I used to watch you guys a lot. I got mad a lot. I laughed a lot. Then I realized what I was laughing at.
Jon, Jon, Jon ... as Dorothy said, I think I’ll miss you most of all. You have a deadpan delivery that devastates your targets. I’ve taped every show (practically) since I first stumbled onto the Daily Show in 2002. You talk like us. You have the same smartass attitude as us. I knew that when I saw the bit where you played a newsclip of Dumb, Yah saying, "It’s hard to expect people to be calm when the media is always saying ‘March To War’, ‘March To War’". Cut back to you thoughtfully stroking your chin and asking in an abstracted tone, "Yeah ... who WAS that asshole who kept telling us ‘March To War’?" And the audience went wild, because we too would have asked the same thing of the pompous ass that caused the problem – President or no President.
And you still believe in us, Jonny boy. You still think we can get it right, God bless you.
Keith – you are endearing. Kind of like a sarcastic but very intelligent uncle who means well but sometimes gets carried away. I never watched one second of Sport Center in my life so I found you by accident while channel surfing. You were pretty light-hearted back then, and I liked that you could talk about terribly depressing stuff and yet not drown in it. When you did the video game parody of Cheney shooting the guy in the face it was hilarious! Then later that same night, when the Daily Show did their very similar parody, I knew you and Jon were twin brothers of different mothers. But where Jon is deadpan, you tend to get, well, wild-eyed at times when some topic gets you worked up. But since you swing between that and incredulous sarcasm, it all works. Sometimes you get a bit miffed when others make fun of you (oh yes, it shows) but you eventually forgive and forget. But not the injustices in our land, no sir, you do not. Bravo.
Ahhh, Rachel, I hardly knew ye ... You became a TV media star before you had the show, rocking as a commentator/rebutter all during the long long 2008 campaign. Of course, the MSNBC audience fell in love with you. Of course you deserved your own show. And unexpectedly you mixed the giddy, giggling girl with the earnest well-informed newswoman into a class act. Not a smidge of ego in it, either. Sometimes you are so intent and righteous it hurts to watch you. Damn the torpedoes, gal, full speed ahead. Slotting your show right behind Keith is the MSNBC version of Stewart/Colbert, with no less seriousness, relevance, and humor. Oh, at times you belabor a point about some issue where we get the drift on the bad guys right away, but you do it with such fervent vigor it’s a pleasure to stay and listen. But those glasses ...? Oh, no girl. Trade in those horn rims for some wire frames. You’ll look like either a sexy schoolteacher or a grandma – but you won’t know until you try.
Stevie... You bring up the rear but you’re not in last place. You had me from the first "The Word" on your premiere show: you pontificated it’s better to trust your gut than anything you read in a book because your stomach has more nerve endings than your brain. And you flippantly added, "Look it up." YES!!! You take the right wing maniacal drivel and tweak it just a little bit further into the total ludicrousness that it is. And I love the parade of eager progressives, liberals, Hollywood types, democrats, idealists, greenies et al who show up for your interviews. All of them expect a sympathetic, rally-rousing supporter for their notions but find they face an apparently kinder, gentler Bill O’Reilly making fun of them, taking them to task, even flatly disagreeing with them. What joy! Your deceptive portrayal of a conservative is so deftly done even some conservatives who watch you think you’re on their side. That, my friend, is a grand illusion, done with a gifted talent. Ok, you’re vain and self-centered like all TV personalities but unlike the others you don’t pretend to hide it.
Many hours, many laughs, many outrages exposed, many hopeful tries supported. And it was fun, showing how outrageously unjust the government of the United States now is toward its own citizens, new immigrants, the rights and liberties handed down to us. But I just can’t laugh at it any more. It’s not a joke that science-hating religious zealots are trying to destroy the rational sciences. It’s not just an outrage that the rich and powerful control the government and pass laws to sanction their crimes and criminalize the lifestyles of the common people. It’s not sarcasm to reel off the numbers of dead piling up from all of America’s far-flung public and secret wars. What you four report and comment on, highlight and drag into public view, decry, sound the alarm on – it’s overwhelming. A gigantic torrent of crime, malfeasance, greed, corruption, immorality, hate, ignorance and cruelty that you are trying vainly to keep up with. The very fact that these four shows, with barely seventy-five minutes of coverage among them, have an infinite number of things to cover at all levels in America going bad is more than sobering. And how much goes unreported? It’s sad, and it’s disgusting.
So I can’t watch you anymore. I wish all of you all the best and believe you will make some difference, right some wrongs, somewhere. But it’s an avalanche of bad I don’t want to think about anymore. I can't be constantly appraised of the disheartening destruction from within of my beloved country and all it once stood for, even presented as jokes. No, I can’t.