Liberals enjoy the puerile humor of Jon Stewart. "LOOK! HE MAKES FUNNY FACES AND PRETENDS NOT TO KNOW THINGS! LOLLERSKATES!". That's why his show can get buy with about eight minutes of his talking, then segues into witless correspondents and a guest interview: He just doesn't have that much to say. Similiarly, Rush Limbaugh does great over several hours because what he has to say is substantive and simply takes time. The problem is trying to cram the conservative ideology into such a short period. That's why liberals have so much success in the media: They have good soundbites, until you start to think about them.

What Rush has to say is substantive!

Come ON people! I just proved that conservatives can be teh funny!!! Give me credit!

I have the luxury of being able to listen to the radio at work. Just today, Rush performed a little thought experiment: The presidential election is just a beauty contest that distracts the people from the center of real power, the congresscritters. What if we made it so that the senate picked presidents for six year terms, subject to the house's approval, with no possibility of the same individual serving twice? It would force people to pay more attention to their local representatives, and it would remove the current Iowa/New Hampshire absurdity that is part of our system.

Now, you can disagree with the proposal. I happen to think it creates more problems than it solves-- it would simply offer too much power to people who made the right friends, not people who had merit. Still, it's worth discussing, and it raises some questions on electoral procedure and what we value as a nation. How can you tell me that's not substantive?

Oh, right: You've never actually listened to the show, you just believe what Al Franken and the media tells you.

American Hawk again exposes his lack of critical thinking or ability to distinguish between facts and propaganda.

But always good for a laugh.

From what I've seen of THHNH, it is certainly anything but funny. Yet I also remember when Jon Stewart first replaced Craig Kilborn on the Daily Show. It was awkward, uncomfortable, and unfunny. Eventually Stewart found his groove, so I think we should at least admit the possibility that THHNH will get better. Although it's pure embarrassment at this stage.

We haven't been able to copy Rush Limbaugh

Never heard of Ed Schultz, eh?

Yet I also remember when Jon Stewart first replaced Craig Kilborn on the Daily Show. It was awkward, uncomfortable, and unfunny.

Agreed.

Liberals get their facts by reading from a variety of sources and from a diversity of media It's seems as though a great deal of republicans are quite happy getting their "news" from propagandistic shills like Limbaugh, Hannity and O'Reily.

Holy Shit American Hawk! You crazy. Either that or you are a brilliant satirist.

I'm curious. Are there any funny conservatives? I don't think Dennis Miller counts as he just likes war. And PJ O'Rourke sort of counts but he's been the answer for like 30 years.

Irony is completely lost on conservatives.

So were Rush's substantive comments on a new way to elect a president funny? I think you are getting confused American Hawk.

Or Stephen Colbert's show: when it first aired, the audience didn't know how to react. It was very awkward, and you were just sitting on needles hoping he'd catch a groove. And finally he did.

BTW. I've got an .mpg of his address to the Correspondents' Dinner. That was funny!; but the press, to no surprise, panned it.

SimulatedOutrage-- Humor isn't really Rush's beat. He's more on the thought-provoking end of the scale. It was Kevin Drum who brought up Rush, not me.

There are funny conservatives out there, such as Glenn Beck (radio show, not the TV; the TV format doesn't really agree with him). Also try http://www.imao.us// is a good place to start.

I hope this is helpful.

-- American Hawk.

Unlike most on this site, I enjoy watching Fox. "Know the opposition" is always a good motto to live by.

With that said, I saw the advertisement for the 1/2 Hour News Hour and gagged. One thing about SNL, the Daily Show and Colbert: they may be liberals but there are no sacred cows. Their willingness to skewer everybody makes them funny. But Fox ads made it clear the show would be a one-sided sarcastic attack against liberals and democrats. The show is just more conservatives ridiculing liberals. How ..... different. Snooze.

American Hawk --

Actually that's pretty darn stupid.

Of course this would run across the current that the Constitution is so inviolable. Maybe we could start with something simpler like modifying Article II of the Bill of Rights and see how that works out first.

Personally I think the framers of the Constitution probably got it right in splitting the administrative from the executive. It all works better when there is some constructive tension.

That aside, seems more like a rather obvious Trojan horse so that whenever the Republicans have a majority in the Senate or Congress as a whole they can have the President too and then act like the Repugnuts they revert to every time they get their greedy hands on the levers of power.

Anyway, thanks for helping us with Rush's brain power.

Oh, and yes, I have tried listening to him. If you can last more than 15 minutes listening to rant, propaganda, truth manipulation and lies without coming dangerously close to bursting a blood vessel, it probably shows where your sense of reality lies.

And, as admitted lately on NPR, his only reason for ranting like that is to keep his ignorant audience numbers high so his advertising rates stay up.

Nice guy. NOT!

Amer. Hawk: "Similiarly, Rush Limbaugh does great over several hours because what he has to say is substantive and simply takes time."

He's certainly substantive as both a pathological liar and a psychopathically vicious dung-thrower -- something that has by now been documented with dreary regularity over the last few years, frequently by other conservatives who got a bellyful on some particular subject. I question, however, whether this is an adequate recommendation.

