Update (Ken Shepherd | May 9): Our good friend Mark Levin sent along an audio clip from his May 8 radio program wherein he addressed Jon Stewart's ludicrous comparison.You can access the audio here.

On Wednesday night’s edition of The Daily Show on Comedy Central, host Jon Stewart interviewed John McCain. As part of his ongoing outrage that the Reverend Wright issue would be raised against Barack Obama, Stewart sprung it on McCain that President Bush is his own Reverend Wright problem. He liked this “fascinating” analysis so much he repeated it, and suggested when it comes to Team Bush and al-Qaeda, “our policies are their Reverend Wright-- isn't he the guy they throw out there and inflame their base and get support? Don't you think he's actually been okay for al-Qaeda?” McCain answered by declaring the terrorists were a “transcendent evil” beyond one politician.

Stewart seemed to be citing an NBC poll (slightly wrongly) that found 32 percent of voters expressed concern about Obama’s relationship with Rev. Wright, but 43 percent were concerned by Sen. McCain’s relationship to President Bush. Stewart formulated his jokey question as if he were about to question McCain about being endorsed by harshly anti-Catholic minister John Hagee:

The Associated Press today wins first place for the most misleading headline in the MSM by saying that a study shows that Jon Stewart's Comedy Central "The Daily Show" show is somehow "a lot like" Bill O'Reilly's "The O'Reilly Factor." The Thursday May 8 report is flippantly headlined, "Study of 'Daily Show': It's a lot like O'Reilly," but the following report does not exactly confirm the headline. It appears that the AP's distorted headline was meant to equate "The O'Reilly Factor" to comedy in order to impugn the serious character of the hit Fox show and make of it but an exercise in comedy.

When it comes to the economy, "it's not good. Not good," according to Jon Stewart. "But don't take my word for it. Seriously, I'm actually doing very well."

On May 1, "The Daily Show" host was introducing a segment that made light of doom-and-gloom economic reporting on network and cable news. His mash-up highlighted CBS's own "Grim Reaper," Anthony Mason, ABC's Betsy Stark, NBC's Brian Williams and CNN's senior business correspondent Ali Velshi.

Stewart poked hardest at Velshi, whom he called that "Hairless Prophet of Doom."

"Who is that hairless prophet of doom and how can we appease his anger, please?" Stewart pleaded, "If we give you our hair will you give us back our money? Will you do it, sir? I beg of you - Velshi!"

Velshi responded to Stewart's charge on CNN Friday and in a column on CNN.com.

On The Daily Show on Comedy Central Tuesday night, Jon Stewart pressed former Speaker Newt Gingrich to agree that Reverend Jeremiah Wright should not be a major story, that every candidate and president has a "preacher who’s said crazy things." Stewart professed he was "really stunned" by the media’s focus, and he asked, "Isn't the silliness of this now boiling down to the strategy of shouldn't we be focusing on whether this is truly an issue?" He also claimed Wright is like many ministers, black and white: "Don't white preachers have very similar beliefs, but when they counsel a candidate, nobody really focuses on them?"

Gingrich was playful, but firm: "I think if you replaced the word, the various things he said about white America, like Ku Klux Klan America, if you replace those with the word ‘black’ and you imagine a white racist preacher who was as vehement as Reverend Wright, he would literally be ostracized in this culture." He also raised Obama’s connection to Weather Underground figure William Ayers. But Stewart wasn’t budging: "I think if he played that game of six degrees of separation with other candidates you could probably find equally vile characters circling the universe."

Last night's episode of "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart", Stewart declared his frustration with the constant Democratic campaign coverage on his show. He decided to take a break on his "Cluster F--- to the White House" coverage and report on other topics. His closing remarks summed up his entire show, "... I think we mentioned the word penis in every act so far tonight." It may not be that big of a shock to those who watch Comedy Central that Jon Stewart would take on such a theme for a show, but it seems a little low how far he took it through some parts of the show.

