It gets worse, Megan:

[www.nytimes.com]

Sorry. (

I can't even do a frown properly! I need candy.

:(

Um, I was at that mega car crash like three minutes later. Fucked up my commute and my day when I had an exam, but I guess not as bad as the people who were actually hurt. So I can't bitch too much.

Republicans lose when they're hypocrites.

does hillary legit think her gas tax holiday is a good idea?

Stewart's refusal to take himself seriously is humorous, endearing, and infuriating all at the same time.

I see what you did there with the alt-text. :)

Of course Stewart isn't a real journalist! Even tho I was disappointed in his interview w/McCain, I didn't think he had a *duty* to ask better questions. His job is to get laughs.

@PinkSoxHat: Holy cow. I have to force myself not to bitch about traffic because getting in a car accident would be so much worse.

That said, I get all kinds of pissy when I've been in backed up traffic for a half hour and discover people have been slowing down to stare a guy changing his tire on the side of the freeway.

No Colbert report breakdown? It was great.

Is Jon Stewart a real jounalist? What kind of question is that? Journalism is a myth like unicorns, men on the moon and sex.

@hortense: Ok, that's it, I'm going to go and mix my drink right now.

@Jamie Sommers: Sex can't be a myth. I had it 10 days ago.

This gas tax idea is a real bad idea. Real bad.

"...the proposed fuel tax suspension would cause an $8.5 billion loss of revenues to the Highway Trust Fund which is already facing a $3.2 billion shortfall and would result in the cancellation or delay of thousands of highway, bridge and transit projects across the country."

Hey now Carpentier. Let's be fair to Vito.

He didn't break the vaunted GOP abstinence only rule. He waited until after he was married to impregnate that lady. (Just so happens it wasn't the same woman he married.) The abstinence only curriculum just says wait til you get married to have sex. It doesn't say with whom.

I watched the McCain "interview" on the Daily Show last night, and again- Jon failed to ask any real questions. I got really pissed when he had Howard Dean on last week and talked over him for 5 minutes and NEVER EVEN ASKED about what will happen with the super dels and the DNC in Denver.

I know he's trying to be funny and all... but Jon, you KNOW you are some people's ONLY NEWS SOURCE, so use the power you have and ask the tough questions!!

/end rant. :)

@Archetype: There were explosions and everything. It was kind of awesome, in a holy shit kind of way.

@Megan Carpentier: Yeah sure. And Neil Armstrong says he's walked on the moon. And Barry Obama says he can change Washington.

@dirtybee has lost her orgasm: I'm wondering how Hillary is going to "make" the oil companies pay the gas tax this summer. So far as I know there's been no legislation introduced and even so, Bush would never pass it. Shameless pander!

What else can be said of Mark Penn that hasn't been said already?

Also, Stewart is untouchable.

@hortense: Aw that was the saddest little frown I have ever seen- a blinky frown.

Jon Stewart has often said he is not a journalist. I think too much got projected on him by the MSM and fans when they couldn't find another programme to go to and vent their frustrations about Bush. Now Bush is going, maybe that pressure will disappear again, and he can go back to being just a really good comedian.

@ElleL: Eh, I don't think the Daily Show's responsible if some of its viewers (allegedly) remain so uninterested in the subject matter that they can't browse a newspaper now and then -- what's annoying is that they're willing to set themselves up as a political spot, but are still too enamored of getting big pols on do anything but josh around with them. I'd be find with that if I got the sense that a few years of it would put them in a position to apply some pressure, but I have serious doubts about that ever happening.

@Archetype: I hate lookie-loos too. But cops in family insist that slowing down is best because there may be debris or emergency vehicles that need to maneuver thru traffic. And I had a friend who was killed changing a tire on the shoulder of freeway because some nutcase flew past the flares and slammed into his car and the car slammed into him and pinned him against the guardrail. RIP Kelly.

A computerized Interpol database of child abuse images played a part in the manhunt. The first photos seized in Norway and others received in the two years since were run through the database of more than 520,000 images."

I want to know more and how effective that database is in actually catching individual offenders.

(That's the problem with child porn, eh? The "child" may be an 18 year old or legal adult made to look like a kid [still fucking gross] or else those children are suspended in a netherworld and it may be years before they're found....and what's filmed in Denmark may be disseminated to nine different countries.) How often does this work? Sometimes the papers have stories about massive multi-country stings...

(Side note) Who remembers that friggin' awesome Law and Order: SVU episode, Pandora?! Where Stabler goes to the Netherlands or Denmark or some shit to find a 14 year old girl from the states who was in another country with a child pornographer?

@ceejeemcbeegee (AKA!): I'll bet Jon is ass pissed as the next person (who's paying attention anyway and it's been discussed [read that RS article]--John McCain is SOooOO nice one-on-one, poor pathetic old man who's been on the show so often, what a good sport!

And what a f*cking kook/extension of Bush.

I wonder how many watchers of the Daily Show actually plan on voting for McCain anyway and need enlightening...

Stewart is still my hero, at least when held up in contrast with the bullshit that passes for journalism now.

@ElleL: I guess he avoided the really tough questions because it's still early. If McCain actually comes on his show in August or October than I think the questions will get tougher.