Notthere-- As I said, I disagree with the proposal too. And be acknowledged that, of course, it would require a constitutional amendment that will never happen. But it's more substantive than Jon Stewart making funny faces.

And anyway, when did he admit that on NPR? What was the exact quote? Links? Thanks.

Someone once asked PJ O'rourke why he was the only funny conservative and he replied, "The only *intentionally* funny conservative, you mean"

There is a reason the very best political humor is delivered by the court jester. The jester pokes fun at the rich, powerful and the king. Comedians all know that basic fact of comedy. That is what Stewart really does. That is what Letterman does. It is what Leno (who is politically a conservative) does. Eventhough he was a conservative, that is what Hope did. It was also the basis of the humor of Johnny Carson.

People feel good when those in power are brought down a peg or two. They laugh when people in power are shown to be failed human beings just like them.

For the 1/2 hour news hour to be funny first it has to frame liberals as being rich, powerful and in charge. That frame is a hard sell as long as the Republicans control the White House and the Democrats seem ineffectual in pushing their agenda. If Democrats regain the White House, maintain control of the House and Senate, and especially if they find themselves welding real power effectively, it will be possible, indeed likely, for a court jester to poke fun at liberals. That is years away.

In the meantime conservative humor falls flat. Its "humor" is a lot like the taunts of the bully made at the expense of his victim. The bully's gang feels compelled to laugh. If you are not a part of the gang, it just seems like a bully's taunts. It isn't funny.

I have the luxury of being able to listen to the radio at work.

LMAO. You just outed yourself as a hired troll.

You would have been better advised to pretend that the reason you are posting in this and other forums all day is because you are unemployed.

Disputo-- Almost everybody with an office can bring a radio to work without disturbing his neighbors. Do you even know what an office looks like? It's much different than your work place, because there's no fry-maker.

LMAO @ AH a second time. Once again the dolt misses the point.

Lollerskates?

What if we made it so that the senate picked presidents for six year terms, subject to the house's approval, with no possibility of the same individual serving twice?

We would soon run out of people who were any good at it who were hooked up enough with Congress to get appointed and all power would concentrate in the Speaker of the House, also elected by his peers.

It's a recipe for oligarchy.

Why not just call him the Doge and appoint them all for life?

Disputo-- So, apparently, you don't know what an 'office' is. Are you in high schol?

Kenji-- Common liberal parlance. As I understand it, it means hilarity on wheels.

CLD-- I agree that ,on the balance, our current system is superior. However, the point is that it's a substantiative discussion that raises several complicated issues-- the fear of oligarchy, representation versus direct elections, the problematic nature of modern campaigns, and much more. Even if you think the proposal is crap, it's a substantive discussion. That's what Rush Limbaugh is really all about.

Republicans are not funny. Ridiculous, but not funny.

Was Rush proposing an oligarchy?

CLD-- No. He was just seeking solutions to the absurd presidential election process we have now. If somebody wants to be leader of the free world, they have to spend a year in Iowa pretending to give a fuck about corn. Surely, we can do better than that. He's recently been exploring various proposals to fix that.

It's also worth noting that his system is pretty close to what the founders intended with the electoral college...

Every time I read a fake American like AH pretend that he know shit about the US, I throw up a little.

Of course this would run across the current that the Constitution is so inviolable.

And American Hawk didn't think of that. Which pretty quickly disproves AH's claim that Rush is "thought provoking."

Whats the matter, Disputo? You only like immigrants if they're illegal?

conservatives arent as good at anything in the creative arts dept. music, art, film, writing, those fields are dominated mostly by off center kind of people who think outside the box and defy tradition. do you think rush limbaugh could ever paint a picture? could sean hannity ever sing?

conservatives can never innovate in the arts, only imitate and usually badly at that. christian rock is the best example.

Asdf-- It would obviously require a constitutional amendment. That fact is so obvious that it's not even worth mentioning. Christ, do you guys need everything spelled out for you? What part of 'thought experiment' is unclear?

American Hawk --

Here's the actual quote:

"...I always say my real purpose is to attract the largest audience I can, and hold it for as long as I can, so I can charge confiscatory advertising rates...."

AH, pretty darn lazy. For your future reference NPR is really hard to find. It's npr.org. Maybe You should try listening to some of that. Do you good. You know, alternative views and all that.

Then they have a station search. Just put in "Rush Limbaugh". Since it was in January '07 it's near the top of the list. Then you click on the item, and then "listen". Don't even have to read.

Too much like hard work? Here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7018083

AH: If somebody wants to be leader of the free world, they have to spend a year in Iowa pretending to give a fuck about corn.

Well, Hawk, you've gotten off your years long no-hit streak, conngratulations!

As for Rush's proposal, why not switch it around so that the House selects the president and the Senate ratifies the selection. After that, we can change the name of the House of Representatives to the House of Commons. Then the president won't be able to hide as well during "question time".

could sean hannity ever sing?

Well, maybe Ashcroft could ... NOT

Notthere-- wtf? That link just says he's trying to attract what people want to listen to. Today, he got people thinking about the electoral process and constitutional law. You object to that?

