Comedy in a Post-Bush World

Just as 9/11 killed comedy, apparently so will the Obama administration. The NY Times interviewed a bunch of comedy writers on how they planned to cope with the apparent upcoming comedy drought. (Full disclosure: I would totally watch Letterman do household safety demonstrations.) I particularly liked the point made by an Onion editor:

Too many people had one Bush-is-dumb joke and thought that made them the next Mark Twain. The arrival of a president fluent in English should raise the bar.

Although, to be fair, there was an awful lot of mileage from the Bush malapropisms:

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Does the religious right also not get that the Colbert Report is a parody?

Even if you didn't watch Tuesday's Daily Show, you probably saw the second half of Jon Stewart's interview with Mike Huckabee linked on one of the million liberal blogs out there. I was curious as to what the conservative blogs were saying, though. What did they think of Huckabee's performance? Or about Stewart's line, "Religion is far more of a choice than homosexuality."?

I googled "jon stewart" "mike huckabee" and scrolled through eight pages of links to blog posts on the interview. Not a single one of those blogs was a conservative blog. So what's the deal? Was no one happy with Huckabee's performance? Is Mike Huckabee just not on the conservative radar right now? Or is The Daily Show itself not on the conservative radar? Among the religious right, Newt Gingrich, Ralph Reed, and Bill Bennett* have all been on the show multiple times. So they're not ignoring the show.

However, there are no results when searching for mentions of the Daily Show on the websites of the AFA, Focus on the Family, the FRC, or the Concerned Women for America. These are groups that send out weekly alerts on the latest "pro-homosexual" and "anti-Christian" content in pop culture. I wasn't expecting them all to have found something to be offended by in the program, but I thought at least one of them might have mentioned the show in the past ten years. It's not like basic cable is beneath their notice.

I'm just surprised that a show that is a staple of the left's culture, and that has been a steadfast supporter of gay marriage for years, has been completely ignored by the religious right. Is the religious right really unaware of the influence of the Daily Show? Or am I the one who's missing something?


* That two-part interview with Bill Bennett might be my favorite Daily Show moment ever. What? Like you don't all have similar mental lists.

I don't understand 25% of the country! But not the 25% you might think

I don't particularly care or worry about the 20-25% of the population who still approves of Bush. They're lost causes.

What does concern me, if you believe the polls, is the 25%-ish of the population who disapproves of Bush but is planning on voting for McCain. I am baffled by them! When has there been any indication that McCain will change the direction that this country is going in? Not in 2006, when he voted for the Military Commissions Act, which lets the president authorize pretty much everything. Not in 2007, when he voted for Bush policies 95% of the time. Not in 2008, when he explicitly voted against a ban on waterboarding.

He even hired Bush's speechwriter from 2000 (start at about 4:50):


(In a related note, Jason Jones has been growing on me!)

Presenting Mr. and Mr. Sulu

Among the many gay couples that can now legally marry in California are George Takei and his long-term partner! Congrats to everyone!

I've never seen an episode of Star Trek, so my only exposure to Takei has been from one of my favorite Daily Show clips ever:



Now I know why he sounds so startled when Samantha Bee asks him about "Young Wet Bitches".