The Markey moment comes early in the first clip below, in the wake of a question from host Jon Stewart about Democrats running away from what Obama likes to characterize as the accomplishments of his first year and a half or so in office. He mentioned representatives who "took very tough votes that they knew were bad politics, because they knew they were the right things to do. There were a whole bunch of guys, like Tom Perriello of Virginia or John Boccieri of Ohio or Betsy Markey of Colorado, who are basically in Republican districts. They won in the big surge we had in 2008, and they knew it was going to be a tough battle.. and yet still went ahead and did what they thought was right."
Later in the interview, as captured during the first couple minutes of the second clip below, Obama defended bringing aboard Harvard's Larry Summers -- who looks like a doofus in this year's excellent film The Social Network -- to serve as the director of the White House's National Economic Council. At one point, Obama said, "In fairness, Larry Summers did a heckuva job..."
Instantaneously, the audience began to titter thanks to the familiarity of the lingo George W. Bush used to praise Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown. "You don't want to use that phrase, dude," Stewart cracked.
Obama quickly understood his gaffe and tried to make it seem planned, declaring, "Pun intended" -- but clearly it wasn't. Oh no, it definitely wasn't.
See the segments below:
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Barack Obama Pt. 2 | ||||
|
The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
Barack Obama Pt. 3 | ||||
|
More from our Media archive: "Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity inspires a Denver version in Civic Center Park."