Natural cynic-- That would also be an interesting spin. In the alternative, maybe it could be a selection of governors, with weighted votes. There's lots of ways to structure such elections. It's always good to question assumptions about how we do things.

However, the point is that it's a substantiative discussion that raises several complicated issues

How can it be a substantive discussion if it's just one guy sitting in a booth talking to himself. What's missing from Limbaugh and from a lot of conservative discourse is an actual discussion, a vetting of views from opposing perspectives.

I find this strange, since when I do see actual complete arguments fleshed out between conservative and liberal viewpoints, the conservatives seem to win as often as they lose. However the more typical outcome is that the sides do not have a genuine argument because the conservative devolves the argument into ad hominem attacks or unsubstiated charges of naivte.

Limbaugh may be a case in point for this. Maybe he does get around to substance after listening to hour upon hour of his unanswered, mind numbing inneundo. But I suspect the reason he rarely has guests and never has guests with opposing viewpoints is that his "thought-provoking" ideas just can't stand up to critical scrutiny.

At least he's more honest in that approach than Sean Hannity, who brings in an actual straw man to smack down.

Bucky-- He took callers. He also had a guest who knocked the proposal. I'm afraid that the name of the guest escapes me, but I think he was a centrist-libertarian commentator of some sort (sorry, I was mostly paying attention the words, not who said what). He also took calls on the issue.

And even when Rush (or anybody) monologues, it's quite an exercise to assess what they're saying in your head and try to spot the logical flaws and hidden assumptions.

I think the reason why Stewart works so well is that while his political views are liberal, his job is satirizing the people in power. For the 6 years until January, that was pretty much the Republican Party wherever you looked. That's the way satire works best. You make fun of the excesses and abuses of the system by ridiculing those in power. Now that the Democrats actually have some authority in D.C., they're getting made fun of by The Daily Show as well.

Also, the show works because it doesn't just focus on politics and political orientations, it rags on the news media as well. The correspondence stories that fill up the middle segment of the show are hilarious because they tackle the most ridiculous issues like they're a matter of life and death while making fun of everyone they interview. When you make the show entirely about politics, you set the bar that much higher.

As someone who skews left but enjoys the luxurious center, I'll say this: The Half Hour News Hour is painful.

I would LOVE an actually funny conservative television show, especially because it would be pretty damn easy. The left is a comedic goldmine. Two things to consider, though:

1) the Daily Show is not a "liberal" comedy show, its a comedy show that targets the Media and how ridiculous and harmful it is to the political conversation in this country. It also targets the people in power. When Jon Stewart made his (admittedly overly strident) appearance on Crossfire, he wasn't targeting Tucker Carlson, he was targeting the whole premise of the show. When the media reports stupidly on both liberal and conservative views, he attacks. For the last 6 years, conservatives have held the power in this country, and so they've made for easy targeting. Since the democrats have gained the house and the senate, the Daily Show has done an equally nasty job of skewering those politicians newly in power on the left. As someone mentioned before, good political comedy comes from bringing those in power down a notch. Since the dems have taken power, the Daily Show has done a great job of showing their faults just as much.

2) good comedy comes not from rehashing old punchlines but from writing new ones. The Democrats unwittingly provide dozens of brand new punchlines daily. And yet the Half Hour News Hour rehashes old punchlines and weak jokes that have already worn out their welcome. The masterful strength of the Daily Show is letting the film clips speak for themselves. They show a politician saying something stupid (something people on both sides of the aisle do daily) and making only minimal commentary. THHNH shows no clips, instead just brings up awkwardly-phrased old jokes about candidates that desperately show a political agenda, not comedy. Fox News' anchors already do that plenty, and I don't see a need for more talking heads to do that on that network under the umbrella of "comedy" as everything THHNH says has already been said with the same sarcasm and smirks by the regular real anchors.

Its a shame, because if Fox News was driven a little less by ideology and a bit more by a genuine wish to entertain (I assume the purpose of a comedy show is to entertain), then they would hire quality comedians who know how to tap the enormous wealth of truly hilarious business that goes on on the left and exploit it. Its just a shame they don't know how. I don't buy the premise the conservatives can't be funny. I just don't think they've found a truly universally humorous voice in generations. Buckley, O'Rourke, and others were of a generation that were conservative and also truly witty. Its a shame that nobody has risen to take that mantle since.

Oh, oh, American Hawk. Now you are introducing some lack of concentration in listening.

Better give us a cite on this Limbaugh rant so we can check it out.

Anyway, moving on:

"...it's a substantiative discussion that raises several complicated issues...Even if you think the proposal is crap, it's a substantive discussion..."

If it's crap, it's crap. Not substantive or even substantiative!

Limbaugh spouts and you lap it up as some "substantive, thought provoking idea" when it is shoot from the hip, unthought through, half baked drivel. It never flies.

We are well on course for oligarchy, even plutocracy. We have lots of problems with elections, most centering around corruption of the actual or potentially actual vote. The problem with campaigns are they are too much in the pocket of business, not the people. "And much more."

So how much time did you spend drooling in front of the radio ignoring your "work"?

