We may have won the mid-term elections, but the Republican Noise Machine remains unbowed and ready to keep fighting. The latest salvo, a blatantly partisan right-wing analogue to the Daily Show:
Fox News Channel might air two episodes of a "Daily Show"-like program with a decidedly nonliberal bent on Saturday nights in late January, with the possibility that it could become a weekly show for the channel.
The half-hour show is executive produced by "24's" Joel Surnow and Manny Cota and creator Ned Rice, who previously wrote for "Politically Incorrect" and "Late Late Show With Craig Ferguson" through This Just In Prods. It would take aim at what Surnow calls "the sacred cows of the left" that don't get made as much fun of by other comedy shows.
"It's a satirical news format that would play more to the Fox News audience than the Michael Moore channel," Surnow said. "It would tip more right as 'The Daily Show' tips left."
I seriously doubt Fox News plans to make money with this show. Its viewer demographics skew too old to draw in the kind of audience that enjoys edgy comedy. Instead, what it is hoping to do is to create a string of partisan soundbites that it would regularly air as clips on O'Reilly and Hannity's shows in order further push right wing memes into the media bloodstream. (Think "Nancy Pelosi is the WIcked Witch of the West" jokes).
I also doubt it would be funny. Conservative Republicans may be good at a lot of things, but one thing they are not good at is "funny." Their idea of a joke is Ann Coulter braying that it would be a good idea to kill a Supreme Court Justice, or to blow up the New York Times building. I doubt this show would be much better.