The Daily Show: March 14, 2006

In these dark times, it is always nice to find some news to be giddy over... Jon Stewart was kind enough to remind us that there are less than a thousand days until the 2008 elections. Of course, there was much rejoice in the TDS crowd.

"Indecision 2008 -- Poll Dance": The victor from the Tennessee straw poll was none other than Senator Bill Frist. Yup. That Bill Frist. The audience didn't seem to appreciate the graph with the straws as much as I did... Maybe they were still trying to take in the news. President Bush tied for third place with 10%, even though, according to the Constitution, he cannot run for a third term. Eh. But what do we care about the Constitution?

Ed Helms filed a report about Paul Hackett, a Democrat from Ohio that pulled out of the Senate race after repeated requests from party leaders. Hackett said that his fellow Democrats did not want him to win because he's too outspoken and believes in what he says. Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf discussed campaign techniques with Helms. I sort of lost it at this point because I was busy trying to figure out if this was the same guy from the pizza-porn report that Stephen Colbert did ages and ages ago. I was right. I totally win at life. Anyway, back on topic... Ed Helms then tried to fix up Hackett's campaigning style and I was amazed by how much Hackett played along. It was clear that Hackett was not tricked into doing any of this through funny editing or strangely worded questions... This man was fully into making a joke out of the situation. It was actually really refreshing to see (especially after Eric Burns damn near flipped out on last night's episode because he really thought Jon couldn't tell the difference between a historical figure and a beer). For this, I commend you, Mr. Hackett!

"This Week in God: Blasphemy Edition": Yay for a new font! I liked this new one better... Looked more "holy", I guess. Anyway, there was no God Machine, which really upset me. No God Machine meant no funny "boo-boo boo" noises. This was a really short one, compared to some of the other editions that Rob has done. We learned that we are not ask why God needs mortals to carry out punishments. That's called heresy.

The night's guest was Bart Ehrman, author of Misquoting Jesus. This was actually a pretty interesting interview. Ehrman's book is all about how many of the stories in the Bible have been twisted from their original forms... Some of those stories were not even in the original scripts. These additions and manipulations are there because, back before printing presses were invented, all copying had to be done by hand. So, scribes could change scripture if they did not like what was being said. Watching Jon speak about spiritual stuff was interesting, too. When he closed the interview, he had to catch himself before he could finish "It's one hell of a -- uh... I didn't mean to..."

When Jon checked in with Stephen Colbert, Stephen raved over other shows that would be on that night because he doesn't need to promote his own show. "I keeps my peeps, know what I'm sayin'?" Moment of Zen: John McCain really likes the president. Okay, enough of that.