Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, host of “The Daily Show”, apparently bought into the heartfelt hashtag activism initiated by First Lady Michelle Obama to get the Muslim terrorists in Northern Nigeria to stop enslaving and raping the 200 school girls they abducted: tweet a hashtag beckoning the perps to set the girls free.
Before Stewart’s retort to the criticism being leveled at the value of this type of diplomacy, it should be noted that the Nigerian girls remain captive. Again, the girls remain in captivity where they are forced to cook and clean for their Islamic captors and the attractive ones are sold as wives to the highest bidding soldiers.
Conservative radio giant and best-selling author Rush Limbaugh, along with Ann Coulter, has ridiculed this method of diplomacy as being ineffective. The political Left, which cannot deny the girls are still being held captive, has seemingly become irate that these symbolic gestures are mocked. In response, Stewart launched his own hashtag aimed to dismiss Rush Limbaugh by telling him to back off with an expletive that rhymes with the word “duck”.
It is surprising that given the level of education many people on both sides of the political aisle have, they constantly make use of ad homonyms without realizing what it means to do so. Ad homonyms are used when one party in a debate has no better way of defending their position than to attack the other person. It is as much a confirmation that the points their opposition are making are spot on.