No really. Lollerskates?

And yes, Ass H, it's hilarious when Jon Stewart makes face while showing five minutes of video of these jackasses (ie your faultless heroes) contradicting themselves. You see, some of us actually feel bad when we see our country corn-holed (common rural parlance) by—oh, I mean "buy"—arrogant know-nothings like you. And we therefore take some small comfort in knowing that many of us are still able to laugh at you and your (dangerously stupid) kind.

Not proud of that, necessarily, but it's a survival thing. Because your crowd is ruining not just the nation but the whole planet.

So, in short, we don't give a fuck about what lie-spewing torture-lovers like you find funny. Rush Limbaugh "substantive"? Yeah, like the shit in your bowl every morning. And away go troubles down the drain: Roto-Scooter!

LOLLERSKATES is a legitimately funny term. Lets let American Hawk's actual arguments be the focus instead of a hilarious internerd term.

A'Hawk is making the incorrect assumption that The Daily Show and Rush Limbaugh are two sides to the same coin. But you people cursing at him and throwing invective on him just proves his point. The whole idea is that when you're right, you can use arguments to prove it, not insults. Lets not make him look like the hero fighting against the pissy left by swearing and insulting him.

Oh, I forgot:

"...That link just says he's trying to attract what people want to listen to. Today, he got people thinking about the electoral process and constitutional law...."

Exactly, you ignorant idiot. He serves up to a common denominator not from a point of view of truth or considered wisdom. As long as his ratings stay high, that's his gauge. If it drops he'll turn up the rant another notch or two to get you guys drooling again.

He's certainly not going to moderate his language or become thoughful when his popularity drops unless it continues to drop. Then he'd become a pussycat if necessary. And that tells you what he is. He's a demagogue.

It's all about manipulation and you are just one of the mindless mob, American Hawk.

some rush limbaugh gems:

"take that bone out of your nose and call me back"

and

"Have you ever noticed how all newspaper composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

The HHNH will be more of the same ... remind everyone that black men have odd, foreign, arab-sounding names, that Hillary wears pant suits and is therefore a lesbian ...

so much of fox, and the rightwing in general, wants to return to a time when fat white men could be the racist assholes they wanted to be without the need to look over their shoulder to see if they were overheard.

these fucks will fail for the same reason rush got his fat ass fired from ESPN ... because enough americans realize that many wingnuts hiding behind political "incorectness" are really just looking for an excuse to be bigoted assholes.

No, that doesn't work, because these shitbags are impervious to logic. Clearly, like bad children, they are just looking for attention, not converts, or they wouldn't come to a center-left site and spew mindless boilerplate about the "Democrat Party". But after six years, I'm sick of tolerating them like the good reasonable people we are and expect ourselves to be. I've had it with the motherfucking snakes on the motherfucking site and I want to see them suit up, go to Iraq, and get fragged by the troops, God bless 'em.

Sorry, but that half-million murders over in Iraq (and I put our soldiers on top of the victim list) is sort of bugging me, you know. Criminals are bankrupting the nation in order to pay for mass murder so a few companies can have robust returns in the short haul, and I just don't find it funny anymore.

These jackboot-licking torture apologists, like Al-bot and Unamerican Chickenshit and Frequent Bedwetter (if real) are poisoning our commonweal and I really think it's time to stop being polite. In case you haven't noticed, they've put land mines all over the high road.

Since Limbaugh seems to have been uncharacteristically serious in his proposal for fusing the Executive and Legislative branches into a single Parliamentary branch, let me say that -- while an awful lot of nations have done it -- the danger of a one-party semi-dictatorship is further increased by it, for obvious reasons. (The Framers made only one major mistake at the Constitutional Convention, but it was a lulu - their total failure to foresee the rise of political parties, which they thought could and should be kept from coming into existnce at all. The result was that the nation literally came within 3 days of falling apart when the original Presidential election process jammed up in the 1800 election, and after a last-second concesion saved us the 12th Amendment was hurriedly passed to prevent that from happening again. And only 3 years later Marbury vs. Madison established the Supreme Court (an afterthought of the Convention) as the final legal arbiter of constitutionality -- instead of Congress, which the Framers had originally intended for that purpose on the false assumption that it would be free from party control.

But despite those measures, we still have problems with unified-party control, and a switch to a simple parliamentary system, would, I think, make them worse. I'd accompany it with another measure requiring confirmation -- and periodic reconfirmation -- of the Attorney General by a Congressional supermajority and giving him veto power over all other appointments to the Justice Department, thus insulating it from one-party control as the rest of the Judicial Branch is supposed to be free from it. Remold the US government into separate Parliamentary and Judicial branches (with the House of Representatives as the only Congressional chamber), and I think you WOULD have an improved system -- especially if you combined this with an instant-runoff election system, thus giving political centrists the power which our current system of elections unfairly deprives them of.

Thanks, Bruce. I almost forgot that I originally came to this site to learn things, not to raise my blood pressure. (That's what TV is for.)

A.H. -- Your point about Rush's thought experiment is the exception that proves the rule. I challenge you to come up with three other things that Rush has said that is "substantive."

