I have jokes that will beat anything your stand up comedians have just try some

I have jokes that will beat anything your stand up comedians have just try some

Far-left liberals are deranged, uptight, BDS-crazed, self-righteous whiners with no sense of humor, and there are lots of funny conservatives. That being said, .5HNH is pure crap, not because of ideology, but because of the stupidity and short-sightedness of the hacks who–when it came time to hire writers–refused to look outside of the select crowd that attended Joel Surnow's Dominican Republic Viagra-snorting sausage party.

It's silly to claim Stewart and Colbert aren't funny. They're a riot. That's because they have actual writers and actors and good direction, whereas .5HNH has dorks whose credits include crap like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and "Dr. Giggles." Whatever that is.

And as liberal critics have noted (they can't always be wrong), Stewart and Colbert have another advantage: they're not terrified of skewering their own kind. Even if the Surnow crew was funny, they'd still be limited because they refuse to make fun of conservatives.

Liberals have won the TV-humor war, not because they're funnier, but because Joel Surnow is an idiot. The Halfwit News Hour may continue to draw viewers, but it will never get or deserve the kind of respect Comedy Central's shows get.

Yikes, youse guys is scarin me.

You know snipers tried to take out Colbert the other day, he has been kidnapped by

the Men In Black seven times, and found himself on the lover levels of Area 23 where he was forced to interview an alien being. He has good reason to pretend he's a left leaning right wing anti-communist pro-Bush meat eating war supporter who doesn't know where car tires come from, he is a serious and self infused proponent of the larry king style interview, he is the anti thesis of the serious interviewer, the antiKronkite, the anitRather, as foolish a reporter as Bushy is a President.

Here Here. the Judgy is in.

dave, actually, no, it would be at least 1.500000000001. Regardless, that's my point: Bush actually did win the vote in 2000, but even if you want to think he didn't, he certainly won big in 2004.

Jonathan, I don't mind bias. I mind persistent bias that gets old, unimaginative, and boring. Like the typed voice in The Word segments: those are usually just stupid and often false things being put on the screen, most of which are not even funny, and most of the people laughing are doing so only out of ignorance or anger/hatred.

Like, when someone mentions Bush's "16 words" which were, in fact, true, and which, in fact, Joe Wilson had nothing to say about, despite popular beliefs (cf. Butler Report). But when someone mentions something snarky about Bush lying in those 16 words, a lot of people laugh, out of ignorance or anger/hatred. It's not the bias that annoys me, it's the annoying "joke" and the annoying response.

xraex, and Colbert is wrong that conservative comedy is harder because of the status quo. Um, in fact, the government is now primarily left of center, as they control both house of Congress, and Congress has most of the power of the government (again, despite the popular myth of coequality). So you would think that would make conservative comedy easier. No, conservative comedy is *always* harder because it is easier to be countercultural, and conservatives are not countercultural, as a general rule. Same reason why you don't see many (good) angry rightwing protest songs. Good protest songs come overwhelmingly from the left, because the right just isn't good at protest, even when they have something to protest.

Though, I agree with what you said, somewhat, about this Fox show being out of anger and being reactionary; this is, however, a big part of why I stopped watching TDS: because too much of it was not about being funny, but about trying to make a political point through anger, as demonstrated by Jon Stewart's buffonery on Crossfire. Despite Stewart's protestations, YES YOU ARE A MONKEY HERE FOR MY AMUSEMENT. And you are paid handsomely for it.

As to your comments about the death of journalism, oh please. Google "Benjamin Franklin" and "Silence Dogood" together. Also, the newspapers back then were far more biased and propagandistic than Fox News today. There's nothing new under the sun …

As Colbert himself has stated in an interview, doing comedy from the conservative perspective is harder, because comedy is about status and undermining the status quo. And maybe that is why the fox show was so unfunny. But I think it's more likely that they think of themselves as a "conservative" show acting out against "those liberal comedy shows." Well, guess what? TDS and TCR are comedy shows. They want to make people laugh. EVERYONE. I know conservatives that watch these shows and laugh, because Stewart and Colbert are comedians. They are out to make fun of the media and politicians, yes, but they want ALL of US to laugh. The Fox news "comedy" show was made out of anger. They only want conservatives to laugh and for liberals to be angry. And fox news doesn't need a seperate show to make liberals angry. We're pretty pissed at them most of the time… sometimes rightfully so. But I think fox news is really insulting its own audience with this show. Even my conservative friends wouldn't think Limbaugh and Colter being in the white house as being funny. Nor would an average conservative cheer for them. They are so extremist and wierd. I hate to say this, but I think Fox could still do better, if they start with funny writers, writing funny jokes, and just make fun of liberals where they can, if that is so important to them. Also, the whole idea of a "news" channel doing a comedy show is a little fucked up. Is fox news at war with TDS/TCR? Oh, journalism! I'm calling it: time of death: 12:07 AM Pacific time.

