I Heart Jon Stewart

To copy from the new movie, "I Heart Huckabees", I have been feeling the need to loudly and proudly declare my love of Jon Stewart and the entire Daily Show cast and crew.

I've been an avid watcher of TDS since the days that good Ol' Craiggers sat behind the desk with his careful coiffure and asked his 5 questions. And things were good. Not great. Great started in 1999, when a short self-effacing Jewish guy took his place behind the desk, and political satire was changed forever.

It was not until the 2000 Presidential Election that the Daily Show really took off. In a moment of prophecy, they dubbed the Election "Indecision 2000", not knowing that come November real news outlets would be using the same term with all sincerity. The consistant commentary on the hypocrisy and outrageous bs of the election and campaign process won the Daily Show the Peabody award. And the hearts of devoted viewers. They managed to secure guests such as John McCain, Bob Dole and even Vice-Presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman. And in the end, though the entire election seemed a farce, it was the Daily Show that seemed to be one of the winners that wasn't chosen by the Supreme Court.

In the past 4 years, the Daily Show has made a name for itself as the source for snarky, pointed commentary on everything from the war in Iraq to celebrity foibles. The various "correspondents" are allowed to be off the wall and openly eccentric. Jon is left with the job of playing the straight man, the one who is just amazed that not everyone realizes what comes out of their mouths. This is not to say that Jon isn't funny--he is without a doubt one of the funniest straight men around. He plays off the insanity of the correspondents beautifully and seems to be the sole voice of reason.

During the Democratic Convention, Jon appeared on Nightline with Ted Koppel and what ensued can be categorized as a problematic interview at best. Koppel seemed to be upset that a growing number of people were getting their news from the Daily Show. As Jon pointed out, TDS is a FAKE news show, a comedy show not a newscast...though that has nothing to do with the issue of the show's credibility, which Koppel also seems to take issue with. Jon's comment about the inability of today's news anchors to mediate, giving Democrat and Republican pundits free airtime to just spout their partylines (" That was Coke and Pepsi talking about beverage truth") is a theme much discussed on TDS. Jon seemed to encourage Koppel to try and cut through the BS that he deals with, albeit without the humor, but Koppel wanted none of that. Self-effacing as always, Jon ended the interview by referring to himself as the dancing monkey.

I recently located the following report from the Annenberg Center for Public Policy. It includes a lot of numbers and demographics that are somewhat interesting. But proving most interesting is the fact that Daily Show viewers are more aware of politics and oddly more informed about politics than those who watch Leno or Letterman, and in fact have "higher campaign knowledge than national news viewers and newspaper readers." I hope Koppel is eating his heart out. The study goes further is assessing that not only is the Daily Show equal in meting out jokes about both the Dems and the Republicans, but TDS also uses a higher level of humor, usually criticizing policies rather than just making the typical "Bush is dumb" joke.

This past weekend's Emmy Awards were only putting the rubber stamp of approval on a show that I have known for years to be top of the game. All that's left is to sit back and enjoy the their coverage of the rest of the 2004 election and all the news, events, happenings, and occurrences that go on all around this crazy world of ours.