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Daily Show

tv news

TV News Makes CBS Correspondent Feel Suicidal

CBS News Foreign Correspondent Lara Logan showed up on The Daily Show last night to bum us all out. Seriously, she "cracked" some "jokes" but they were too dark to laugh at, and she always sounds so deadly serious in her little English South African purr. So then she gave up on jokes and said the wars were miserable and CBS News executives should be the first against the wall. Basically we're all terrible people, you see, and then she shamed Jon into basically saying The American People Themselves have abandoned their responsibilities. We can't imagine what Logan has against the American TV news! Her own network ran a totally compelling story just today on the state of the war between boys and girls. One of the most awkward Daily Show interviews ever, attached.

video

Jon Stewart v. Fox News

Jon Stewart's jovial yelling and trademark expressions (the Dr. Evil finger-to-mouth is particularly dated) are becoming increasingly tiresome. But Comedy Central's Daily Show does occasionally still perform a useful civic function. Last night, for instance, Stewart skewered Fox News and other cable networks for their delightedly reluctant airing of internet rumors about Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic nominee. The Daily Show's writers came up with an amusingly silly definition of Baracknophobia: "The sickness manifests itself as rumor, most often in the form of the only email your grandmother has ever successfully been able to forward." But look out for an admirable dissection of Michelle Malkin's moronic claim that Obama plagiarized an old speech by Mario Cuomo. After the jump, last night's broadcast. Watch from about minute 5:00. More »

politics

Scott McClellan Still Defending Bush

Like an old, scorned lover, Scott McClellan can't quite fully betray and repudiate the man who made him do awful things, George W. Bush. The former Bush press secretary has written a fairly extensive and blunt tell-all book about his time with the president, but he's still splitting hairs about what happened. So when McClellan found himself on the Daily Show, discussing the administration's hushing of the economic cost of the war in Iraq, he couldn't help but insist the cover-up was not "willful deception" but was the common practice of selective disclosure. Host Jon Stewart wasn't having any of it: "Somebody made a willful decision, 'don't talk about the price [of the war]...'" McClellan: "I don't think it was like that." More »

clips

John McCain Has Heard of 'The Office'

John McCain's primary qualifications for the presidency are that he's old, he was tortured, and he's been a corrupt Senator for hundreds of years. Also he'd like you to know that he has a sense of humor, which is why he's The Daily Show's most-invited guest ever. On the show last night, McCain once again demonstrated how "hip" and "with it" he is by naming a character on a popular sitcom. One that is currently on-air, even! Not, like, Maynard G. Krebs or something. Jon Stewart desperately tried to get him to appear more presidential by making a joke he knew McCain wouldn't play along with.

mavericks

John McCain: Bullshit Artist

Yesterday, Arianna Huffington revealed that John McCain told her in 2000 that he didn't vote for George W. Bush. Which we believe. We believe that he told her this, anyway. Who knows if it was true then, or now. But McCain denied it, right away. Which leads Arianna to list all the documented times he's blatantly lied about saying something so far this campaign season. A fun little list! Of course it shows why McCain felt comfortable telling Arianna Huffington that he didn't vote for Bush in 2000. And also why he's the most popular guest in Daily Show history! More »

comedy

Even Economist Trying To Make News Funny

Apparently no one can just deliver the damn news any more, straight, everyone has to try and be funny. First it was the Daily Show, then Colbert Report, then Fox's attempted conservative news satire and most recently CNN's planned comedy news show. Now the Economist, the starchy British magazine, has launched a site in collaboration with Chicago's Second City improv troupe. More »

the gay agenda

Dems Reminding Everyone They Are the Party of Gays

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, still having their cute little class president election, are advertising in the gay press—the first time any presidential candidates have done so, according to Editor & Publisher. Obama did it first, with "full-page and full-color, in some circumstances, ads in some of the LGBT publications in Ohio and Texas." Clinton hasn't gone that far, but the campaign is planning some buys in Pennsylvania. Obama's campaign site is currently hosting a video featuring, in the words of a tipster, a "super cute, super gay teacher." The Dems have not always been proud of their special relationship with the gay community, but this year, every vote counts. APROPOS OF ABSOLUTELY NOTHING The Daily Show talked to college student and Democratic superdelegate Jason Rae earlier this week. His favorite movie is Love, Actually, and his favorite musician is Celine Dion. Correspondent Jason Jones challenged him to an arm-wrestling competition. Video after the jump! More »

mistakes

CNN Launches A Comedy News Show

You know the Colbert Report, and how it's really successful? And how other forms of news are less popular and some are dying? CNN noticed that too! So their Headline News channel will soon be airing Not Just Another Cable News Show, a weekly program with a light take on hard news using memorable gaffes from the past week. Time.com Washington editor Ana Marie Cox, of Wonkette fame, and noted Canadian/Huffington Post contributor Rachel Sklar will be commenters. The show, whose concept is stolen from the first segment of the Daily Show and whose title is stolen from the Wayans brothers, begins April 5. [AP]

daily show

Daily Show Finally Unloads On Spitzer

The late-breaking news about now former Gov. Eliot Spitzer's sex scandal caught the Daily Show and some of its late-night compatriots short of jokes, and Daily Show host Jon Stewart admitted as much on Monday night's show, when he had to cut from a few brief Spitzer jokes to a package on Wyoming's Democratic primary. One night later, the political comedy show was ready to feast on the news, as shown in the thumbnail at left. The result lacked the impressive same-day turnaround of David Letterman's Monday night performance, but had its moments, as show in the excerpt after the jump. More »

campaigns

Exhausted Hillary on Daily Show Appearance: "Pathetic"

