While Washington was busy obsessing over the debt ceiling most of this week, Jon Stewart decided to focus his attention on the one-year anniversary of the Dodd-Frank Act by inviting the law to appear on his
No, that wasn't a typo.
During a bit on "The Daily Show," Stewart interviewed the regulatory reform law itself, played by correspondent John Oliver wearing an outfit straight out of "Schoolhouse Rock." (The show, which had its heyday in the 1970s, famously had a cartoon showing how a bill became a law, complete with a
Dodd-Frank opened the interview by singing, quite literally, its own praises, though it was undercut by its appearance. It had a black eye and its costume looked as if it had been run over by a truck. That forced Stewart to interrupt.
"I'm sorry, Dodd-Frank: what the hell happened to you?" Stewart asked. "I don't want to say anything, but you look like [expletive]."
Dodd-Frank defended itself, insisting that "Washington's a tough town," and emphasizing that "I'm still standing."
The interview was notable for showing just how far the law has fallen out of favor with many in the general public. While Dodd-Frank polls well, many feel its impact has been blunted by financial services lobbyists.
That was Stewart's position, to put it mildly.
When Dodd-Frank bragged to the show's host about "400 tough new rules to remake our broken and corrupt financial system," it eventually acknowledged that only 38 had been completed.
Under questioning from Stewart, Dodd-Frank/Oliver eventually had a breakdown and declared the entire law a "sham."
"The only way Congress would pass me was if the details of my rules and regulations were unspecified, giving K Street lobbyists all the time they would want to water me down post-passage," Dodd-Frank said to boos from the audience. "I'm not a law. I'm an undefined, impotent, 2,300-page piece of legislative [expletive]."