Also, your point about Jon Stewart reading the news and "making funny faces" is interesting, because its an exact description of the not-so-ill-fated Rush TV show.

Why was it that Rush didn't catch on, and Stewart did?

Maybe it was because of stuff like this?

Bruce Moomaw --

I liked your redflection there.

The point about a system of government is that it evolves and if serious faults found redirected with, it is hoped, the same thought and consideration and debate as the original framers invested.

To compare to, say, most parliamentary systems, there is a figurehead president or monarch, then a prime minister and cabinet joint responsibility, and, importantly, more than 2 parties.

In the UK, for instance, problems arose as Maggie consolidated power within the Prime Ministership combined with a Conservative majority, which has certainly been excaserbated by control freak Tony Blair and a Labour one. In that sense the UK has been mirroring the degeneration of government performance in the US. One might remember that in WWII Churchill ran a national government involving all parties, somewhat more of a compomise than Abe's.

Anyway, the point is you can't get there from here, not by a simple, one-jump change. And you may not want to anyway.

I highly recommend we deal with the problems that face us, the most important of which is the President acting outside the laws of the country.

"exacerbated", thank you.

Rush claims to be a comedian whenever anyone calls him on the crap he pedals. "Oh, I'm not serious! Can't you people take a joke?!"

Pathetic.

Hawk:

That's why liberals have so much success in the media: They have good soundbites, until you start to think about them.

Sound bites like these?

"Mission accomplished."
"As Iraqis stand up, we stand down."
"We need to stay the course."
"The insurgency is in its last throes."
"A new way forward."

You're wrong, Hawk. The Republicans are the ones who have simplistic sound bites that don't stand the scrutiny of reason.

American Hawk
I find it hilarious that a quasi-troll like yourself would try to claim that Rush is thought provoking. He just recited to his listeners the concept of parliamentary democracy, and acted like it was a fresh new way to tackle electing the presidency. If you can't tell the difference between stale old ideas, and fresh new thoughts, you belong firmly in Rush's audience.

it takes balls to admit you get your political advice from a limpdick junkie blowhard. and i thought you said you had the day off, amchickenhawk.

Conservatives have no sense of humor. Listen to Rush Limbaugh's radio show for a while and you will see what I mean.

The Conservative Deflator: "Conservatives have no sense of humor."

Yes, they do. I just think that generally they are far more willing to have a laugh at another's expense than laugh with other people, or even at themselves.

However, Ronald Reagan was well-known for his self-deprecating humor and snappy retort. Even as a liberal, I still laugh at a story from his gubernatorial days in California, when his limousine approached a passel of rowdy student protesters, one of whom was holding a sign proclaiming "We Are the Future". Reagan quickly scribbled his own sign on a piece of paper, "Then I'm selling off my stock portfolio", and held it up to the window as he drove by.

I recorded it, out of curiosity. It was pretty lame. A few funny bits, but most of the time the humor seemed to be forced. And the female co-anchor was not good. Her delivery needs some work. She did remind me of Jane Curtain-something with her hair, I think.

Just today, Rush performed a little thought experiment: The presidential election is just a beauty contest that distracts the people from the center of real power, the congresscritters. What if we made it so that the senate picked presidents for six year terms, subject to the house's approval, with no possibility of the same individual serving twice? It would force people to pay more attention to their local representatives, and it would remove the current Iowa/New Hampshire absurdity that is part of our system.

...

Still, it's worth discussing, and it raises some questions on electoral procedure and what we value as a nation. How can you tell me that's not substantive?

How boring. Five seconds of thought will lead to the conclusion that this will merely shift further power towards states like Nebraska where about eight people live and which are black holes of government subsidy and away from states where people actually live and contribute to the economy like California and New York. (Oh yeah, and these states actually vote for Democrats. I forgot.) How trivial.

I prefer the Clinton bashing, actually. At least there I occasionally hear an interesting new conspiracy theory.

Not since "My Mother the Car" has a supposed TV comedy needed a laugh track so desperately.

American Hawk: Oh, right: You've never actually listened to the show, you just believe what Al Franken and the media tells you.

At a previous job, I used to have to drive to the post office every day at a time our local NPR station had a fatuous talk show on and in a place the local jazz station didn't reach, so I listened to Rush for half an hour every day. He is just as bad as other liberals say he is.

SimulatedOutrage: Are there any funny conservatives?

Chris Buckley?

Republicans are not funny. Ridiculous, but not funny.

Liberals tell political jokes, conservatives elect them.

We're making all this fuss about American Hawk's listening to Rush Limbaugh, while missing something glaringly obvious.

AH: Just today, Rush performed a little thought experiment...
He took callers. He also had a guest who knocked the proposal.

Not on Monday, he didn't. Limbaugh was off for President's Day. Roger Hedgecock was guest hosting. (For the record, Limbaugh has already taken seven days off this year, though a couple of those were sick days.)

We haven't been able to copy Rush Limbaugh, and they haven't been able to copy Kos or Jon Stewart. Sometimes it's best to understand that and move on.

I understand. We don't have the money [to pay someone $60 million a year for propoganda or to own the 1,000 stations to air it daily] and they don't have the talent [in spite of their money].