In the first segment Jon Stewart claims that he will not talk about a popular story, but ultimately does by mentioning it. "Except we're going to do a little international news and no we're not doing the Congolese penis panic theft story. Although ,apparently, it really is a story in the Congo. Penis theft panic in the Congo, by the way you would be surprised about how few penises you have to steal to create a panic; really it's just one or two."

John Stewart followed up that story by making this derogatory remark about John McCain in the next part of the show. It is at this point when the show sinks to a whole new level.

For those interested in a political giggle this fine Saturday, I recommend a cute sketch done by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart Thursday evening (embedded right).

First, Stewart lampooned Chris Wallace for placing a "24"-style ticker on the screen to illustrate how long it's been since the host of "Fox News Sunday" challenged Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama to come on his program.

Next, Stewart went after "Hardball's" Chris Matthews for his shameless cheerleading for Obama.

Yet, in the end, Obama had the last laugh, deliciously at Matthews' expense (viewers are cautioned about mild vulgarity in the clip):

White House press secretary Dana Perino appeared on The Daily Show Thursday night, and host Jon Stewart disparaged former spokesman Ari Fleischer as looking like a caveman. When Perino protested that Fleischer had a female following, Stewart cracked "Is that like the women who visit murderers in prison? Like the serial killer kind of a thing?" Perino said most questions don’t fluster her, except when Helen Thomas will "ask a question that is not based on fact." Stewart asked:

"Now do you find, now that the mood has shifted, I mean, you went through a period where, I mean, they were going through press secretaries, Ari Fleischer, McClellan, Tony Snow, and then we always used to make a little attractiveness chart because it seemed like the evolution of man in terms of --

Perino: They wouldn’t wear pink.

Stewart: Because Fleischer was, let's face facts, tough to look at. (Laughter)

It's not often you see Jon Stewart's left-leaning "Daily Show" make segments satirizing sacred cows of the left so enjoy this rare one starring fake correspondent Rob Riggle, a former active duty Marine, who went to Berkeley, California to cover the protests launched by left-wingers against a Marine recruiting center:

Hat tip to Allah

Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, during an hour-long appearance on CNN’s "Larry King Live," didn’t take the New York Times story on "the possibility of a relationship between John McCain some years back and a female lobbyist" seriously, which, as King put it, was "in the embryonic stages" during the show. "[T]his has an awfully tired and dusty feel to it, in terms of the way that political reporting has been going." Stewart went on to criticize some of the Times’ reporting. "You know, The New York Times does some pretty amazing reporting and The New York Times puts stuff out there that is as sort of spurious at times. You know, Judy Miller's reports in The New York Times were about as fictional as James Frey's, you know, ‘Million Little Pieces.’"

King began the second segment of his program, which started about 10 minutes into the 9 pm Eastern hour, by bringing up the Times story and after summarizing its contents, read a statement that had been issued by McCain’s campaign. He then asked for Stewart’s take on it. Stewart admitted that John McCain "is someone who I have great respect for" and thought that "this is a strange time to be injecting it into the race." He also lamented the entire situation. "It's just -- it's a shame and I feel badly for him and I feel badly for his family, because they're lovely people."

It's really frightening to imagine that people who get the bulk of their news from Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" will be making what they probably think are educated decisions at the ballot box come Election Day.

Stewart, who is now a self-proclaimed economist, said on his January 23 show, "Our economy is tanking." And now you can add financial media critic to Stewart's list of titles.

"For insight, I turned to the two major financial networks to find out what is going on, or as they're known around here, ‘hot ladies talk economy with bald dudes,'" Stewart said.

Although a recent Sacred Heart University poll indicated 45.4 percent of respondents thought journalists and broadcasters are mostly or somewhat liberal - the bias isn't ideologically driven according to Newsweek editor Jon Meacham.

Meacham appeared on Comedy Central's January 21 "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and told viewers the media gear reporting toward conflict.

"I absolutely believe that the media is not ideologically driven, but conflict driven," Meacham said. "If we have a bias it's not that people are socially liberal, fiscally conservative or vice versa. It is that we are engaged in the storytelling business. And if you tell the same story again and again and again - it's kind of boring."

