The Daily Show aired footage last week the day after the Republican convention of Mitt Romney speaking to Neil Cavuto on January 29, 2009 about President Obama's future in the White House. The segment was in a package arguing that Mitt Romney didn't want President Obama to succeed as President.
Stewart first aired Mitt Romney saying "I wish President Obama had succeed because I want America to succeed."
"Bull fucking shit," Stewart said, immediately after airing the remarks.
"You wanted Obama to succeed?" We may not remember that America was never really Mayberry, but we sure as shit can remember to 2009," he added.
Stewart then aired two videos of Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly's shows on Fox News discussing President Obama, before finally airing a clip of Romney speaking to Cavuto.
"Rush Limbaugh has taken a lot of heat for saying he does not wish this President well," Cavuto said to Romney. The Daily Show then cut to Romney.
"Rush is partially right. And — and I'm not going to try and parse words here, but, of course, we don't want failed policies to succeed," Romney said in the quick clip.
"I mean it's been eight days, we've been waiting an entire Hanukkah for Obama to succeed. I can't believe he didn't fix in eight days what our guy did in eight years," Stewart said.
The clip, however, seems to entirely mischaracterize what Romney was saying, and at the very least takes him completely out of context in the short clip.
In the seconds immediately before the clip Stewart aired Romney said — discussing comments by Christina Romer, the Obama Chairperson of the Council of Economic Advisors — that he wanted President Obama to succeed.
"Republicans want to do what's right for America, and want to get this economy going again. We want the president succeed," Romney said.
Later, in the fuller context of the partial clip Stewart aired, Romney argues the he doesn't want the President to install failed policies for the very purpose they won't succeed. Romney wasn't arguing that he didn't want the President to succeed.
ROMNEY: Rush is partially right. And — and I'm not going to try and parse words here, but, of course, we don't want failed policies to succeed. We don't want a national takeover of our health care system to — to occur. And, so, policies that are bad policies, of course, we don't want to see them. On the other hand, we want the president to succeed by doing the right thing. We would like the president to succeed by lowering tax rates.
CAVUTO: But what if he succeeds by doing — but what if he succeeds by doing all of his things?
ROMNEY: I think we have proven that doing the wrong things will not be successful for the nation.