Yesterday, the trusty comedy filter The Onion produced what struck me as a perfectly timed all-purpose riposte, headlined “Republicans Vote to Repeal Obama-Backed Bill That Would Destroy Asteroid Headed for Earth.” Unfortunately, it turns out that even this wasn’t quite enough to address the day’s most egregious Obama-phobic extreme: the new GOP majority in the House, as part of their absurdly childish insistence on a do-over of the health care reform act, have declared it necessary to redefine the crime of rape.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I wondered. “Is this another satirical sendup of the ludicrous extremity of Republican obstructionism? Is rape the asteroid in this joke? …NO?!? Oh my God. Get me some comic cushioning, stat!”

A legitimate case is often made that there are certain things that cannot be joked about, and that rape is one of them, because rape is not funny. I agree — with the last clause. Rape, in and of itself, is no laughing matter. I respectfully disagree, however, with the statement as a whole. There are times when even things as terrible as rape must be joked about, lest we lose our humanity.

I didn’t even laugh at the above clip when I watched it, but I did find it funny. So funny, in fact, that it kept me from breaking down into unabated primal protest. Losing my shit, as it were. And that, I think, may be the very definition of “pretty goddamned funny.”

My inclusion of this video rather than one of Colbert’s more ballyhooed 2010 moments (the previously-mentioned Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear and his testimony on behalf of migrant farm workers before the House Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship and Border Security) may seem counter-intuitive. Taking the satirical brickbat to hypocrites is hardly new for him — in fact, it could be declared as his primary stock in trade since the Report began in 2005. However, it has not become less necessary in that time. I would argue that it is more necessary than ever.

“What I like best about Bill’s argument,” Colbert declares in the video, “is its complete factual inaccuracy.” Funny, cutting, and true enough to be chilling if you think about its implications. With the campaign and eventual election of Barack Obama as U.S. President, the tide of truthiness has risen to unforeseen levels of absurdity: need I even mention birthers, or ludicrous accusations of socialism and “death panels?” While these falsehoods have been of greater consequence than Bill O’Reilly’s quasi-Christian bullshitting, they represent the same syndrome: the determination of conservative ideologues to create a post-factual America.

Conventional American news media, whose objective is not accuracy but profit, therefore does nothing to stem the tide of misinformation and demagoguery. The premise of “balanced” news coverage (or news commentary, often conflated with coverage) is itself a fallacy. The presentation of opposing viewpoints on a news issue under the imprimatur of fairness is a disservice to the viewer when only one of them is factually sustainable, but both are given equal weight… as is usually the case.

The succinct sub-title over at The Reality-Based Community reads, “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Fortunately, we also have satirists like Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart on TV to remind us of this.

In 2010 The Daily Show also continued to do one of the things it has done brilliantly for several years: point out and mock people who claim to be oppressed, but clearly aren’t. Examples of such people might include certain investment bankers, Christian mega-churches, professional athletes, or many others that generally have it pretty good. In the case of my number six video of 2010, this treatment is given to a richly deserving group: middle-aged white men.²

Samantha Bee, the Daily Show correspodent in this segment, has long been one of my favorites. She had a few things of her own going on in 2010, most notably the publication of her memoir I Know I Am, But What Are You? Her promotion of the book included a wide-ranging interview with Terry Gross on Fresh Air and a cute feature piece in the New York Times Magazine. Daily Show video clips featuring her are here; among those that especially crack my shit up are “Shame Parade,” “John McCain’s Air Quotes” (start at about 2:03 into the clip), and “Long Island Wants to Secede.”

The Colbert Report	Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
The Word – Learning Is Fundamental
www.colbertnation.com

Longtime readers of this blog know of my admiration for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, as well as my particular regard for its spin-off The Colbert Report. Since both shows have now existed for several years, it may not seem particularly novel to include a Colbert piece in my top ten videos of 2009 list. Here’s why.

The trickiest part of selecting these top ten videos has come from the fact that it has been such a thoroughly depressing news year. It began so encouragingly with the inauguration of Barack Obama, and it would be glib to say that it could only have gone downhill from there… glib, but perhaps all too accurate. So in this paragraph, as well as in my retrospective collection of videos, I prefer not to re-hash the bilious new lows of crazy that occurred in the national miscourse during 2009. Or at least to do so only obliquely, through the filter of satire. The Daily Show and Colbert continue to provide such satire so expertly that both shows seem not just pleasantly amusing, like a familiar long-running sitcom, but like indispensable laughter mechanisms to make the news palatable.

Am I wrong? Are The Daily Show and Colbert still as fresh and relevant as I say they are, or have they become one-shtick ponies? Sound off about it in the comments!

THIS WEEK’S QUESTION:
Name your seven favorite late-night talk show hosts.

