<bq>More people (4 million) tune in to The Daily Show in a given week than watched Fox news at the height of the war (3.3 million).</bq> <div class="quoter"><a href="http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030505&s=douglas">Daily Show Does Bush</a> - <a href="http://www.thenation.com/">The Nation</a></div> It seems the <a href="http://www.comedycentral.com/tv_shows/ds/videos.jhtml">Daily Show</a> has more fans than I thought. The article rightly points out that it's Stewart and his brilliant delivery that holds the show together. The reason it appeals is that he doesn't take sides against policies, he takes sides against stupidity; against illogic; against doublespeak. <bq>Stewart's on-air persona is that of the outraged individual who, comparing official pronouncements with his own basic common sense, simply cannot believe what he---and all of us---are expected to swallow. The approach of Stewart and his "reporters" is not to attack Bush policies as ideologically problematic; instead, they expose them as utterly absurd, as nonsense, deranged.</bq> It's like the Simpson's show where they keep saying "he's saying what we're all thinking". I think that hits the nail on the head. Most people are probably initially shocked at things they hear on their evening news, or snort and mutter "do they expect me to believe that?". No, they don't. They expect you to hear it hundreds of times until you stop snorting and let the information wash over and through you. <bq>Stewart told the London Guardian that the show is neither Democratic nor Republican but simply seeks to represent the "politically disappointed." His special target is spin: "We're out to stop that political trend of repeating things again and again until people are forced to believe them."</bq> Let's hope the Daily Show can continue to broadcast. Let's hope it doesn't have some mysterious ratings plummet that causes it to be pulled from the air as "no longer economically viable". In the meantime, take heart that this show is broadcast from the US. If there is still room for this level of dissent, then there is hope. I think the Daily Show gets away with what it does because the powers-that-be don't understand the power of humor to destroy fame. They don't understand how something that appears ridiculous loses all power, regardless of the might, money, influence or weapons behind it. I defer this line of thought to a far better writer: <bq>Will a day come when the race will detect the funniness of these juvenilities and laugh at them---and by laughing at them destroy them? For your race, in its poverty, has unquestionably one really effective weapon---laughter. Power, Money, Persuasion, Supplication, Persecution---these can lift at a colossal humbug,---push it a little--- crowd it a little---weaken it a little, century by century: but only Laughter can blow it to rags and atoms at a blast. Against the assault of Laughter nothing can stand.</bq> <div class="quoter">Mark Twain - The Chronicle of Young Satan, Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts</div>