Can 'The Daily Show' Survive President Obama?

NEW YORK -- The party accoutrements at Comedy Central's election night party gave the impression that this was an impartial affair. There were, after all, equal numbers of John McCain and Barack Obama cupcakes. Still, it was impossible to walk into the Manhattan bar called The Park without grasping pretty immediately where the host's loyalties really lay.

You want to talk about a network news division (or "news division") in the tank for Obama: Here was one completely, unabashedly, happily tanked.

Tuesday's night's Central production of Indecision 2008, co-hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, was a far cry from "The Daily Show's" live election night coverage four years ago, which ended in something of a dirge.

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Comments

[Saidas]

If anyone thinks there will be a lack of material to work with, all I can say is "stay tuned"!

[dadw5boys]

The Daily show has Brazil, Mexico and so many others they can go after where the governments policys are really stupid.

The CIA, FBI, ATF and Homeland Security is no going to make life easy to Obama.

Uncovering the hard news might make the Daily Show a real news show.

[WindmillSlayer]

Oh, the Daily Show will survive. Nobody said all of the politicians are honest, right? Besides, as long as there are idiots in positions of power, there will be something to satirize.

[lionshead86]

It won't be the same. Stewart and Colbert spoke truth to power. When they pointed out the sheer hypocrisy or the sheer insanity of the Right it made everyone watching say "Jesus, YES, that's EXACTLY what I was thinking. They shined a light on the insanity of the hypocrisy of the right and they said it in a way that nobody else could. The news media has to be prosecutorial in it's criticisms of the Right wing and Bush. The Daily Show and Colbert ran free in-between the lines of fair play, and we all knew that IT WAS FUNNY BECAUSE IT WAS TRUE.

When they made fun of Bush it was EVIDENCE of a larger problem with the man. They show Bush tapdancing and we laugh thinking, "my god this man IS an idiot." They could show Obama tap dancing and make it funny, but it's just because of that one instance, its not an indicator of something bigger.

[buddydave]

Supporting the dems and ripping the repubs has never been the Daily Show's raison d'etre. The show was created well before George Bush and was designed to parody other news shows.

As long as the mainstream media continues to suck, the Daily Show will be fine.

As for Colbert, he's there to mock Fox News. Period. If Fox ceases to be exist, then maybe Colbert goes away, but I'd be fine with that tradeoff.

[Durango]

Yes, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's jobs just got more difficult.

After all we cannot expect anything like the abject stupidity we have seen for the past 8 years. And face it, stupidity IS funny.

But don't fear. Jon and Stephen have the best, most talented, most intelligent writers in the media. They will weather the hard times ahead.

After, while we may have put Bush/Cheney and the Permanent Republican Majority in the trash can of history . ..

They still have the American Corporate media to make fun of.