Heh heh… not exactly a matter of earth-shattering importance, is it? Of course, there are plenty of earth-shattering things going on in the news right now without me bringing down the room even more. So here we go:

My Favorite Late-Night Talk Show Hosts

Johnny Carson. It feels a little odd to be putting him on this list of “favorites,” because there were a few things about Johnny that put me off a little. For example, sometimes with the “regular folks” guests (a bird-calling champion, a 90-year-old postmaster, a guy who’d had the hiccups for 30 years, etc) he would make jokes at their expense – just little asides or takes to the audience that struck me as cheap and mean-spirited. That said, there’s no denying the influence The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson had upon television, and the whole entertainment industry. It was the gold standard among late-night talk and variety shows. It was the show to be on, and stop number one for big-name stars with new movies coming out. A Tonight Show booking was the big shot every stand-up comedian hoped for. Indeed, the comedy boom of the 1980′s was composed largely of performers whose names were made when they cracked up Johnny Carson – Jerry Seinfeld, Garry Shandling, Roseanne Barr, Steven Wright, Ellen DeGeneres, and Drew Carey, to name just a few. It was entertaining and tremendously popular show, and the credit is due mainly to Johnny Carson. Plus, he had the grace to get out while he was still in good form; the same cannot be said of his successor Jay Leno, no matter if he is still ahead of Letterman in the ratings nor how many gazillions of dollars NBC pays him for continuing to suck.

David Letterman. I was a solid fan of Letterman beginning well back in his 12:30AM-after-The-Tonight-Show years. I always cottoned to Dave’s un-slick and un-polished, self-effacing kind of humor. Letterman was a little riskier at 12:30AM than he can be these days in the competitive 11:30PM slot. Back in the day there wasn’t always a top ten list – sometimes they’d instead do an inventively silly segment like “What Object Would You Like to See Dropped Off a Ten-Story Tower?” (As I recall, when viewed from above a load of watermelons look like fireworks going off as they hit the pavement, whereas bowling balls go about 3 stories back upward on the first bounce). I also treasure the memory of Dave looking out a Rockefeller Center window at Bryant Gumbel and Jane Pauley taping a live program in the plaza below, and then picking up a bullhorn to call out, “Citizens of New York! I am Larry Grossman, president of NBC News. This outdoor broadcast was my idea – and I’m not wearing pants!” I still like Dave, and although I don’t see his show too often anymore, I would credit his show for forming a lot of my comic sensibility when I was a kid.

Conan O’Brien. I’ll further admit that I see Conan’s show even less often than I see Letterman these days. Over the years, I have appreciated the unique flavor of humor his show has established. I don’t know about Conan being a great interviewer or anything, but I imagine he’s more concerned with entertaining his audience than being compared to Barbara Walters. Conan’s show has given the world the comedic masterpiece known as Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, which alone would be a worthy legacy. But beyond it all, Conan earned my eternal respect and admiration by having balls enough to tape an entire episode of his show before a live studio audience composed entirely of six-year-olds.

Bill Maher. Speaking of balls… I’m glad that Bill Maher has found the right TV home for himself at HBO. I’ve long been a fan of his comedy, especially because of its challenging and topical nature. Likewise, his show is consistently both substantive via its panel discussions, and funny via its set-piece segments. The odd thing is that even though I mainly agree with Maher politically and philosophically, I’ve become slightly weary of a few of his main beefs. I want to say, “OK, Bill: I get it. I may not necessarily share some your opinions, or share them only to an extent, but I certainly respect them. It’s just… does it really help the situation to mock religious people, married people, or people with children so bitterly?” There absolutely are issues there worth talking about, and worth joking about (of course). But Bill Maher occasionally crosses the line into demagoguery, and the world definitely doesn’t need more of that.

Jon Stewart. I could sit a very long time trying for an original combination of words to praise the brilliance of Jon Stewart and The Daily Show. I think if the past five or so years of TV have proven anything, it’s that the satire is mightier than the shout (even in the case of Stephen Colbert’s shouted satire). Aside from how penetratingly funny Jon Stewart routinely is, he can also be more just plain penetrating as an interviewer than anyone on I can think of on TV. I could struggle further to describe what I mean, but it wouldn’t be half as effective as simply posting this clip:

Stephen Colbert. I see Colbert as a separate category because The Colbert Repot really isn’t a talk show as such. The show does always have a guest, but Colbert upends the usual talk-show conceit by interviewing guests in character, the same way he is during the rest of the show. Most guests end up serving mainly as comic foils. Their “interviews” often don’t reveal much about them or their work, but they are quite often hilarious. If anything is consistently revealed by the interviews, it is how the subject reacts to a ludicrous moron who is nonetheless very sure of himself. As a conservative pundit in the O’Reilly/Hannity mold, the Colbert character’s unflagging ideological passion is fueled by pure “truthiness,” the term he famously coined on the first episode. “I love the truth,” he later explained to a guest, “but I hate facts.” The latest challenge for Colbert, it would seem, is to avoid becoming a victim of his own success. By now, almost all of his guests come in knowing what to expect from him and play along. Colbert is a sharp enough improviser to provide a lively exchange anyhow, but it’s hard to escape nostalgia for the days of his sit-downs with congressmen unaware of what they were in for:

Is that still only six? Aw, screw it – I’m going carpal tunnel from how long this post became anyhow.