Fox News has been accused of cynically playing up populism despite being run by, well, Eastern elites. But as The Daily Show pointed out last night, Gretchen Carlson's adding a "dumb blonde" schtick does Everyman one better, reality be damned.

The Daily Show has historically gotten a lot of mileage out of Fox & Friends' Gretchen Carlson's "troubled mom" persona, which basically involves wrinkling her nose and innocently wondering what this Obama fellow is up to with our country.

Stewart employs Carlson's own hard-hitting research tactics (Google!) to learn that she may not be as simple and hair-twirling as she lets on. Dumbing yourself down is bad enough when it's to work an audience into a populist frenzy. But disingenuously playing into gendered soccer mom, gee whiz cliches? Evil brilliance.

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