The left leaning Daily show and Colbert are necessary for something called polarity. Americas government swings right twice. Right in two is nowhere near center. So I enjoy a lil polarizing humor even if it is left of center. Opposed to being so far right it's off the charts and the "presence" shows itself. elhh

he won two elections, but the comment was about how often the country voted him in, not how many times he won. considering the first vote count was halted, the correct number should be something closer to 1.499~… but anyway.

as to bias, it's everywhere. on fox, cnn, msnbc, daily show, etc. the question then becomes one of integrity. i don't watch tds or tcr religiously, but i've seen both mock the left as well as the right. if the right loses the white house, i have every confidence that both will continue to mock authority in whatever form it takes. they're looking for jokes, and they'll take them wherever they can get them.

the fox 1/2 hour show is something different. it's a spiteful reaction to the fact that their news division has been made to look like fools by pandering to the right for so long. it's a bully who's finally been given a bloody nose, standing in the playgound and shouting "oh yeah?"

and that's neither funny nor honest.

Oh, come now. This post complains about "bad propaganda," and then a commenter agrees, says Bush never won a Presidential election? It's a fact, he won two. Even if you think he should not have won the first — by what legal and democratic standard one would claim that, I have no idea — he clearly won the second, by quite a bit.

Maybe I am being too harsh, and he meant 1.7 times, not 0.7 times. Then it is marginally funny, instead of "bad propaganda."

Anyway, I stopped watching TDS because of *its* "bad propaganda." Colbert is pretty bad often too, and I am less enthusiastic about it than I used to be. I do not watch Fox News, I think it's terrible, and I hate Bill O'Reilly. Seriously. I watch PBS NewsHour every night: that's my national news coverage (where else can I get a 15-minute interview with PJ O'Rourke about Adam Smith?).

NewsHour's generally not funny — well, Marc Shields is, but unintentionally — but it informs me, far better than (in order of most to least sucky) Fox News, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, NBC, or ABC. I would rather jump naked on a huge pile of thumbtacks than watch BOR or his arch-nemesis-who-was-so-bad-at-sports-reporting-that-they-made-him-a-news-anchor Keith Olbermann.

But the leftward tilt of TDS and Colbert — even though they are funnier — is just as annoying as BOR is.

OK, not as annoying, but still, annoying. At least BOR is obvious in his bias.

Granted, some of my annoyance is more with the audience than the show itself, sometimes. I remember a couple of years ago during the GOP convention, shortly before I gave up on TDS, they did a story showing a bunch of old white men speaking at the convention the previous night, and made a joke about how the GOP is not diverse. And people I talked to the next day were saying how true that was. Except that it's not true: that night Elaine Chao was a featured speaker (her "old white" husband spoke that night too, and was shown by Stewart; but Chao spoke later, and for longer, and was not shown), and the MC of the evening was a black man.

Who is more to blame for the public being misinformed? If TDS did it knowing that people would take them seriously, they deserve some blame. And if they didn't know it, then they deserve blame for that. I keep thinking back to Jon's appearance on Crossfire where he accused the mates there of ruining the country, and yet he knowingly, on a regular basis, misinforms his own audience. He calls it jokes, but the problem is the audience takes it seriously, and what's more, he KNOWS they do.

I saw every episode of TDS for several years. And I've seen every episode of Colbert.

I still watch Colbert for now. But as time goes on, he is becoming more biased, or I am being more attuned and sensitive to it, so I might not keep it up for long. Good news though: chances are I won't switch to this Fox thing. Maybe I'll just add PBS' Nightly Business Report instead.

We need to stop approaching the logic of this show from a liberal perspective. The fact is that the comedy DOESN'T have to be inventive or good. It just has to make fun of minorities and poor people. Those jokes, no matter how many times they're recycled, will always please the republicans.

So so sad. Hopefully it was people like me – watching in morbid curiosity, to report its awfulness to the rest of the world.

what did anyone expect? this is the same country that voted george bush into office 0.7 times.