Isn't it often the case that over-confident braggarts are typically insecure types masking their own short-comings with undeservingly cocky bravado?

After all, one would think the president of the cable news network whose ratings in virtually every time slot have plummeted for years would be a little humble when referring to his competition in the industry.

Quite the contrary, in an interview with the New York Observer, CNN's Jonathan Klein behaved like he was running the Yankees, and Fox News Channel was the Tampa Bay Devil Rays (emphasis added throughout):

Ann Coulter's been a naughty girl! She has to go sit a time out in the corner, according to Chris Matthews, who's withdrawing the distinct and high honor of inviting the columnist on "Hardball" as punishment for the Donny Deutsch row, which was hyped by the liberal smear machine Media Matters for America.

And I thought that was only reserved for attractive business reporters who didn't lean into the camera.

Here's how Gail Shister of TVNewser reported the matter today:

Looks like Hardball is playing hardball with Ann Coulter.

MSNBC's Chris Matthews says it will be "a while" before the incendiary conservative pundit is invited back to the show.

As NewsBusters reported Saturday, Neal Gabler implied on FNC's "Fox News Watch" that he wanted the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol to go to Iraq and be killed so that he could attend the conservative writer's funeral.

On Monday, FNC's John Gibson took issue with Gabler's despicable comments during his radio program, calling Gabler a "lowlife," and "a coward" because "he will not come on the air to defend the things he says."

But that was just the beginning (audio available here courtesy our friend Johnny Dollar):

Talk about a case of false bravado! Just about everybody who watched the recent Comedy Central book interview of Chris Matthews by Jon Stewart about Matthews' book, "Life's A Campaign," agrees that it was complete disaster for Matthews who exclaimed at one point, "This is the worst!" The opinion that Matthews came off horribly is almost universally shared by all observers whether conservative or liberal. However, Matthews himself is now claiming that everybody else is all wrong about that interview as you can see at the tail end of an Examiner.com article about the 10th year anniversary party for Hardball:

The time I spent worrying about my segment on “The Daily Show” (filmed last month) was wasted. Yeah, I sound a little silly (hated my voice, liked my hair, but my face looked fat - this photo I like…but not because of the way I look…OK, moving on), and the editor sliced and diced sound bites. But overall, it’s much better than I expected. (And my expectations were quite low.) Whew!

I got a bunch of nastygrams this morning from - you guessed it - white liberals. They wrote the sort of things I know they wouldn’t say to my face.

Appearing on "The Daily Show," Wesley Clark compared American troops in Iraq to "space invaders" who "bust down your doors and rough up your women and throw you on the ground." Sounds exactly like what John Kerry said two years ago.

Video is available here.

“The Daily Show” often pokes fun at President Bush and his closest advisors and Cabinet members, but isn’t it a little low, even for “The Daily Show,” to mock a Vietnam veteran because he supports the President?

On June 25, the Comedy Central show did exactly that, airing a pre-recorded and what appears to be a heavily edited interview with Bill Thomas, a Vietnam veteran who won four Bronze Stars and three Purple Heart medals. Back in April, Thomas decided to give one his Purple Heart to President Bush, believing that the President is a “a hero by virtue of the fact that he’s shown phenomenal courage in the face of bitter personal attacks on his competence, his integrity and everything else.”

Video: Real (1 MB) or Windows (1.3 MB) plus MP3 (199 KB)

On Monday's program, “Daily Show” correspondent Jason Jones sarcastically mocked Thomas’ gesture, asking over and over again who his gift was intended for:

On Tuesday’s "Good Morning America," reporter David Wright narrated a sarcastic segment about Vice President Dick Cheney and his refusal to hand over classified documents to the National Archives. In order to amplify the portrayal of Cheney as dark and scary, Wright featured clips from liberals such as Jon Stewart, left-wing blogger Ana Marie Cox and the Comedy Central program "Lil Bush." The GMA reporter helpfully added that "the Vice President's noncompliance