid. After expressing his gratitude for science dealing with Covid, Stewart then said the pandemic “was more than likely caused by science.”

Colbert feigned shock. Because, after all, it’s what knuckle-draggers believe.

“What do you mean — do you mean perhaps there’s a chance this was created in a lab? If there’s evidence I’d love to hear it.”

Stewart went on in a comic rant.

“A chance? Oh my god, there’s a novel respiratory coronavirus overtaking Wuhan, China. What do we do? Oh, you know who we could ask? The Wuhan novel respiratory coronavirus lab. The disease is the same name as the lab!”

Jon Stewart continued his tirade, which contained both hilarity and nuggets of truth. At Twitter, Clay Travis of Outkick observed that at one time, Facebook would’ve blocked this video (which you can see in its entirety here).

This is hysterical from Jon Stewart. But until a month ago Facebook would have blocked this from being distributed: pic.twitter.com/DnVcwMbytt

— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) June 15, 2021

But Colbert wasn’t quite ready to pick up what Jon Stewart was laying down. In fact, he asked Stewart how long he had been working for Sen. Ron Johnson, who has been pushing for investigation into the Wuhan lab. Stewart pushed back, saying that a lab leak is “not a conspiracy.” Instead, it’s a “problem with science.”

Of course, in the Twitterverse, progressives called Stewart everything from a spreader of lies and a MAGA Republican to a racist. Because, of course, they have nothing more substantial to add.

“Jon Stewart talking about a covid lab leak hypothesis as if he became a crazy MAGA republican wtf.”

“He was being racist as fuck. And it doesn’t matter where a pathogen arises, does it. I don’t recall pointing fingers at French airline workers, do you? And @jonstewart didn’t allow for any possibility except it being CREATED by the lab. It’s from fucking earth.”

However, another Twitter user described their silly outrage perfectly:

“there is nothing quite like feasting on the adult version of “you mean there is no santa claus.”

Meanwhile, the New York Times has published their exclusive, exclusive! interview with Shi Zhengli, aka the “Bat Lady” from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. How interesting, now that President Trump — who called Covid the “China Virus” — is no longer in the White House. Plus, Joe Biden has now called for greater scrutiny of the Wuhan lab.

Wikimedia commons/CC BY-SA 4.0. 

From the NYT article:

“Scientists generally agree that there is still no direct evidence to support the lab leak theory. But more of them now say that the hypothesis was dismissed too hastily, without a thorough investigation, and they point to a range of unsettling questions.”

Naturally, Shi is defensive. She told the NYT reporters in their rare interview (they were amazed Shi deigned to speak with them on her cellphone) that the lab did nothing wrong, and how dare anyone insult an “innocent scientist.”

“How on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?”

She also continued in a text message.

“I don’t know how the world has come to this, constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist.”

However, the wheels are rapidly coming off the Bat Lady’s story, along with that of Peter Daszak, who denied gain-of-function research at the Wuhan lab. Not only did the Wuhan lab manipulate bat coronaviruses there, they also stored live bats there, too.

Well, well, well. The truth is rapidly emerging about Covid, and now a liberal like Jon Stewart has concluded that the natural origin theory is bullshit. But don’t count on the New York Times, legacy broadcast outlets, or Facebook to acknowledge that they were wrong. Because Republicans and Donald Trump couldn’t possibly be correct. The media’s hatred for them is far greater than their love for the truth.

Welcome, Instapundit readers!

Featured image: David Shankbone/flickr/cropped/public domain.