Since what the Republicans are doing has been likened to a hostage taking, Jason Jones decided to get the advice of an expert in hostage negotiations when he talked with Noelle Nikpour, a Republican strategist.

(This clip aired on October 8, 2013. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)

Nikpour is not well known. But I remembered immediately that I had seen her once before because the sheer idiocy she displayed then made an indelible impression on me. So I searched the archives and found her earlier appearance back in 2011 on The Daily Show where she made an even bigger fool of herself on the topic of science, and showed such a lack of basic reasoning skills that I wondered how she could possibly be described as a ‘strategist’.

(This clip aired on October 26, 2011.)

Her willingness to appear on the show again confirms what I have long suspected: that some people want to be on TV so badly that even if you make them look foolish, they will eagerly come back on again even if the same people ask them. As that old adage goes: “Make a fool of me once, shame on you. But you can make a fool of me twice if it gets me on TV.”

Or something like that.

Meanwhile Andy Borowitz says that that National Alliance of Hostage-Takers and Blackmailers is complaining that the Republican party is giving them a bad name. In a statement they said: “As professional hostage-takers, we never take hostages unless we have a well-thought-out plan, realistic demands, and a clear exit strategy. Any comparison between what we do and these inane Tea Party antics are derogatory and unacceptable.”