Why?

Because with a presidential election just over a year away, a war raging in Iraq, and presidential cabinet members and advisors jumping ship like Billy Zane off the Titanic, about the best political coverage on TV these days is Comedy Central’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Sure, broadcast network shows like NBC’s Meet the Press or ABC’s This Week regularly feature major political guests or presidential candidates. Yes, cable mainstays such as O’Reilly, The Capital Gang or Hannity & Colmes give us political commentary ad-infinauseum.

But they don’t hold a candle to Stewart and the gang. Pourquoi? Because The Daily Show does something that no one else does. They point out the blatant, obvious, right-in-front-of-our-eyes hypocrisy of modern day politics.

In other words — they call “bullshit.”

And unlike most political talk shows that have their own agenda, The Daily Show pulls no punches based on a particular affiliation. Whether it’s showing, in rapid succession, how many times Alberto Gonzales told Congress “I don’t recall” about the questionable firings of eight U.S. Attorneys. Or showing Hillary Clinton at a hospital campaign stop trying to
learn “what a nurse does” and pointing out that she was once in charge of revamping our nation’s health care.

The Daily Show doesn’t care if they’re Republicans, Democrats, Green or Finnish Socialists for that matter.

(I realize that, if you watch the show, it seems like they tend to poke more fun at Republicans. That may be true, but let’s remember that Republicans are in power now. Plus, having a President who hasn’t mastered the English language makes for an easy target.)

On top of all that, The Daily Show has become a legitimate stop on the political media circuit. Just about all of the 2008 Presidential candidates have or will make an appearance on the show. In the past, Stewart has interviewed bigwigs such as John Ashcroft, Madeleine Albright, Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Henry Kissinger and even the President of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf.

Not that I’m telling you anything new here. A study last year found that many viewers thought The Daily Show offered just as substantial news coverage as any of the traditional broadcast newscasts. And the show has won numerous awards, including Emmys and a Peabody Award.

If network executives aren’t upset that Jon Stewart has pretty much hijacked political coverage, they ought to be. But they have only themselves to blame. Stewart and the gang were just another “fake news” show in the late ’90s. But a void of decent political coverage, especially surrounding the 2000 election debacle, left a vacuum that The Daily Show has more than adequately filled ever since.

So I guess maybe the joke’s not on us after all.

The Daily Show airs weeknights at 11 p.m. on Comedy Central.

Ethan Morris: “Not always right, but never in doubt.” href="mailto:goaheadandwrite@gmail.com">Go ahead and write me.