Comedy Central

Appearing as a guest on Thursday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, ABC's Christiane Amanpour characterized conservatives as several years ago "frog-marching" the U.S. to war with Iraq as she and host Colbert discussed the likelihood Israel will soon attack Iran to prevent the Islamic state from producing nuclear weapons. (Video below)

Late-night comedians historically have relished the opportunity to poke fun at politicians. Sometimes they savage them. In the Obama era, they haven’t been so enthusiastic about any of it. A recent study of political jokes on three late-night shows (Letterman, Leno, and Jimmy Fallon) by the Center for Media and Public Affairs found that Barack Obama’s joke count is “substantially lower than any other president.”

Some of the Obama jokes are actually bipartisan slams. Jimmy Fallon joked that “Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton are more mature than President Obama and John Boehner.” This is the classic comedian’s pose, and the safe one, that all the politicians are ridiculous, squabbling poseurs. Still, it’s every bit as much pandering to the public as the politicians are.

Dean Reynolds filed a glowing report on Tuesday's CBS This Morning promoting comedian Stephen Colbert's mock campaign against super PACs. Reynolds led the segment by stating, "Before we say that a comedian could have no serious impact on a presidential campaign, let us remember that six days after a poll came out here showing Stephen Colbert slightly ahead of Jon Huntsman, Jon Huntsman quit the race."

After inflating Colbert's supposed impact, the correspondent continued by claiming that "so far, Colbert's effort is not displaying what you would call a light touch." Reynolds then played a clip from an ad released by the comedian's "Americans for a Better Tomorrow, Tomorrow" super PAC, which blasts GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney as a "serial killer. He's 'Mitt the Ripper.'"

As NewsBusters reported Friday, CNN's Soledad O'Brien had a completely unprofessional interview with "The Obamas" author Jodi Kantor wherein she mercilessly grilled the writer for having the nerve to criticize the first lady in her book.

Kantor struck back on Monday's Daily Show saying, "By her logic we wouldn't write obituaries because we can't talk to the dead people" (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

ABC's George Stephanopoulos on Sunday proved once and for all what a joke he is.

Not only did the This Week host give twice the airtime to faux political candidate Stephen Colbert as Texas governor Rick Perry, he did so after the Comedy Central star called him "a political operative" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, ABC's George Stephanopoulos responded to host Stephen Colbert's question of why he - as debate co-moderator last Saturday - asked GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney about whether states have the constitutional power to ban contraceptives, as he argued that the question revolved around the "right to privacy."

He then suggested that a bet with co-moderator Diane Sawyer motivated him to be so persistent in asking Romney followup questions on the subject. After Colbert asked what it felt like when Romney called it a "silly thing" for Stephanopoulos to ask such a hypothetical question, the ABC anchor responded:

On Thursday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, citing a recent article by conservative columnist George Will in which he asserted that Republicans "crave fun" in their presidential campaigns, host Stephen Colbert found amusement in GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum's concerns about partial-birth abortion as the Comedy Central host joked about playing a drinking game based on the former Senator's attention to the egregious abortion procedure.

After reading from Will's article, Colbert declared:

Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Colbert Report on Comedy Central, New York magazine's John Heilemann - also an MSNBC analyst and formerly of The New Yorker - made a gay joke about GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum as he described the competitive election in Iowa. (Video below)

After host Stephen Colbert, playing the part of committed conservative wanting to pump up Santorum, asked of the Iowa results, "So, Santorum, this is a victory, right? He may have lost, but it's a victory," Heilemann took a shot at the former Pennsylvania Senator in his response:

On Tuesday's The Daily Show on Comedy Central, as he recounted the racist newsletters that were published in the 1990s under the name of GOP presidential candidate Ron Paul, host Jon Stewart mocked other GOP candidates after clips of them attacking Paul for not taking seriously the threat of a nuclear Iran, suggesting that the candidates were not so concerned about racism. (Video below)

Moments later, as he mocked Republican voters for adding former Senator Rick Santorum to the list of candidates they are willing to consider, Stewart took another race-based shot at the Republican Party as he used a box of Whitman's chocolates as a prop and pronounced the brand name as if it were "White Man's."