Poor Hillary Clinton was on The Daily Show last night, live via satellite from Austin, Texas. The interview was long, and awkward, and generally bad television. As for the wisdom of appearing on a basic cable comedy program the night before one of the most important elections of her political career, Senator Clinton was self-deprecating: "it is pretty pathetic."

things we actually like

On Daily Show, Brian Williams Takes Gloves Off

NBC News anchor Brian Williams, onetime standup comedian and America's secret boyfriend, held his own on the Daily Show, becoming one of the few guests on the program to give as good as they get. Fall in love with him all over again as he fields from host Jon Stewart questions like, "which candidate are you biased against?" Video after the jump. More »

the internets

Lee Siegel: The Internets Is Ruining Us All

Writer and "cultural critic" Lee Siegel went on the Daily Show to promote his "I hates teh Internets" book, Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob. Lee is also known for the little anonymous-commenting stunt he pulled on his own essays for the New Republic. He thinks we are just spending way too much time on these infernal machines, and we don't really even know who we're "chatting with!" More »

under pressure

Late-Night Scabs Fold!

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, both members of the striking Writers Guild, will go back on the air January 7. In a statement yesterday, Comedy Central said they were still hoping for a "swift resolution to the current stalemate that will enable the shows to be complete again." The implication is that Stewart and Colbert are reluctant to go back to work—so why the hell are they? Other late-night hosts like David Letterman, Jimmy Kimmel and Carson Daly (okay, in his case, "late-night host"), are also heading back to the airwaves. [NYTimes]

Ben Karlin, who was an executive producer and head "Daily Show" writer for eight years, comes out to talk about how jealous "mainstream" journalists are about the Jon Stewart show. "They would always come up to us, everyone without fail would say, and especially like the big on-camera people, would come up to us and say 'God I wish I could do what you do.' Really? Do it! You have a camera, you have a microphone, you have a television show.... It was a prison of their own construction." [Huffington Post]

It seems Howard ("waiting for Drudge to post more about his new book") Kurtz might have every idea that Jon Stewart hates him! According to Gawker commenter sumgiushoodno, who attended the taping of last night's Daily Show, the last ten minutes of the interview, when Kurtz and Stewart really had their claws out, were cut in editing! Transcripts anyone?

daily show

Revelation! 'Daily Show' Crowd Smug, Knee-Jerk

Radar interviews former Daily Show correspondent Rob Corddry, and obtains an exclusive and shocking tidbit. That show's audience is composed of "college kids and NPR listeners" who "just applaud at every reference to some right-wing guest being taken down. Or anything slightly to the left of center." This surprises us, as our favorite thing about the show has always been the seemingly complete political and lifestyle homogeneity of its in-studio cacklers. But apparently the show's host, a guy named Jon Stewart, doesn't feel the same way we do, according to Corddry: "Jon absolutely hates it when people will just applaud at anything remotely liberal. It's a knee-jerk audience. It's so easy." More »

remainders

Remainders: Team Emily Weiss!

  • The backstory of frighteningly perfect Teen Vogue intern Emily Weiss, as experienced by Lauren Conrad on Monday night's episode of The Hills. [Radar]
  • Imitating The Daily Show proves to be harder than it looks for Fox. [CC Insider]
  • How to discourage the bridge and tunnel crowd from settling in Williamsburg. [Gowanus Lounge]
  • More words than we're ever cared to read about the etymology of the word "dildo." [OUPblog]
  • More »

    media

    Media Bubble: Ironies Abound

  • A group of Columbia journalism students allegedly cheated on an ethics exam. There go those cushy Voice gigs. [Radar]
  • They're not striking just yet at the Philadelphia dailies, although that may have changed by the time this item posts. [NYT]
  • Daily Show/Colbert Report executive producer Ben Karlin is leaving both shows, will be replaced at TDS by current head writer David Javerbaum. [Variety]
  • Another "whither newspapers" piece from Jack Shafer. You know what the best part of Jack Shafer's column is? That link at the bottom to "Shafer's hand-built RSS feed." It's like a big, glaring, "Fuck you, Slate!" Anyway, whatever, thought we'd share. [Slate]
  • Jon Friedman doesn't understand why people call Nick Kristof "sanctimonious." He seemed perfectly modest when Jon interviewed him! Honestly, how are Friedman's ears so fucking big when there's plainly nothing in between them? [Marketwatch]
  • The idea of a member of the Murdoch clan attacking anyone else for "megalomania" is as ironic as, well, cheating on an ethics exam. [Guardian]
  • More »