America's terrorist watch list just hit the 1,000,000 mark. Yay! Sort of. Not really. Jon pointed out that Nelson Mandela was only recently removed from the watch list. He said it in a way like Mandela had no business being on the watch list on the first place, which I thought was a bit unfair. Sure, striking Mandela from the list was a move that probably should have happened over twenty years ago and his motivation was anti-apartheid, but once a guy has been the leader of a sabotage against his own government and military, that kind of makes the big boys of other countries nervous about having him around too. I'm just saying.

Rejoice! The Daily Show is finally back, after an extra long break. I've been absolutely dying to hear the show's take on Hillary Clinton's Robert F. Kennedy remark. I know Keith Olbermann would have none of it and was so furious during his Special Comment on the issue that he bust a lightbulb.

The show started off lightly though, with a couple of jokes directed at the pre-show Q&A audience members. Once Jon Stewart urges you to marry your girlfriend on national television, it's probably about time to seal the deal.

"Land of the Spree": Grand Theft Auto IV was finally released and gun-wielding crazies took the streets in droves and... very politely waited in line in an orderly manner. Senior Virtual Correspondent Aasif Mandvi reported live from Liberty City to giddily talk about the chaos and loss of life throughout the game. There is nothing better than wreaking havoc in a virtual replica of the city you live in, apparently.

"Pope in America: Blessed Week Ever": As promised... Popewatch! The Pope is in America and the media has been going absolutely nuts. Their fawning descriptions of Pope Benedict have been appropriately Pope-ish. The intensity of this coverage confused Jon though, as he was still under the impression that the Jews ran the media. I think my favorite part of that JNN clip was the crawl along the bottom. "Weather: Chilly, wear a jacket.... Eat up! You're skin and bones.... Next door neighbor a doctor... A doctor!.... Oil $110 a barrel, but for you $90.... Rachel Weisz: She's a Jew you know..."

"Hot Mess": Ahh! Olympic fever is catching hold. The famous Torch attempted to make its epic journey through various lands pain-free, only to have protesters and crazy people totally ruin everything. In Paris, France, things got so bad that the police decided to shut it all down and just throw the torch in a car and speed off. And then Jon gave us a quick little history factoid when he shared that the Torch tradition was started under Hitler's regime. His message to France: "Way to sh*t on Hitler's legacy".

"Gubernatorial Malfeasance": As if to let the jokes really ripen, Jon and the gang left coverage of the Eliot Spitzer scandal for this night. Actually, maybe they just wanted the full effect of the media completely crapping themselves with joy, as demonstrated by Jon's Spitzer bib. Senior Legal Analyst Rob Riggle jumped in for what was, like, the shortest correspondent contribution ever, just to drop the joke that Spitzer's link to the prostitution ring was his penis. Come on.

"Indecision 2008": Finally, some Tuesday coverage. Unsurprisingly, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama fought all the way through, with Clinton pulling ahead just enough to claim major victories. John McCain has already pretty much locked up the Republican nomination and Mike Huckabee, um, was Mike Huckabee. I'm usually not very fond of the gag jokes, but the giant hands worked well, if only for that "Oh, Mickey!" bit.

Jon started off by talking about Monday night's interview with Hillary Clinton. The satellite delay was an obvious problem, and Jon pointed out one of the more awkward moments of the night, that little "No, go ahead" part.

"Mortal Kombat '08": Senior Political Correspondent Rob Riggle, wearing his best sleeveless suit, took the "do-or-die" aspect of the Tuesday showdown a little too seriously. The "Cam-Pain Trail" commercial must have been so much fun to make. Only on Daily Show would someone need to make a graphic of sh*t in people's necks.

"Bushman of Africa": President Bush recently paid a visit to five countries throughout Africa. He shared his learnings and experiences through a slideshow, keeping it real old-school. Due to his initiatives on malaria, there will be a George W. Bush Day to raise awareness. Was that a joke, Mr. President? I'll pretend it was.