After showing clips of the candidates criticizing Paul's willingness to allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, Stewart cracked:

Fox News's Bill O'Reilly and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart are once again locked in a battle of wits.

Having been told by O'Reilly that he was "going to hell" for remarks he made about the war on Christmas, Stewart said Thursday, "I make my living watching Fox News eight hours a day. I'm already in hell! Boom! Boom! Your move, O'Reilly."

This led The Factor host to marvelously respond Friday, "All right, here's my move. How can you watch eight hours of Fox News every day and still be a pinhead?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Jon Stewart, on Thursday's Daily Show, repeatedly mocked Rick Perry for his, as he put it, "brain turd" moment at this week's CNBC debate. However, Perry wasn't the only GOP candidate Stewart made fun of. Everyone from Perry to Santorum took a hit. The only candidate Stewart didn't mock was Mitt Romney, whom the Daily Show host declared to be the winner of the whole race. "It's over! Indecision 2012 Mercy Rule Edition. Because in presidential primaries, as in little league, if one team is up 10-0 in the third you call it a day an you head over to Friendly's for some Fribbles and some food poisoning."
                                             
Stewart initially teased his audience with the Perry clip by calling it: "Rick Perry's now infamous ABC Wide World of Sports agony-of-defeat-worthy brain turd." Then he went on to savage the other GOP contenders on his November 10 show. (video after the jump)

Those prestigious publishers at Simon & Schuster selected All Saints Day to unleash the book world's latest attempt at mocking Christianity. It’s called "The Last Testament, by God."

The author is David Javerbaum, a top writer for 11 years for "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, perhaps America's leading religion-hating TV network. Is it any surprise that the critics are loving it?

As the Washington Post expected when it published it's pathetic, racially charged, 3000-word, front page hit piece on Texas governor Rick Perry Sunday, America's media outlets have largely taken the bait by expressing outrage over this non-story.

Curiously bucking the trend was Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" Monday which used black contributor Wyatt Cenac to humorously demonstrate how many places across the country have names like N-ggerhead (video follows with transcribed highlights and commentary):

Liberals love to put comedian Jon Stewart up on a pedestal as being the most intelligent man on television aware of all that's impacting the nation.

On Wednesday's "Daily Show," guest Bill O'Reilly of Fox News exposed the host for having missed a major story last week about almost unthinkable waste in government spending (video follows with transcript and commentary):

On Monday's "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, host Jon Stewart called both Rick Santorum and Rick Perry idiots as he responded to some of their statements from the most recent GOP presidential debate.

After a clip of Santorum arguing that the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy should be reinstated, suggesting that members of the armed forces should keep their sexual orientation to themselves as they serve, Stewart responded with censored profanity and ended up calling the former Republican Senator an "idiot":

On The Daily Show Wednesday night, Jon Stewart interviewed Mitch Daniels and there were no laughs. Stewart put on his serious face, stroked his chin, and tried to get Daniels to admit that the Republicans were unfairly defending wealthy people and making no sense.

Stewart played dumb: “It seems like the Republicans are doing everything they can to protect the wealthiest people in this country, through policy and through rhetoric. And I guess I'm just not understanding why. And I'm having a problem. This decade has not been a bad decade for the wealthiest of Americans, and if they are the job creators, why are they not creating?” The obligatory cheering and applause came from Stewart’s liberal audience.

As NewsBusters previously reported, Ed Schultz on his MSNBC program Monday deceptively edited a Rick Perry speech to falsely accuse the Texas governor of making a racist comment about President Obama.

On Wednesday, Comedy Central's Jon Stewart took Schultz to task for this glaring mistake (video follows with partial transcript and commentary):

It seems even comedian Jon Stewart is a offended by Newsweek's pathetic cover photo of Congresswoman Michele Bachmann.