And BTW - Anyone who doesn't understand by now that American Hawk is a professional shill who's been here a long time, and under an evolving assortment of "names," hasn't been paying attention.

I believe the Fox News show should have done politically incorrect comedy and thrown punches at both sides of the aisle, like ourcountry.com. It would been nice to have another comedy news show on TV but I am going to stick with Colbert Report and the Daily Show for now.

I must have missed the "thought provoking" Limbaugh in between his mockery of Parkinson's disease, illegal purchases of prescription drugs, and Viagra smuggling.

A fat, old, bald, impotent drug addict--the voice of American conservatives, how fitting.

What if we made it so that the senate picked presidents for six year terms, subject to the house's approval, with no possibility of the same individual serving twice?

Then the President would be even more distant from the electorate, which is particularly problematic given the expanded practical power of the executive branch (even pre-W) in the modern era; additionally, it creates bizarre relations with Congressional elections, as the Presidential election would weigh heavily on the election of Senators and those House elections that would affect Presidential elections. It combines some of the worst features of the present system, with the worst features of a parliamentary system, but has none of the good features of either.

If you've got a problem with prospective Presidents having to spend time dealing with actual voters in a way dictated not by the number of voters affected or other democratically reasonable factors, but quirks of primary election schedules combined with the undemocratic, artificially magnified general election power of small, particularly "swing", states, there is a fairly obvious solution—direct election of the President with a single, national primary election.

If you want an interesting idea that goes beyond that to open up the field and provide voters with more substantive choices and eliminates the remaining perverse incentives while also fixing the problems that just switching to direct elections fixes, consider not only switching to direct elections, but also using a preference voting system (something like IRV, but without loser elimination), and electing the President and Vice President as the first two candidates who pass the election threshold, and having each party able to nominate up to two candidates for the election. Heck, with that system in the general, you might be able to preserve state-by-state primaries since the stakes would be somewhat lower, and the pressure to narrow down to a single candidate largely eliminated.

Rush kills when he does his parkinsons imitation. That is the funny! He's been working on some new material; a spot on impression of a down syndrome special olympian and a quadriplegic whose wheelchair is broken. I can not wait! It is rather thought provoking too. I almost forgot one: his impression of a fat business man trying to get through customs with a priaprism.

it's a mistake to mindlessly copy the other side's successes. We haven't been able to copy Rush Limbaugh

If by "success" you mean a drug-addled, hooker-addicted, brain dead, Viagra-pumping, fat, lying bastard that damages the country by spreading misinformation.

haha,

You missed 'deaf' (from the painkiller abuse) but I think that might have been fixed by surgery.

Oh and the dude travels to the Dominican Republic to polish the wedding tackle if you know what I mean.

TomStewart nails it - thrice-divorced-drug-addict-limbaugh is a serious political thinker or blackface-level comedian at his convenience.

"Hawk," no doubt, finds calling Obama a "halfrican American" to be top-notch political commentary....cause, really, there's nothing funny about that.

That's why [Stewart's] show can get buy with about eight minutes of his talking, then segues into witless correspondents and a guest interview: He just doesn't have that much to say. Similiarly, Rush Limbaugh does great over several hours because what he has to say is substantive and simply takes time.

My own personal experience with Rush's show -- which is a good bit more extensive than you probably think -- tells me that Rush takes ideas or stories that for most people would take 15 seconds to tell but drags them out over 15 minutes or more simply because a) he's got 3 hours to fill and b) he loves the sound of his own voice. But hey, YMMV.

What makes someone funny?

Well, the Daily Show is funny because it has a strong little guy perspective, and definitely goes after both sides - I've seen peices that were pretty devastating on Hillary, John Kerry, and so on. It's not 'left' with the exclusivity that FoxNews and Limbaugh are 'right'. Further, the Daily Shows true main target is the pompous MSM, which was especially funny in the time before the MSM realized this and feted them while getting skewered.

P.J. O'Rourke? He has a definite perspective, but is willing to make fun of whoever is worthy of it. (I remember a great line from Parliment of Whores', to paraphrase "Democrats believe that government can solve all problems, Republicans believe government does work, then get elected and prove it.")

Rush? He is a skilled radio man, able to drone on for hours. That's where some of his gaffes come from - filling up three hours of dead air a day takes a lot of talking. His humor, though, strikes me as far more of the conservative mean kind - unlike TDS or O'Rourke, it's really not something those on the other side can appreciate, and there's such as strong ideological attachment that he can't make fun of anyone on his 'team'.

He reminds me of Mallard Fillmore, Prickly City, and so on - he recites right wing cant, and sort of assumes it's funny, or just says something nasty about a Democrat.

What folks like AH and others on the right don't understand...the very definition of Liberal means a distrust in power and those who hold it.

Hence our comedy makes fun of those who hold power...anyone who holds power.

But the show will do well, simply because the 101st fighting keyboardists will see watching this show as part of their fighting the War on Terra....something they can tell their grandkids about.

I just think that generally [conservatives] are far more willing to have a laugh at another's expense than laugh with other people, or even at themselves.