Correspondent John Oliver stopped by to talk about this strange, new caring Bush and expressed his pain in seeing that Bush had it in him to do good all along. Whenever people bash The Daily Show (or the Colbert Report) for being really unfair to Bush, I like to point them to segments like this. Sure, they have a bit of a liberal bias, but they're not afraid to point out the blunders of the Democrats, nor do they shy away from recognizing when Republicans or conservatives have done well. Seriously, these two shows are probably more fair that many mainstream news outlets. Bless their snarky little hearts.

After all the intense fake-feuding with Stephen Colbert and Conan O'Brien, it may be difficult to remember that Mike Huckabee is actually a real guy who is truly running for president. You may remember him from Daily Show jokes like "Ha! That guy doesn't believe in evolution!" and "Ha! That guy says he doesn't harp on his religious views, but he totally does." Jon also needs to start singing random renditions of "Don't go chasin' waterfalls..." more often. As for Chuck Norris' action pants, additional information can be found here. Place your orders now!

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"Indecision 2008": Did you know Super Tuesday was on Tuesday? The media did a poor job of making us think that the five to six hours leading up the results were "fascinating". They didn't help their point by hurling numbers every which way. As if to add to the confusion, the news teams goofed around with unnecessary flashy graphics, like that "statistical lazy susan", and FOX News' newest player, Karl Rove. Yes, Rove has joined FOX News. Don't think about it too much or your heart will seize up.

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The Daily Show correspondents and analysts and very busy and important, so viewers will probably never get a chance to see the everyone show off their comedic chops at the same time. So, pore over this his GQ blog post, because it's probably going to be the closest thing we'll get to a display of their group genius.

In the article, the correspondents share their thoughts on various presidential candidates and some of their strangely hot wives. They also seem to have spent quite a bit of time thinking about the magic weight loss of both Mike Huckabee and Subway's Jared (Samantha Bee: "They've both got one pair of giant pants somewhere in their closet that they pull out every so often: Now three of me can fit in these pants!"). I don't think this is an excerpt from a larger, soon to be in-print piece, but I'm still holding out a little hope.

After last night's interview with Chris Matthews, I suppose Jon felt the need to reiterate the fact that he just disagrees with the "life is a campaign" thought. The self-deprecating jokes were a nice touch, kind of a sweet gesture to Matthews to show that Jon is an equal opportunity mocker.

"Private Benjamins": Rob Riggle stopped by to share his script, Dark Liquid, which is alarmingly close to the state of Blackwater right now. This was okay, I suppose. I did quite like the idea of being able to shoot blood diamonds and wear panda fur, though. The historical clip was kind of, sort of funny, but I was mainly distracted by how poorly done it was. Was there no professional graphic designer on hand? Come on!

The third annual New York Television Festival is now taking place in the Big Apple. As we did last year, we will review each of the pilots in competition there. This is the fourth set of those reviews.

When I spoke to Eben Russell, the NYTVF's main spokesperson, about how there seemed to be a lot of comedies this year, he mentioned that they wanted to judge the pilots being sent into the festival on their own merits, instead of shoehorning them into categories, like they did the first two years. "We adopted an approach taking the most outstanding pilots, regarding of genre. We have a large amount of comedies as compared to other genres," is what he told me in an e-mail prior to the festival.

The implication is that the other categories didn't have enough quality entries to justify their own categories. Judging by the uneven quality of the following pilots, it makes me wonder what the pilots that were rejected look like (you can view the pilots at MSN).

"War Wars": Bush has said many times over that he feels that this war is a different kind of war. We now know that he really meant that the war is just like 'Nam. I also liked Jon's weak spit takes. Senior Political Correspondent Aasif Mandvi elaborated on Bush's notes on Vietnam. Mandvi seems like he's slowly developing a character? I'm sensing a bit of Colbert-esque smarminess.