Old Dubai may be financially kaput, but as the butt of jokes it will live on in our hearts forever.

So ends Jon Stewart V. Sean Hannity. This was by far the wackiest denouement of a Jon Stewart Takes on the Media episode. (You remember the post-Crossfire show? It was sort of smarmy. And the Jim Cramer interview? So uncomfortable!) I identified with the Jon Stewart character in that first bit because I, too, had to watch an entire episode of "Hannity" for the ten second apology at the end and it was, outside of a half-dozen pregnancy scares, the single worst experience of my life. Can't wait to see how Hannity deals with this one on his show tomorrow!

(apologies for the out-of-sync video.)

...that last line sort of creeped me out: "Mr. Stewart, you were right, we apologize—but by the way, I want to thank you, and all your writers, for watching." It creeped me out because Hannity wasn't just talking to Stewart and the "TDS" writing team, here: He was also sending a winking, smartass shout-out to everyone who tuned in tonight solely for the satisfaction of seeing him eat crow. Team Jon Stewart.

I am a member of Team Jon Stewart, and you probably are too. Jon Stewart always seems to be on "my side" in whichever cultural/intellectual/economic battle he's mocking on that night's program. That is: nobody's side. As plenty of Times Arts Section pieces have reminded us: He is the sticker-upper-for-the-little-guy, the speaker of truth to power. His sharpened blade of sarcasm cuts clean through the half-truths of politicians to reveal that the emperor has no clothes, while his under-staffed but plucky researchers reveal mainstream media for the impotent court jester it is via embarrassing video montages.

Sometimes Jon Stewart does something like take on a conservative talk-show host (or an inept financial channel personality, or a terrible debate show) and team Jon Stewart goes crazy. Boo yah: We scored a point! When Stewart showed Hannity's show to be the steaming crapfest it is, a lot of people on Team Jon Stewart jumped up and down and waved big pom poms, in blog post form. The only thing keeping everyone from high-fiving Jon Stewart harder in the blogosphere was that one hand was fully engaged in patting themselves on the back.

But then you think about Hannity's smugness: "I want to thank you, and all your writers, for watching our show." Hannity probably will get a ratings boost from all this! And you think about how Comedy Central is owned by Viacom, which is a massive corporation that not only depends on and reproduces the economic inequity of American capitalism but is also directly responsible for giving Carlos Mencia his own comedy program. (CREATIVE UNDERCLASS RAGE ALERT) And since Jon Stewart probably got a ratings boost, too, Viacom will now have more money to control the world and create more shows starring Carlos Mencia.

And you begin to suspect, if you are paranoid and have a half-assed Sociology degree like me, that Jon Stewart's trick isn't actually being on "our side," but keeping up appearances. It's like the liberal What's the Matter with Kansas: After recording his show, where he earns big claps for calling bankers "assholes," he gets in his Prius and drives around the corner, where Sean Hannity is waiting—beaming and freshly scrubbed—to take him in his stretch Hummer to his mansion, where together they drink Old Fashioned's while watching an enormous bank of television screens which display live readouts of their ratings and their bank accounts, and everything is way up.

(Oh, also, Jon Stewart likes Freakonomics.)

The highlight is probably the unveiling of the conspiratorial internal organ chalkboard. All the notes—references to old and discredited texts, the Founding Fathers, transparently phony stabs at nonpartisanship, crying—are hit, though Stewart never quite reaches the operatic unhingedness of a genuine Beck performance. The glasses are a wonderful touch, though.

The Jay Leno Show - Martha Stewart, Ludacris

The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien - Jon Hamm, Freestyle Motocross Athletes, Cobra Starship featuring Estelle (Repeat from 8/11/09)

Late Show with David Letterman - Kristin Davis, Barry Sonnenfeld (Repeat from 10/8/09)

Late Night with Jimmy Fallon - Seth Meyers, Chris Paul, Landon Pigg (Repeat from 9/22/09)

Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson - Ted Danson, Christopher Miller & Phil Lord (Repeat from 9/25/09)

Jimmy Kimmel Live - Edward Norton, Paul Shaffer, the Sounds

The Colbert Report - Jerry Mitchell (Repeat from 10/15/09)

Daily Show with Jon Stewart - Jennifer Burns (Repeat from 10/15/09)

• Everyone loves Neil Patrick Harris. And how could they not? He came out singing cabaret and danced away with our undying love. Not that he didn't have it before. After this evening's turn as the show's host, we're pretty sure Harris should master the ceremonies of every Hollywood event ever. (By the way, Mediaite has the lyrics from the introductory number. Learn them. Live them. Love them.)
  
  
• Kristin Chenoweth will soon be the hardest working woman in Hollywood. The adorable actress — once known mostly to the Broadway crowd — stole the nation's heart by crying after winning best supporting actress for Pushing Daisies. The show's been canceled and Chenoweth, bless her, reminded the world that she needs a job: "I'm unemployed now, so I'd like to be on Mad Men. I also like The Office and 24."
  
