Fox News Fails To One-Up ‘Daily Show’ [View All]

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Satire has kept Stewart and Colbert busy during this administration. The former kicks back as the straight-faced news anchor skewering the day’s headlines, while Colbert spins himself as a boisterous right-wing pundit, satirizing figures like Bill O’Reilly.

But enough is enough, according to creator Joel Surnow, who was apparently unsatisfied stacking up Emmys with “24.” So what exactly does his vision of comedy involve? Beating us senseless with it. We’re ushered in by Rush Limbaugh, sitting pretty in the Oval Office. “Would you like to join me in a cigar?” he asks V.P. Ann Coulter. “Isn’t the White House a smoke-free zone?” she reads off a teleprompter. “Not anymore.” Phone rings; it’s the Speaker of the House. “Pelosi?” Limbaugh replies. “How did she get this number?”

It does not get better.

Anchors Kurt Long and Jennifer Robertson, in one of the better moves of their careers, pitch us a magazine dedicated to Barack Obama. It’s titled “BO”—this is a punch line—and comes with a t-shirt: “Don’t Tell Mama I’m for Obama.”

If you didn’t find that hilarious, you clearly weren’t sitting in the audience. Take a good look at the opening pan shots, by the way, because that’s all we see of it: A laugh track punctuates every other phrase. Repeat enough times, and you, too, will feel like somebody is watching your show.

http://www.dailycal.org/sharticle.php?id=23115#