Unfortunately, after ridiculing the magazine and its editor Tina Brown for using an obviously "s---ty picture," the "Daily Show" host couldn't resist taking some potshots of his own at the conservative presidential candidate (video follows with transcript and commentary):

If there has been anything unifying the mainstream media coverage of the debt crisis, it has been attacking the Tea Party. Last night on the Daily Show, Jon Stewart joined the chorus, railing against the Tea Party's dislike of the debt deal, which he claimed they won through the plan's spending cuts, even though the cuts are in fact quite small.

According to Stewart, the Tea Party freshmen control less than half of the House, but they are the ones who caused the ruckus of forcing billions in spending cuts. He went on to say Tea Partiers don't want a government at all and likened them to bank robbers taking everyone hostage.

(Video after the break)

The arrogance of Bill Maher, as well as his ability to revise history, knows no bounds.

On MSNBC's "The Last Word" Tuesday, the "Real Time" host told Lawrence O'Donnell the reason he invited conservatives like Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham, and Grover Norquist on his hit show "Politically Incorrect" years ago was to act as his "foils" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

 A truly amazing coincidence happened on Monday night as former President George W. Bush was praised for helping millions in Africa by two separate public figures in two unrelated matters - the fight against AIDS in Africa, and South Sudan’s successful fight for independence - on two different television shows.

As rocker Bono of U-2 appeared as a guest on CBS’s Late Show with David Letterman, he praised President Bush for helping to save so far five million lives in Africa over the past eight years because of his push to supply treatment to AIDS patients.

And on Comedy Central’s Colbert Report, guest and human rights activist John Prendergast of the Enough Project, when prodded by host Stephen Colbert, noted that it was under Bush that America used its influence to help the South Sudanese secure a peace deal with the north.

It was contentious and dramatic. On Sunday, June 19, “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace grilled funnyman Jon Stewart on his obvious liberal bias and Stewart replied, “… there is not a designed ideological agenda on my part to affect partisan change ...”

The exchange got heated when Stewart held that line, telling Wallace, “You can’t understand, because of the world you live in, that there is not a designed, ideological agenda on my part to affect partisan change, because that’s the soup you swim in.”

Well, “designed” or not, Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” mocks the right far more than it does the left, and a survey of the 16 broadcasts since the Wallace-Stewart run-in proves it.

Jon Stewart Wednesday finally stopped responding to the aftermath of his performance on "Fox News Sunday" and tried to make amends with a somewhat bipartisan segment bashing the President for his budget solutions as well as both parties for not getting anything done.

Toward the end of the opening "Daily Show" sketch, after a video clip of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid saying, "My Republican friends seem to be living in a fantasy world," Stewart smartly quipped, "If they were living in a fantasy world, would you still exist?" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

In the past nine days, the comedian most revered by liberals as the nation's top political satirist has devolved into a gross, unintelligible caricature of himself.

So hell-bent on attacking Fox News has the "Daily Show" host become that on Monday he continued to put words in Chris Wallace's mouth while appearing completely oblivious to serious investigations going on in Congress (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Fox News's Chris Wallace on Sunday actually asked Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann if she's a flake.

Possibly feeling the question was a bit over the top, the Weekly Standard's Bill Kristol during the panel discussion segment of "Fox News Sunday" ribbed the host saying, "You can call me a flake if you want" (video follows with transcript and commentary):

Chris Wallace told Don Imus Thursday he intended to fully respond to the fallout from last week's interview with Jon Stewart.

True to his word, at the conclusion of the most recent "Fox News Sunday," Wallace struck back at Stewart's claim that Fox watchers are the most misinformed media viewers by demonstrating that folks who watch "Hannity" and "The O'Reilly Factor" were actually better informed than "Daily Show" viewers (video follows with transcript and commentary):

As NewsBusters previously reported, Jon Stewart earlier this month did a segment on "The Daily Show" wherein he impersonated Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain using an Amos and Andy voice.

While campaigning in Iowa Wednesday, Cain said of this incident, "He wants to mock me because I happen to be a black conservative" (video follows with transcript and commentary):