The Daily Show: June 19, 2006

Jon Stewart started off with some joke about auctions. It was a reference to an eBay comment from the pre-show warm-up, so the audience was pretty excited to hear it. I suppose it was nice that he began with a light joke because what came next was absolutely horrifying. They rolled a clip of Connie Chung's farewell from Weekends with Maury and Ohmigod What Have They Done with Connie Chung?! It was... disturbing, to say the least. If you really feel like watching the mess that is Chung rolling around on a piano, YouTube has video. The pianist looked too busy feigning enjoyment to actually play the piano.

"Debate & Switch": The House of Representatives had a formal debate about the Iraq War and brought up a resolution. Rep. Charles Norwood boiled it down to the very basics... "Is it Al-Qaeda, or is it America?" Well... that seemed like a no-brainer to vote on. Jon made a butterfly ballot joke. A bit dated, but a classic. Anyway, we learned that politicians are still very fond of using sports analogies for the war (Iraq: "Is it over, or in its 700th day of overtime?"). Thelma Drake managed to step up and say, "This is not football. This is not a game. This is war." Jon thanked her loudly, but spoke too soon. "This is war," Drake continued. "And war must be played away". So much for that.

Louis Gohmert said a lot of nice things about Jack Murtha ("Thank God for this, thank God for that"), only to do a complete 180 and end with, "Thank God he was not here and prevailed after the bloodbaths at Normandy and in the Pacific or we would be here speaking Japanese or German." Jon followed with a beautiful joke about skull-fucking Hitler in front of Eva. Heh, that was pretty vicious.

Correspondent Samantha Bee briefly joined in to explain that pulling the troops out during the single shittiest summer in history is simply un-American.

Dan Bakkedahl filed a report about the Congressional softball league. Apparently, some Republicans grew upset over the reworked playoff system, where every team is given a good chance to win. They picked up their supplies and formed their own league. Bakkedahl had an interview set up with a Republican about the issue, but the person decided to back out at the last minute due to legal issues. Bakkedahl, working with some a special clause in the Electronic Communications Regulation Act (which allows phone calls to be broadcast), called up the Republican to ask if they had any additional comments. When the Republican refused again, Bakkedahl asked if walking out on an interview reflected a "general dickishness" that probably contributed to the underwater state of New Orleans. He then added that he would take a hang-up as a yes. Dial tone on the other end. I thought this was a pretty clever report by Bakkedahl. Couldn't help but notice that his hair looks a bit like Kelsey Grammer's from some Frasier reruns... He's bald on top but has long, curly hair in the back. It's... strange.

The night's guest was Calvin Trillin, author of A Heckuva Job : More of the Bush Administration in Rhyme. This interview reminded me of the one that Jon had with John Hodgman a few months ago. I think it was because of the overall dryness in humor. Trillin was really funny, and read a brief poem from his book. He's like Dr. Suess with a depressingly real twist.

Jon/Stephen: Apparently, The Colbert Report was about to be taken over by The Muppet Show, complete with an appearance by Sam Eagle. Moment of Zen: Gohmert is an angry, angry man that likes to rhyme gerunds.