Let me stipulate that I love the Daily Show, it's host, Jon Stewart and most of the cast.
Let me qualify that statement with a much needed "mostly."
Please counterbalance the following opinion with the fact that I don't own a TV and that my Daily Show experience is [highly?] filtered by the limitation of Comedy Central's Motherload feature.
Over the last few months it has been dawning on me that TDS is actually rather sexist (Samantha Bee being the fabulous exception) and pretty darned racist.
How many women have you seen on the Daily Show -- who are not actresses under the age of 40? How many women of color have been guests on the Daily Show? Forget women. How many people of color have been guests on the Daily Show, especially ones who are not entertainers? In it's 10 year history, how many people of color have been in the cast? I came rather late to TDS so my experience is limited, but I recall no one of color being in the cast. Has the brilliant Harry Belefonte been a guest on TDS? No. Has the wickedly funny Cindy Sheehan been a guest? Not to my knowledge.
What a contrast there is between TDS -- getting more "middle of the road" by the second -- and the very cutting edge and very inclusive Colbert Report.
Besides being sexist and racist I also now believe that TDS is not quite a "liberal" as some of us believe. To whit: they pointedly belittled Cindy Sheehan for hugging Hugo Chavez, yet the first head of state to be their guest is Pervez Musharaff? WFT???
Chavez has been elected not once but five times in a process determined to be free and fair by international observers. President Musharaff? Or should we say General Musharaff? He is a dictator who got his position the old fashioned tin-horn dictator way -- he stole it.
Maybe if Chavez writes a book with a salacious revelation he too can be a guest on TDS. But then his revelation has yet to become "history" in that the Bush Junta is STILL trying to depose him, despite his status as a
D
E
M
O
C
R
A
T
I
C
A
L
L
Y
elected leader.
Over the weekend I heard a former CIA specialist describe Pakistan as THE most dangerous country on Earth: they are ruled by an unelected leader [read "dictator"] who harbors and supports terrorists and who is armed with NUCLEAR weapons.
Yet tonight, there was Jon Steward making kissy face with that same head of state.
What do you make of this?