  
• Tina Fey fans are upset that Toni Collette won the "best comedy actress" award for United States of Tara, which we actually enjoy. Well, Jeff Jarvis is upset, at least: the journalist and internet aficionado twittered, "best comedy actress was a crime." But, whatever, because Fey won for her SNL Sarah Palin impersonation.
  
  
• In other-SNL news, Justin Timberlake took home a trophy for his "Dick in a Box" routine. But that was announced last week, so hopefully you knew that.
  
  
• Sure, Fey didn't win, but that doesn't mean the Academy doesn't still love 30 Rock: the incredibly popular show won "best comedy series" and Alec Baldwin walked away with a "best actor" statuette. That's his second, for the record.
  
  
• Speaking of seconds: Mad Men again won "best drama series" and best writing for a drama series. Does this mean the show will continue to be a popular culture darling? Not if you ask Matthew Greenberg from True Slant — he thinks the consecutive win will alienate those who don't already watch it, because they'll think it's elitist.
  
  
• If Greenberg's right, there could also be a backlash against Glenn Close: the Damages star once again won for "best actress" in a drama series.
  
  
• Comedy Central's no doubt pleased with Jon Stewart and the Daily Show crew: they won "best writing" for a comedy, variety, etc series. And, yes, Stewart commended Neil's hosting abilities. He also made a joke about going backstage to watch football, which was competing on another network and became the butt of many tiresome jokes.
  
  
• LA Times writer Tom O'Neil has crowned Bill Maher the biggest Emmy loser in history because Maher, whose show was nominated in the aforementioned variety category, has lost 22 times over the course of his career.
  
  
• Remember how we said Harris should host everything? He may have some competition from Hugh Jackman, who won for original music for his Oscar dance routine.
  
  
• Hey, did you know Sarah McLachlan's still around? And she's still singing "I Will Remember You." While, yes, we should take a moment to recognize the departed — Bea Arthur! — certainly there's a less maudlin, predictable soundtrack.
  
  
• And on that note, here's a list of the winners.

Saying that Stewart "went off the rails" by "deriding Fox News," O'Reilly took issue with the almost 8-minute Daily Show takedown in which old clips of Fox News personalities criticizing the behavior of liberal political activists were juxtaposed with recent clips of Fox News personalities praising the same sort of behaviors they used to take issue with.

So O'Reilly went on his show tonight and blabbered about how Stewart uses his "license to distort" as a satirist to placate his "liberal audience." He mentioned how a recent Pew Research poll found that 45% of Stewart's audience identifies themselves as liberal, and thus anything done on The Daily Show is not to ever be taken seriously because it's just a bunch of horseshit done to make their pansy-ass viewers chuckle (HAHA!) while they do yoga on the floor in their communal living room inside of a flea-ridden loft space near the campus of Berkeley in a pathetic attempt to escape the miserable existence of their Godless lives.

Additionally, O'Reilly did play two clips from the offending Daily Show segment that appear to have been taken mildly out of context, but that doesn't really matter anyway because we all already know that Fox News is the conservative network, the network of Jesus, and there's no way they'd ever shoot anybody a load of bullshit. So just disregard Jon Stewart as he's just a funny liberal put on earth for our amusement and is to be taken no more seriously than a masturbating monkey or something, okay?

Stewart and his staff dug deep into the archives to find some great footage of various Fox News personalities vehemently condemning the very behaviors that they're now so enthusiastically championing, like criticizing the president during a time of war and taking to the streets in protests. These are the types of things that liberals do! So Fox News = the new liberals!

At one point in tonight's broadcast, Stewart mentioned that after tomorrow night's show he and his staff would be taking three weeks off for vacation. You almost get the feeling watching this that they wanted to go out with a bit of a bang, to get one last good, solid right hook in before they left the ring for a few weeks. In such, they most certainly succeeded. Hurry back guys. You'll be missed in the midst of the craziness going on right now.

This should serve as yet another bright, shining example of how much of an utter fraud Beck is. You gotta give the guy some credit though — he's a charlatan's charlatan, a near-perfect modern television bullshit artist who fully understands how the slightest glance, vocal inflection, or codeword can plant a seed deep down inside of a feeble mind and germinate.

But still, it's hard not to watch this clip and come away feeling that he's an even bigger piece of shit than you probably thought he was previously, because it's just so goddamn obvious that the man will do or say anything to dig his hook even deeper into the sad dolts who tune into to his show each day seeking guidance.

TVNewser has photos, video of Williams acknowledging a humiliating defeat, and a write-up:

Pregame, Stewart led the Daily Show march onto the field chanting: "I don't know what I just heard, Brian Williams throws like a girl." Though this was immediately followed by Stewart shouting, "Did you guys bring water? Who's going to hold my inhaler?"

