I LOVE Jon Stewart

I love Jon Stewart on the Daily Show. He is relevant, topical, commonsense-ful and hilarious. If you do not regularly watch the Daily Show, or have not begun to watch the clips which are now more and more often appearing on political commentaries all over the web, you should.

Stewart also depresses me because I am not sure how it is that the Daily show, half-hour program on comedy central, it the best critical news on television. I know the Daily show has a liberal slant, and that they play to a specific demographic which allows them to do what they do without worrying about losing audience. But, at the same time, they are entertainment. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and the networks, these are actual news programs, but their fact-checkers and reporters and talking heads do basically no confrontation or follow, they just allow their guests to talk and just agree. It is depressing ... we really need a stronger, independent and principled 4th estate to protect democracy, and todays news organizations are more concerned with ratings and profits than news.

A great example of this was the controversy over ACORN, in which two 20-something amateur "journalists" exposed that ACORN was giving advice to pimps and prostitutes on how to set up a brothel. How is it that all the professional news organizations with all their resources and reporters missed this story ... I mean, if the news were constantly full of other stories of equal import, and not flooded with information about Jon & Kate plus 8, I might understand. As usual, Stewarts comments on this are better than mine.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
The Audacity of Hos
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Stewart has been particularly good addressing the effects of the declining quality of our news organizations this issue this week, here addressing CNN's lack of fact-checking ...



And here addressing selective news coverage ... as an added bonus, this clip contains my favorite recent Stewart quote

"Gay people aren't vampires, the show up on camera".

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Queer and Loathing in D.C.
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

I am sure that you few people who read my blog watch the daily show, but if you don't, check it out.

The 50 Most Loathsome People

So apparently, The Beast annually puts together a list of the 50 most loathsome people in American .... which is essentially a tirade about the hypocrisies and garbage that our celebrity class puts us through each year. The 2008 version, which you can find here, is hilarious and well worth a read, featuring such individuals as

20. Joe the Plumber

Charges: The Che Guevara of bald, pissed off white men. In a lot of ways, Samuel Wurzelbacher really does represent the average American—basing economic opinions on unrealistic expectations of personal future success, blaming his failure to meet those expectations on minorities and old people, complaining about deadbeats getting his taxes when he isn’t actually paying his taxes, and advertising his own rudimentary historical and mathematical ignorance by warning of creeping socialism in a country whose highest income tax rate has dropped by half in thirty years. “Joe” indeed symbolizes the true American dream—to become undeservedly rich and famous through a dizzyingly improbable stroke of luck. As American folk heroes go, Wurzelbacher ranks somewhere between Hulk Hogan and Bernie Goetz.

Exhibit A: "Social Security is a joke...social security I've never believed in, don't like it. I hate that it's forced on me."

Sentence: After blowing his fifteen minutes and all his money on coke and Thai hookers, an infirm, elderly Joe finds that social security actually is a joke, and is finally forced to snake toilets for a living.

Ferris Beuller for Obama

Nice ...

Hockey Mama for Obama

Sarah Palin might well be the greatest gift ever given to home-made political comedy ... this one is priceless ...