Mark Evanier (a funny guy in his own right, as co-creator of Groo the Wanderer (yes, there's a Wikipedia article for it (YNCAN))) has a couple of points about the attempt to create a conservative version of The Daily Show.
The one that made me laugh was simply on conservative comedy:
It's like (I've said this before) making a Marx Brothers movie and trying to make Margaret Dumont the funny one.
And, of course, there's a much more devastating point:
The Executive Producer of The Half-Hour News Hour has been quoted as saying he looked around and didn't see anyone making fun of Hillary or John Kerry. Which only tells us he's never seen Jon Stewart's show, the program he's supposedly replicating.
And yeah, that producer is the same guy who produces 24, and who was written about in the recent New Yorker article wherein he suggests, among other things, that all those professional intelligence-gathering guys don't know anything about interrogation, and really, they should do like Jack Bauer and just beat the information out of suspects.
Because you never pick up the wrong guy or anything.
Gaaah, I only read half the article on the web, finished it in the print edition last night, and I'm still vaguely nauseous.