I've generally found this to be true. However, the funniest conservatives that I know of, Christopher Buckley and PJ O'Rourke, don't really take anyone seriously, themselves included. O'Rourke's best work was as a libertarian-ish Rolling Stone freelancer and casual political observer. When he wrote for the American Spectator, usually in Angry Partisan Liberal-Hater mode, it wasn't very funny. I haven't read as much Buckley, but "Thank You For Smoking" was hilarious, and despite poking fun at quite a few liberal targets (in the book, the obnoxious senator is more explicitly a parody of Ted Kennedy) it wasn't very partisan either.

I think irreverence versus partisanship makes the difference. "Doonesbury" was funniest when it didn't have as obvious a viewpoint; when it's in Outraged Liberal mode it isn't as good. "Mallard Fillmore" doesn't appear to ever be funny.

However, Ronald Reagan was well-known for his self-deprecating humor and snappy retort.

From Wikipedia's entry on Reagan's near-assassination:

Later when Reagan's wife, First Lady Nancy Reagan, arrived at GWU Hospital, he jokingly explained, "Honey, I forgot to duck" (borrowing Jack Dempsey's line to his wife the night he was beaten by Gene Tunney for the 1926 heavyweight championship).

Shortly before surgery to remove the bullet, which barely missed his heart, Reagan remarked to the surgical team, "Please tell me you're all Republicans." The head surgeon, liberal Democrat Joseph Giordano, replied, "Mr. President, today we are all Republicans."

Reagan had been scheduled to visit Philadelphia on the day of the shooting. He told a nurse, "All in all, I'd rather be in Philadelphia," a reference to the W.C. Fields's tagline (which was itself a reference to an old vaudeville joke among comedians: "I would rather be dead than play Philadelphia").

Actually, it is kind of funny when you think about it.

We made it for 211 years, through all sorts of troubles, without needing to change our form of government.

Now, after six years of Bush, it seems to everyone- even the rightwing suckups- that there must be something profoundly wrong with a system of government that could let George Bush happen.

You're doing a heckuva job, Georgie.

Selection of the President by the Senate? This is even worse than the old system, common through the election of 1824, of having state legislatures select the state's (electoral college) electors. Along with cmdicely's point about making the President "even more distant from the electorate, and Jay's about massively under-representing inhabitants of high-population states, it almost goes without saying (in part to rephrase cmdicely) that it's a large step backwards in terms of democracy. No surprise. What next from Rush - poll taxes? literacy tests? property requirements?

We made it for 211 years, through all sorts of troubles, without needing to change our form of government.

No, we didn't. We've changed the system for electing the President and Vice President, we've adopted direct popular election of the formerly state-legislature-appointed senators, we've admitted blacks and women and younger people to the electorate, and we've adopted numerous other reforms to the system of government over the past 211 years.

He was just seeking solutions to the absurd presidential election process we have now.

As opposed to the absurd congressional election process wherein incumbents are virtually untouchable and gerrymandering renders votes irrelevant.

I gotta second what Disputo says above about Ed SCHULTZ. He is the real deal as far as how liberal talk radio can be made to work. Dude is a force.

"No, we didn't. We've changed the system for electing the President and Vice President, we've adopted direct popular election of the formerly state-legislature-appointed senators, we've admitted blacks and women and younger people to the electorate, and we've adopted numerous other reforms to the system of government over the past 211 years."

The first few examples are rather technocratic changes while the latter are simply expanding the number of people who have the rights of the Constitution. Having citizens of states elect Senators instead of statehouses doesn't change the balance of power between the states and the center. Going to a parliamentary system would eliminate the checks and balances between the executive and the legistlative branch. That would fundamentally change how our democracy would operate.

Remember after the election when Limbaugh said it was a relief "not to have to carry water" for the Republican-led 109th Congress? That means for those two years when he would support them on air, he was lying to his listeners for partisan reasons. He has no integrity.

Fox news is comedy enough itself.

"I have the luxury of being able to listen to the radio at work. "

Not sure where you're from. But here in the midwest, we don't consider living on welfare to be actual work.

martin wins the cookie:

1) the Daily Show is not a "liberal" comedy show, its a comedy show that targets the Media and how ridiculous and harmful it is to the political conversation in this country. It also targets the people in power.[...]

The sad and pathetic thing about the comments here (Martin excepted) is that there was exactly *one* poster who understands what's going on here: TDS is *not* a liberal show. But every single one of you bought into that frame without a single second thought. It's the same false-equivalency that sets up Dan Froomkin as an exact analogue to, say, Michelle Malkin.

NPR had a story on the new TDS-clone on All Things Considered a few days ago starting out by claiming "now the left-of-center Daily Show has a new rival: the right-of-center Half Hour Comedy Hour." The then proceded to play a clip from THHCH: "Guess what? Hillary's a big-old lesbian!" Aside from the fact that it was several orders of magnitude less funny, it could have just as easily been on TDS in recent months.

Now don't get me wrong, I love TDS--someone needs to go after the powerful in this country with as jaundiced an eye as possible, since clearly the press won't do it. But when a center-left candidate takes the WH, you're going to be absolutely *stunned* when "even the Liberal Daily Show" goes after "the Liberal president."

