What a good answer to that question about the most fascinating person in the administration. Indeed, the American people are freakishly patient with the people in charge.

Jon Stewart and Bill Maher keep me sane.

Jon is amazingly talented and funny, but I can't picture him skewering the dems if they were in charge. If his show had been on in 1997-1999, do you really think each night he would have done a segment on Monica?

Yeah Tom, sorry, Jon has some substance.

"I have kids!"

I liked his whole response about not wanting the "fodder". I think he was being honest. Sure, the Bush administration provides a lot of news to poke fun at (or at least a lot of news to feel utterly agast at and therefore you must laugh in order to avoid crying) but I really do think that most comedians would rather poke fun at the media and dumb celebrities, etc.

Re: a Mad Max world... I shudder to think. But we're heading there.

Mad Max?! At least in that world you have some control over your fate. Where we're heading is much worse, Brave New World, 1984, Soilent Green and all that business. If we have another Republican president and the GOP keeps up this religious assault on freedom we'll be making soviet russia look like playtime in the sandbox.

Jon Stewart is very smart and astute as comedians go. Bill Maher is frankly pretty ignorant and irresponsible (funny though he often is) in his politics.

Still, the flattering of the "patient American people", shows that if Jon got into politics himself, he'd likely become as much of a windbag as a lot of people who are out there.

The Daily Show is in some ways run like the editorial boards of newpapers. The big writers get together and decide what they think about certain issues. Then they put it into a comdedy routine. Of course there is comedy on there that doesn't have anything to do with any issue. But Cordory's thing on the ports issue was basically a comedy bit version of the talking point Jon gave Larry King. The bits are funny as heck but there are clear policy positions behind a lot of them.

Jon is also flat wrong that the Dems only have 3% of the power. Obviously they're in the minority. But we've had five plus years of total Republican control, and yet there are a lot of taxation and entitlement issues on which the GOP has not been able to move. Don't chalk that up to John McCain. There are certain things that the Dems will filibuster to the death, and social security privatization is one of them. We'd have an anti-SSM constitutional amendment flying through state legislatures right now if it weren't for the Dems. That's not to give them an A+ for their performance, but it is to point out that things would be much much worse in a real one-party regime.

dende, are you for real? "five plus years of total Republican control, and yet there ar a lot of taxation and entitlement issues on which the GOP has not been able to move."

Wah?! HUH? You're gonna blame the Dems for that. You gonna blame the Dems for the GOP taking the US back into massive deficits? What happened to Republicans being against overspending? They proved that not only do they like to overspend, they dont have the courage to raise taxes to pay for it. They simply proved that all the Reaganomic rhetoric was just that, rhetorical bull. And they proved that the democrats under Clinton were way better at managing a budget than Bush is.

John Stewart is too cool. Although I find it difficult to believe that he didn't know Larry King wasn't insane before he went on the show.

Maybe I'm the only person who hasn't seen Larry King in a while, but sheeeiit, that guy has NO idea where Stewart is coming from. I mean, really, "I have kids."

Of course.

re: cali driver, don't you mean that LK is insane?

oops. Missed that double negative....

sravana- Yes, anyone who thinks someone would take pleasure in how bad our Nation is screwed up would not be of sound mind in my opinion. LK is totally nuts and this interview proves it. I was LMAO at how John handled being interviewed by a nut.

Tom: the point is, as he said, he doesn't really want to have to skewer pols; but it's obvious that he feels that in his own way-as many in the blogosphere-and certainly Norm-he does his part to hold the Bush regime's feet to the fire. Personally I think the Daily Show is wonderful. I dont' like that he's been soft on Colin Powell and a couple other cons who were on, but overall, just playing Monkey Boy and letting the full stupidity of what he's saying sink in is absolutely hilarious. And then to see Jon sitting there at the desk resting his head on his hands in mock respect of Monkey Boy's obviousness, always makes me laugh hard.

And dende-c'mon-he's right, they really do have no power. If they do at least, how is it revealing itself? They have power, they have sooooo much leverage given the mess that neo-cons make of everything, but the DNC is gutless and I think if they actually had a co-ordinated strategy, there's no way they could exert less power.

My point is this: there is nothing more satisfying than when someone who obviously leans one way, skewers someone on his own side. Only about 5 times has he done that in the 3 years I have watched The Daily show religiously. I could name them on one hand. Obviously, in that time period there have been a lot more than 5 great "candidates" to use for humor that would at least "throw a bone" to some moderates like me. Or to put it another way: It's exactly like when Dave Chappelle does 10 white jokes and then makes fun of blacks...he earns respect from all.

Damn it's good to finally see you Americans talking about the Replubicans AND the Democrats as worthless.