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Despite the fact that we give many billions of dollars in loan guarantees to nuclear power companies, and lose many billions in revenue by propping up oil companies through tax breaks, the fact remains that this Solyndra scandal looks terrible enough that even the take-down experts at the Daily Show were inspired to turn their media-dissecting powers against the administration. I was all ready to say "et tu, Jon Stewart?" when I saw the headline on this clip, but then I watched it, and, well, damn. 

Our own Dave Roberts has a level-headed accounting of both the status and the fallout of the Solyndra deal, including a clip from Rep. Markey that will get one squintillionth the traffic of this Daily Show segment. Which is too bad, because it's important to keep things in perspective.

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Bottom line, as Stewart observes: A pretty good analogy for what happened with Solyndra is, imagine you were president 70+ years ago, and you wanted to give a speech about the future importance of air travel. But you had the misfortune to give that speech in front of the Hindenburg.

You'd be right! But you'd also look like an asshole.