The only way this could have been any better would be if Jason Jones and Wyatt Cenac were given seats at the table with the segment extended an extra two or three minutes. Regardless, this is exactly the sort of ridiculous satire that the utterly idiotic notion of health care death panels so justly deserved.

If you watch The Daily Show you've probably noticed how guys like Bill Kristol, John Bolton, Next Gingrich and Mike Huckabee are booked as guests with regularity. Perhaps you've found yourself wondering, "Why the hell would these guys want to appear on The Daily Show?" I sure have! And now, thanks to Daily Intel's Jacob Gershman, we know why.

While the (conservative) movement professes a disdain for the "liberal media elite," it has made an exception for the true-blue 46-year-old comedian. "He always gives you a chance to answer, which some people don't do," says John Bolton, President Bush's ambassador to the United Nations and a Fox News contributor, who went on the show last month. "He's got his perspective, but he's been fair." Says Bolton: "In general, a lot of the media, especially on the left, has lost interest in debate and analysis. It has been much more ad hominem. Stewart fundamentally wants to talk about the issues. That's what I want to do."

Conservatives like Stewart because he's providing them a platform to reach an audience that usually tunes them out. And they often find that Stewart takes them more seriously than right-wing political hosts, who are often just using them to validate their broad positions, do. Stewart will poke fun, but he offers a good-faith debate on powder kegs - torture, abortion, nuclear weapons, health care - that explode on other networks. "Shepard Smith did the same discussion [on torture]," says (Neo-conservative Cliff) May. "He kept yelling me at me: 'This is where I get off the bus! Not in my name!' He wasn't arguing with me. It was just assertions and anger. That's not what Jon deals in."

So maybe there's hope that Stewart can book Sarah Palin as a guest! After all, Bill Kristol promised he'd try to get her to go on the show during his last appearance! Wouldn't that just be swell?!

So here's how it works: Steve Doocy makes an utterly imbecilic quip about how if the government can't accurately judge the costs of the "cash for clunkers" program, how can they ever be trusted to run health care? Naturally, a few days later, some angry old gnome screams out the same line at a town hall meeting being covered by Fox News. Then, Doocy and the gang sit around and talk about the excellent points being made by these wise angry folks popping up in these town hall meetings. And that's how your conservative talking point sausage gets made and disseminated.

On a related subject, doesn't Steve Doocy just make you want to punch a random old lady in the face? Seriously, how can anyone survive watching Fox & Friends outside of a padded room? Jesus!

Competing for the crown were three Gawker favorites—Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs and, of course, Glenn Beck. As you can probably imagine, this was indeed a contest for the ages, but alas, only one Douche King was left standing in the end. Long live the Douche King.

Now, regarding the Birthers—one of the treats of our day yesterday was reading the unapproved comments on Pareene's Birther post. This one was a personal favorite:

Well now I know the Obots have meetings to issue "talking Points".
Lou Dobbs and Rush Limbaugh have finally put Obama's eligibility issue on the MSMs front page, about time. The Obots are now running scared their leaders hidden truths will be forced out into the open so they are now all spouting the new reply to questions about their little Communist gods eligibility. They no longer scream "factcheck has a copy of the COLB for all to see" or "The Governor of Hawaii swears he was born in Hawaii" Now thew pull the Race Card! Anybody that questions the eligibility of their great one is a "Racist" I have been following this issue for a year now and "birthers" were call everything thinkable, crazy, insane, nut jobs, but I have not read them being called "Racists" until this issue hit the MSM. Do you think that they possibly think that we Birthers may be able to prove the truth is true? When all else fails pull the Race Card. Wake up America. The simple fact his father was not an American makes it impossible for Obama to be considered a Natural Born American. Natural Born = Born of Blood and Soil. the blood of two American Parents and born on American soil. We are not talking about whether on not he is a citizen, he has to be a Natural Born American to be President. A qualification he can not fulfill.

We post the above comment just as a reminder of what reasonable people from both parties are up against in trying to make the Birthers go away. Now, have a laugh at their expense before you go and throw yourself out of a window.

Stewart was particularly irked last night over Graham's demanding that Sotomayor respond to criticism of her job performance written by anonymous attorneys, which in turn led Stewart and his staff to seek out some anonymous commentary on Graham that had been recently posted to the web. They also noted that Graham is featured on the website, Men Who Look Like Old Lesbians, and Stewart demanded that he answer whether or not he actually does look like an old lesbian. Hilarity ensued.

Seriously though, remember when confirmation hearings were political knife fights where people got "Borked" and grilled for days over comments about pubic hairs on a coke cans? We yearn for those days to return. For now we get Chuck Schumer crying. Sigh.

We, like Jon Stewart, didn't really understand Oliver's explanation of how exactly Madoff's been pulling off (No pun intended) his "handjob Ponzi scheme," but that doesn't really matter at all because the skit is funny as hell.

via The Daily Show