I love comedy. I don’t think I’ve laughed harder than when listening to Bill Cosby talk about childbirth, or Robin Williams about the Winter Olympics. By contrast, I’ve never been more bored and uninspired when listening to network and cable news. I hate drama built up around politics and social agendas. I just want to know what’s going on, and why it’s important. This is why I watch shows like The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, and Real Time with Bill Maher. As Bill Moyers said in an interview with Jon once, “More young people get the news from comedy shows than from any other source.” --and I can see why.

Jon Stewart

Jon Stewart’s most recent interview with Betsy McCaughey was a coup, to the point that in one fell swoop, he had his entire audience shaking their heads. As a conversationalist, Jon’s style is to frame and state. We know the low turn in his voice when he is making the thesis; we’ve been hearing it for years. However, in this last exchange with Betsy, he wasn’t given much opportunity—as if Betsy had read a playbook on how to keep him off his game. She talked to the audience and to the camera, she repeated her arguments as hyperbole, and at times it almost felt like Jon was in the back seat.

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As I watched, I wondered at his seeming difficulty. Normally he is more in control—and then I realized: He was allowing her to take over on purpose. He wasn’t having difficulty with the argument; he was flabbergasted at her motives. Betsy’s arguments were like an insurance company talking point list. She moved down from section to section without addressing what it meant in the context of an alternative to what she opposed. Jon’s role was to give her the spotlight and watch her tap dance. Unfortunately for her, the Daily Show (and talking with Jon for that matter) has never been a good venue for those kinds of moves.

Now, seeing interviews with the likes of Jim Cramer of Mad Money, John McCain, Cliff May (on torture), and Stewart’s appearance on the fated CNN Crossfire in 2004 betrays his true motive--that is, revealing the man behind the curtain.  The media can't just laugh off his thinly veiled comedic jabs, especially when people start paying attention.  Then, here's the funny part, they can't argue with him.

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How does a venerable media network argue with a guy who smashes his face into pies and spits water at the camera?  And yet, even after a decade on air, many of his controversial guests don’t realize, until too late, that they have again underestimated him.

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert is the fiery action to Jon Stewart’s reaction. He is almost annoying to watch for the more faint-of-heart, especially when making declarations about everything unrelated to anything important. However, who can forget Stephen’s turn at the White House Correspondent’s dinner in 2006? Colbert doesn’t confront and illuminate social issues in the same way that Jon Stewart does, however, underneath the conservative persona are the subtle nuances of a man fascinated by the world in other ways.

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Of course, Stephen’s improv often sabotages an audience who might be interested in learning more. But who is he choosing to interview? Neil deGrasse Tyson? Aubrey De Grey? Dean Kamen? Tyson is one of my favorite people, and the simple fact that he is on Colbert’s show belies an underlying motive.

The quality of Colbert isn’t necessarily in his grand statements, as entertaining as they are, but in the depth of his subject matter and guest choices.

Here’s Bill Maher:



Pretty insightful for a guy who used to write for Roseanne.

Overall, I don’t believe in the integrity of comedy. However, it is the most honest form of discourse in our modern televised media. The comedians are wearing the mantle of Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers without even intending to (which is the best part). But consider this—by catering to a young audience, they are training a new generation to be funny and pragmatic…so maybe the future isn’t so bleak after all—and that’s the way it is.

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