How many years does this sh!t have to go on before liberals wise up to this dynamic?

The first few examples are rather technocratic changes

Whatever; they are precisely the same kind of changes being discussed that you are grounding your claim that suddenly, because of Bush, for the first time ever people across the board think our system needs a change in a way that it has never (since the adoption of the Constitution, at least) been changed before. So, by claiming on the one hand that we've never changed our system before, and that people want to change it now because of Bush, you are engaging, at best, in equivocation, defining "change" rather differently in the two different claims.

Having citizens of states elect Senators instead of statehouses doesn't change the balance of power between the states and the center.

It certainly changed the balance of power between the state governments and the central government, because it greatly increased the degree to which the latter was independent of the former.

Going to a parliamentary system would eliminate the checks and balances between the executive and the legistlative branch.

A true parliamentary system with a majority no-confidence provision might "eliminate" those checks and balances, a system where the legislature elected the President for a fixed, non-renewable term wouldn't, because the President would be no more dependent on the legislature for his continued tenure in office than he is currently.

That's not to say its not a stupid idea, it just wouldn't be the first major, fundamental change to our system of government since the adoption of the Constitution.

That would fundamentally change how our democracy would operate.

So did direct election of Senators. So did, even though it wasn't a Constitutional reform, the move to direct election of Presidential electors as a norm rather than election by the state legislature.

I am too lazy to read all the comments so apologes is offered to all. These fools are just giving Jon Stewart more ammo for his show.

Conservatives are notoriously forced and unfunny whenever they try to ape successful liberal TV shows, movies or publications. Remember that spate of books of the "Michael Moore is a Big Fat Idiot" genre? Conservative "jokes" and "humor" (e.g., the Purple Heart band-aids) are so suffused with an undercurrent of bitterness and meanspiritedness that they can't help coming off looking like utter assholes.

Oh, is AH gone? Didn't want to play anymore?

I don't think anyone who tears this country apart from the inside for ratings is funny.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1895

this is a long laundry list of Rush Limbaugh's habits of deviating from the truth when it suits him, and it apparently suits him often.

A gluttenous, erectile disfunctional sex tourist, drug addicted, self inflated, multi-married, prevaricating gasbag who routinely holds forth on the moral unfitness of liberals. If it wasn't for the fact that a significant segment of the population dwells at an intellectual level that can believe the crap that spews from Limbaugh it would be satirically amusing.

Hilarious, mhr. Full of zingers. Liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal, liberal.
And, oh yeah, liberal!

But what if not everyone (or anyone) finds that to be an instant punchline?
The first rule of humor is to know your audience. The second is to have something to say.

The new Fox show will garner a lot of laughs on the part of the many of us who used to be liberals.

Oh, yeah! Many laughs will be garnered. Here's a link to an excerpt of the canceled Rush Limbaugh show. Pay careful attention to the cutaways to the audience, and you'll get a very accurate idea of who will be watching the new Fox show. They'll be watching for the humor the way that the forty year old Pat Boone fans go to a P.O.D concert for the music.

Stupid no-ANCHOR-respecting comments engine... Here it is again. Now THAT'S funny!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=G_ytvzXdjY

TDS is a liberal show? Because they poke fun of the media? But I thought the media was liberal.

As so many others have pointed out, TDS skewers the politically powerful regardless of party.

Doesn't anyone remember the Clinton years? They poked fun at the White House pretty much every day.

I remember when they interviewed Howard Dean, then running for President. The interview was pre-recorded and clearly done "straight", but when they broadcast the interview they inserted voice-overs of Dean's "thoughts". It was hilarious. I was a Dean supporter, but I was not offended that they pulled this sneak attack on him; rather, I blamed Dean for not anticipating it. I mean, hadn't he ever seen the show? Apparently not; if he had, he never would have agreed to a pre-recorded interview (which TDS always screws with) and would have insisted on a live appearance instead.

Anyone remember Colbert's interview with Barney Frank? Not exactly respectful, was that?

See, they do COMEDY first, and they target the MEDIA first and whoever is in (or is seeking) power second. Or whoever did the goofiest thing that day.

The problem with Fox's show is that they are doing POLITICS first with a clear partisan bias, and hope that it comes out funny. It doesn't.

I like the point that someone made above about Rush: that he pretends to be serious and substantial, but whenever he says anything too far over the line of basic decency he always claims that he was just joking. Yeah, right.

"And, as admitted lately on NPR, [Limbaugh's] only reason for ranting like that is to keep his ignorant audience numbers high so his advertising rates stay up."

I think this is also why Air America fails. I liked most of the shows' content, but the 15-20 minutes of ads for the same crap as on conservative talk radio drove me nuts. I subscribed to their premium podcasts, but with Franken gone, it's just... more... ranting.

I liked the conversation style that Franken had. Even when he seemed full of it to me, his cohorts usually called him on it.

Oh, well. Music in the car suits me better, anyway.

Re: lollerskates

When he's not trolling this board, he must be trolling MySpace, if you know what I mean.