george bush

"Paged Heat": Groans for the "GOP BBQ and nude Cub Scout wrestling" joke. Well, actually, the reaction for all the Mark Foley coverage can probably just be summed up in one massive, disgusted groan. How could Jon have possibly been surprised when the audience got all grossed out from his joke about Foley finger-banging two sophomores from Model UN on the catwalk of the rotunda? Eww.

Jon Stewart and the gang returned after a two-week break (riding high from his two Emmy wins, I suppose). "We wanted to come back on a day that felt, y'know, funny." Of course, the first news was regarding the controversy over the inaccuracies of ABC's 9/11 mini-series, "because, as you know, nothing is typically more accurate than a made-for-television movie." I loved the montage of Bush's Stages of Grief (denial, anger, anger, anger, Hanukkah, acceptance, denial).

Jon Stewart attempted to summarize Bush's speech, despite taping The Daily Show a few hours before the speech even aired. Bush has decided to tap Mexicans' phones. Donning his ever-accurate Bush impression, Jon said, "Jose hasn't been using his phone... I think he might have made the move North."

The first stars a fake newsman with a wicked smirk, and the second stars a fake right-wing pundit with a vicious cocked eyebrow. They both skewer all the ridiculous aspects of America's take on democracy. The Daily Show and The Colbert Report share the late night 11 - midnight block on Comedy Central and have a tight-knit relationship (the segues alone are proof of this), so I'm always surprised by how so many people have extremely strong preferences over one or the other.

So, which one do you like better? Read about my personal choice after the jump.

Jon started off with some coverage of weatherpeople on local news, specifically those from Terre Haute, Indiana's WTWO. They showed a couple of funny clips of WTWO bragging about their 45 years of combined weather experience, totally PWNing rival channel WTHI's puny 30 years. "Man! I bet they can't tell snow from dingleberries!"

Exxon's executive chief, Lee Raymond, is going to receive a very nice retirement package of $400 million. A package nice enough to outrage the public, suffering from rising gas prices. Jon also let us take a look at Mr. Raymond. Before we had a chance to judge, Jon insisted that Mr. Raymond's wicked jowls are not "the embodiment of greed run amok", but a very important storage system for valuable items such as doubloons, collectible baseball cards and Munch's "Scream".

This was a special topic-specific episode, entitled "Race: The Afrospanicindioasianization Of America" (and yes, Jon did stumble over the name). "Evolution Schmevolution", their last topic-specific series, was somewhat disappointing, so I wasn't expecting much from this episode. And I'm glad I didn't. I guess some of the correspondents wanted to take a vacation or something because there weren't any of them on live (just Jon and Resident Expert John Hodgman).

I am going to ease you into this because the news may make you feel... old. FOX just renewed The Simpsons for two more seasons. What seasons, you ask? Seasons 18 and 19. Do you need a second to get your heart medication?

Seriously. It's been that long, folks. The Simpsons debuted way back in 1989. Remember all the media coverage and freaking out about how it was a cartoon but it wasn't meant for little kids? Adults just couldn't get their minds around that. And, remember when Barbara Bush told Time magazine that The Simpsons was the dumbest thing she'd ever seen? Of course, the writers got their revenge a few years later.

I'd like to think that The Simpsons is still edgy and socially relevant after all these years, it's just the viewing public that has changed. That's pretty remarkable. You know what's also remarkable? The fact that Maggie doesn't seem to be getting any bigger.

Oh yeah, FOX also renewed King of the Hill for an 11th season.

Jon Stewart started off by announcing that Congress has raised America's limit of debt to a whopping $9 trillion. "Are you getting an 'F'? Don't study harder! Just make the grading scale go to a 'K'!"

March 19 will mark the 3 year anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom. The first year anniversary was paper, the second anniversary was (we were hoping for) oil, and the third year anniversary will be Operation Swarmer, the largest air assault since Shock and Awe. Happy anniversary! "It's our way of telling Iraq we would do it all over again..."

Jon's back on from his Oscars gig. Oh, Jon, how we've missed thee. After putting down his Hollywood sunglasses, cellphone, and Blackberry, Jon talked about the mixed reviews over his performance ("I sucked... and was great!"). He's usually pretty hard on himself (I remember him uttering, "I am a loser" after one of his jokes during the Oscars) so it was good to hear that Jon said that he had a great time. Audience may or may not have enjoyed his performance as host... it all depended on which cutaways you saw (Jamie Foxx laughed it up, Joaquin Phoenix offered nothing but cold stares). Well, for what it's worth, I thought Jon did a fantastic job with what he had. I really loved the "attack ads" that Stephen Colbert voiced. Jon even showed another attack ad that they pulled at the last minute about monkeys in the biz, out of fear of an uprising resulting in a Planet of the Apes world. It's practical thinking.

Forget the Superbowl, America had the friggin State of the Union, peoples. So what did President Bush say? Well, there was a lot of referenceas to 9/11, the war on terror, and pretty-sounding, uplifting stuff about America and how "together we will make it stronger". Bush also went into some crazy-talk about placing a ban on creating "human-animal hybrids". Dude, I didn't even know there was stuff like that going on in the country. This only makes me want to start trying stuff... Anyone want to volunteer themselves to have half a rat sewn on their face?

"Hamas Appeal": Ladies and gentlemen, please meet Irony. The Palestinian elections took place and everything went fairly smoothly, with a huge voter turnout. Big step towards democracy, right? Sort of. Despite the smoothness of the event, the result was that the majority voted for the terrorist group, Hamas. Ouch. What a kick in the teeth.

Canadian elections. Stephen Harper won. Conservative, it is. In the end, the big question was "Can we still stitch their flags to our backpacks to get through Europe?" Well, Americans, if all else fails, we could always just tack on "eh?" at the end of our sentences and hope for the best.

After the sale of their SUVs dropped dramatically, Ford announced that the company will lay off 30,000 over the next six years. This happened the same week as the Time magazine cover with Bill Ford, in which he talked about the environment-focused plans of the company. Apparently, their newest creation will be an environmentally friendly car that will run "partly on gas, partly on electric, but mostly on the tears of unemployed workers' children".

"Sam's Club": Sam Alito's confirmation hearings have garnered nothing but a lot of boring talk from the Senate. Senators Dewine, Biden, Leahy, and Kennedy have a showdown to see who can talk the longest without asking a question... The competition goes on for over eight and a half minutes before a winner can be chosen (Dewine). Damn, these geezers like to talk. When questions were actually asked, they were rather strange... For example, Alito was asked what he would do if, speaking purely hypothetically, murder was made illegal. I guess the Senator posing the question just couldn't think of any better examples. Anyway, without another thought, Jon leaped out of the studio and strangled a hobo, only to find out that murder is already illegal. Nuts.

Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off the oil and now his bosom buddy, newly-elected Bolivian leader Evo Morales, has pledged to screw around with another important resource: cocaine. Yessir, Morales has promised to de-criminalize coca farming. The TDS translator thing (making him speak while drinking) was a little random...

And what the hell's up with Harry Belafonte all, like, calling Bush the "greatest tyrant in the word, greatest terrorist in the world"? Isn't he supposed to be a Goodwill Ambassador? And is Bush really a greater terrorist than Bin Laden (who has a "Greatest Terrorist in the World" mug from his grandchildren to back him up)? Anyway, Belafonte said told Chavez that millions of Americans were supporting Venezuela's revolution. Jon can't help but be amused by this, saying, "I don't there are millions of Americans who know where Venezuela is..."