When Jon Stewart announced before a studio full of deafening cheers and Stephen Colbert's deafening silence that Barack Obama would become the 44th President of the United States, the show seemed to be in an interesting pickle.

Could the show be just as funny as it had been under an administration that didn't blur the line between setups and punchlines? Could Stewart and friends find the funny in a president who inspires more love and fear in people than a teddy bear with a switchblade?

So let's grade The Daily Show's first 100 days under socialism President Obama report card.

...Ew, not like that, you guys. Although, I'm sure if you did just a few minutes of Googling, you could find that too, in one form or another. What I'm talking about is Tina Fey's brilliant impression of vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin. How good was the impression? It was so good that the episodes featuring Fey, and the one that featured Palin herself, were some of SNL's highest-rated episodes in years. Tina Fey's brilliant but ratings-challenged sitcom, 30 Rock received a ratings bump, she scored a multi-million dollar book deal, and newspapers sometimes forgot that they were actually two different people.Not bad for a funny lady who had never been known for her impressions and a governor from a small town no one had ever heard of.

Obama may have been our first celebrity candidate, but Palin was our first beauty queen. Whether you loved her or hated her, it's hard to argue that she was a captivating figure.

Well, at 11:00p/10:00 Central, with the polls having just closed in California, Fox News Channel officially projected Barack Obama to win the presidency by taking California and jumping to 297 projected electoral votes. It was nice of them to make the projection exactly on the hour. Everyone likes a nice round number.

Then, the election panel said that no one could have predicted this even a year ago, but 24 predicted it seven years ago with President David Palmer. That's a sister station, Fox. Didn't you see it? This year they're saying they can see a woman president. Does that mean Clinton in four or eight years? Palin in four? Oprah?

FOX NEWS - AMERICA'S ELECTION HQ. Not dramatic enough? Maybe we could spruce it up a bit. "Fox News - For Election Coverage that's Guaranteed Right!" Even some of their analysts were reluctant to think that the country could go to the left of center.

Fox News Channel is a part of the new media, running streams of election data along the bottom, including a static corner box tracking projected electoral votes. We get two different bits of election data next to that, changing about every 7 seconds. Above that is an Alert bar with text data "Fox News Projects John McCain has won Kentucky." And, of course, they kept it scrolling through the commercials, too.

There is definitely a generational gap with this presidential election, with the elderly favoring McCain and the youth favoring Obama. I'm generalizing of course, but it certainly seems like the campaign advertising is geared that way. One piece of evidence is two cast members of Gossip Girl appearing in an anti-McCain ad.

Granted, since the elderly isn't exactly the target demographic of Gossip Girl, I doubt anyone's grandma is going to stop voting for McCain because Blake Lively asked her to. I doubt said grandma even knows who Blake Lively is. At least the ad acknowledges that most of the demographic for the show aren't old enough to vote and therefore have to convince their parents. When have parents ever listened to their children with regards to their voting preferences?

The campaign is kind of reminiscent of Sarah Silverman's "Great Schlep" Obama ad. That one garnered a response by comedian Jackie Mason. I wonder if this advertisement will get a similar response. If so, will the response be done by the cast of Matlock?

It seems like Dr. Stephen T. Colbert never stops working. Not only does he lead one of the most consistently funny programs on TV, but he spent 2007 releasing a new book, I Am America (And So Can You!), and running for president. And what was the rest of America doing? Obsessing over Sanjaya's hair. Colbert's brief but exciting 2008 campaign showed us that there are bigger and better ways to have fun.

(S01E14) I continue to like Brothers and Sisters more and more every week. And one of my favorite things is the fact that the writers constantly give Rob Lowe lines that reference his famous past.

Page Six in the New York Post is reporting that Diane Sawyer will take over for Charlie Gibson as anchor of ABC's World News after the 2008 presidential election, at least according to industry insiders. Gibson took the job in June knowing that he'd step down after that election, but his replacement wasn't named. The choice of Sawyer is curious, since she's only about two-and-a-half years younger than Gibson (but looks a whole heck of a lot better). You'd think ABC would go younger with the next anchor.

Anyway, the article goes on to speculate what Sawyer will do in the meantime. One theory is that she'll take over hosting duties for Nightline, with Kate Snow, Daryn Kagan, or Campbell Brown taking over for her on Good Morning America. But, remember the source, folks: Page Six's batting average on things like this is around utility-infielder level, so take this whole thing with a lump of salt.

[via Mediabistro]

It's not often that TV news executives are well-known, but Gordon Manning was one of those people.

Manning was with NBC and CBS news for several years, involved in many of the top news stories of the 20th century, including the student uprising in Tiananmen Square in 1989 for NBC, CBS' Watergate and Nixon's trip to China coverage in 1972, and even set up an interview between NBC's Tom Brokaw and Mikail Gorbachev in 1987, just before his meeting with President Reagan.

Manning was famous for something else we all see now: the color-coded election night map! NBC first did that in 1976.

Manning died Wednesday in Westport, CT of a heart attack.

Well, I know what I'm giving myself for Christmas this year.

Warner will release The West Wing: The Complete Series on DVD November 7. The set will include every single episode of the series (154 episodes) on 45 discs. The set will contain the same sets as the individual sets already released, but will also include a copy of the pilot script, including a special intro by creator/head writer Aaron Sorkin. The set will sell for around $300.

The set for the last season will also be released that day, separately, with bonus materials.

(S07E17) This must have been the hardest episode for the cast to film. How do you even go about filming the onscreen death of a beloved character when the equally beloved castmate also died in real life?

NBC is fond of calling their comedies "Must See TV." But this was truly the one must see episode of any NBC show in quite a while. Leo dies, and the election goes down to the wire, all in one episode. Must see, but not handled as well as it could have been. Some good scenes with Josh, and some nice moments in the White House between Bartlett and C.J., but they really should have given Margaret more to do, get more of a reaction from her besides one shot of stoic tears.

And...no Toby?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?

Did someone put something in the water that the Santos campaign workers are drinking? Everyone's hooking up! Lou (Janeane Garofalo) and the 23 year old campaign worker; two women who work on the staff; even...Josh and Donna! Yup, even they go off to Josh's hotel ro...HOLY CRAP, LOOK AT JANEL MOLONEY IN HER UNDERWEAR!!...room. Later in the day Matt and his wife get into the act, waiting for numbers to come in.

Are they sure the title of this episode isn't "Erection Day"?

It seems like such a long time ago that we had a new episode of The West Wing. We had John Spencer's death, then the Olympics. Seems like it's been forever. So when they showed the "previously on The West Wing..." recap, I was actually interested in it. Where exactly did we leave off? Oh yeah, the nuclear accident in California, Santos starting to creep up on Vinick in the polls, the aftermath of the live debate. And now we see that Santos isn't just creeping up on Vinick, he has tied him in several states (including Vinick's California), and surpassed him in others. Donna and the gang is so happy by the polls that they go crazy and start waking up everyone in the hotel. Donna goes into Josh's room, and they are so ecstatic about the numbers that they...