@briardahl: Yeah, I guess youre right. I just get annoyed because Stewart will rip them to pieces in his "monologue" each night, but when theyre in the hot seat, he's all warm and fuzzy.

But I guess you could say the same about any talkshow/political candidate experience.

@tranquilmademoiselle: Godo point. And I hope it happens.

I for one, loooved when he called Tucker Carlson an Asshole on HIS OWN SHOW. And all time favorite. :)

This make me hate myself harder for working late tonight and reading this.

*An

@ilikenoise: Too true. Those who frown on Jon's "softball" interview style seem to forget that he's an entertainer on a COMEDY network, dammit, not a j-school grad. Sure, some incredibly depressing number of people in their 20s -- something like 50%, or some shit, according to a recent poll I can't find -- get their ONLY news from the Daily Show, but that's not Jon's fault. No, that's AMERICA'S fault.

And now I need a drink, too.

Although I am not objective in commenting on last night's Daily Show (I'm madly in love with Jon Stewart), I thought more questions could have been asked, but as others have said, his job is to get the laughs. I just think it is wrong for people to be upset that the "fake" newscaster doesn't ask the questions that the real newscasters should.

@jenndavo: Ah, here you go. [www.cnn.com]

@hortense: Trying something new

X:-(

*diztrez poortrayall skilz i haz dem*

The Republicans ought to throw Fosella a party - his mistress was a woman!

And one more thing -- and I swear, Ill shut up after this -- maybe Jon's softball style was some sort of insider's joke. You know, he was easy on McCain as the MSM is right now -- they're busy tearing HRC and Barry apart right now, you see.

@marie123: Y'know who's an expert on investigating crimes against the kiddies on the interwebs?

Shaq

Oh Thailand, Thailand, Thailand. I know you guys need the money, but really, this Sex Tourism has got to go. Fritzl heads to your company, and every pedophile with means thinks you're destination #1.
How can I help? Is the World Bank picking on you? Don't you worry, he'll get a stern talking to, ya' hear?

@Sophie: company=country

@ElleL: See, I don't think Jon wants to be that guy. At. All. He works really hard to remind us that he's a phony news guy, and that The Daily Show shouldn't be our only news source.

But what he fails to realize is it IS the only news source because it's the only one we know we can trust.

@BoredButNoLongerInNH: But if your job is solely to get laughs, it's pointless and counterproductive to have presidential candidates on your show: they're not funny. I dunno; I remember starting to watch the Daily Show way back when Craig Kilborn was hosting it, and there's been this obvious straining shift throughout that period to make the thing more politically pointed. They're happy to pick up the kudos and praise that brings, and they like being thought of as significant enough for big pols to go on. But that's still new, and they still have to be deferential to those big pols to keep it going -- which, from a viewing standpoint, squanders a lot of the credibility that got those big pols on in the first place. If you're just throwing softballs and having a chuckle wwith a candidate, why isn't this all just on Leno?

I love when Megan posts, but damn girl, you are dark.

BTW, aren't these journalists the same ones that whined about "usurpation of territory", "overstepping boundaries", and "lack of serious credentials" following Stewart's evisceration of Chris Matthews and other pundits with Faux Noise compatible perspectives?

As for the lawyers-on-lawyers thing, perhaps it's just a bad week - I mean decade - I mean, century - for misogyny in BigLaw.

Just sayin'.

@ElleL: Thank you. Sorry, my bad. It was Tucker Carlson, not Chris Matthews.

Clearly a sedative or its reasonable variant is in order.

@ceejeemcbeegee (AKA!): I don't think it's that he doesn't realize it.

I think it's that he doesn't want to deal with the attendant ramifications of admitting a realization like that.

@Jamie Sommers: Do not depress me further about my life, young lady. Don't make me come down there to Texas!
@baxterthepug: Yes, that would be the issue. Even if she gets a tax increase passed through Congress and past the White House (kinda hard to do from the campaign trail), the gas tax revenues would go away before the windfall profit tax revenues would be seen.

@J.D.Regent: Ain't it great?!

@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: Argh, but that's exactly the point, right? If you're going to "eviscerate" network journalists or tell cable pundits how much they're "hurting America," you can't just beg off responsibility yourself by joking around with politicians and saying "I'm just a funnyman." I mean, you can call that consistent, strictly speaking, but I feel like there's a slight obligation there to at least try and deliver the things you're so disdainful of others for not bringing.

@Megan Carpentier: I like your posts--keep it comin'!

@briardahl: John is first and foremost a comedian. He has no obligation to perform the duties of self-proclaiming journalists. Journalists are supposed to report news, investigate shady happenings, and inform. John provides laugh. He's no more obligated to ask hard-hitting questions than Bret Hume is to make a knock-knock joke.

Bret=Brit
Damnit!

@J.D.Regent: It's raining again, what can I say? Also, did you miss the post about my dry spell? :)

@Sophie: He doesn't have an obligation to do anything, no. That doesn't mean that it's not boring, sucky, or worthy of criticism when he's got nothing on this front. The show's selling point is politically sharp humor; when that selling point goes 99% blunt as soon as a big-name pol comes on the show, that's a problem for me, "obligations" or not.

@Rooo sez BISH PLZ: Word!

Re: the car crash. That is so scary. I shopped at that market for 2 years in college.