There was a time, a few years ago, when Comedy Central’s Daily Show was just another inane offering from the 500-channels-and-nothing-to-watch spectrum. Sure, it had its moments, even back when Craig Kilborn was hosting, but you’d never mistake it for a real news program. Fast forward to 2004, though, and the world has gotten so screwy that even the antics of the now-Jon-Stewart-anchored show seem insightful and cutting edge. After watching a few episodes recently, I’m not even surprised that the comedy show is now winning real news awards, over Jon Stewart’s objection that the show is fake. Reason for the award? "Anchorman Jon Stewart is more insightful on politics than most TV news commentators." Absolutely.  

Wonkette has a good example of how the show couches its analysis in sarcasm and humor. But behind the cool electric guitar theme song and audience laughter, this is one of the few media outlets to demonstrate the skepticism and incredulity that the rest of Big Media bartered away in exchange for their "embedded reporter" passes. The Daily Show is practically the tv show equivalent of an irreverent blog these days. So all of a sudden, with the 2004 election a few months away, this unlikely comedy show has become a reasonably decent source of national election news for that 18-34 "rock the vote" demographic. Another really funny detail:

Airing in the 11 p.m. time slot, the fake news show has averaged about 1 million viewers per episode this season, surpassing the total number of viewers, including in the key adults 18-49 demo, tuning in to see real cable networks like CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.

It’s especially satisfying to see Jon Stewart ask those obvious questions that you’ll never get to ask of major news personalities. This week, for example, Stewart asked CNN’s pre-eminent talking-head, Wolf Blitzer, whether the Iraqi war planners were "suffering from… and I’m using their [the 9/11 Commission’s] word here… ’GroupThink’…. or, here’s another word… ’retardation’…" If nothing else, his incredulity that people could get away with such horrible decision-making echoes a sentiment that a lot of the rest of us share…. and a sentiment that you’re not likely to hear on air from Peter Jennings or Tom Brokaw.