I realize this has been beaten to death, but as a part-time comic/martial artist, I wanted to weigh in:
- On the Stewart/Carlson debate, it is remarkable how stupid Carlson is. If you go against a Judo/Aikido expert, you don't keep trying to tackle them harder, that will just make their life easier. Begala was smart, he laid back, Carlson apparently lacked (and still lacks) the wisdom to see how is ass was getting kicked. On some level, I think he knows his ass got kicked, but he's too thick headed to see it. Note that even O'Reilly, egotistical blowhard that he is, had the brains to come on Stewarts show and diffuse any feud with a joke. If you are harder headed than O'Reilly, you know you're a complete ass.
- The big misconception about the Daily Show is that they get their laughs by making fun of politics. They get laughs that way, but they get most of their laughs by making fun of the media. From the mock ego of Stephen Colbert to the mock cluelessness of Rob Cordry, the target is clear.
- The best comedy is the comedy of truth, which is why the Daily Show is doing so well and is regarded so highly as better news than available elsewhere in the media. Normally, good news would still trump good comedy, but propaganda is cheaper and easier than real news, and attracts a stable base audience of dittoheads; hence the drifts towards it from reality.
See my earlier Diary entry on
The Annenberg Survey of Daily Show Viewers, and for a minor challenge you can take the
survey yourself.