John Stewart, Rush Limbaugh and The Sinister Purpose

By D.T. Holt

There is no doubt that political comedy, like that of The Daily Show or The Colbert Report, has an agenda beyond merely making us laugh. As far back as Mark Twain, and possibly much further, satirical comedy with a political bent has been part of our culture. In and of itself, this is in no way a bad thing. A comedian who is attempting to go beyond the usual banal banter that passes for comedy in America is a welcome thing and comics like Bill Mahr and John Stewart have honed their “thinking man’s comedian” routine to perfection. It becomes a problem when the audience for these entertainers begins to see them as legitimate news sources.

There is also no doubt that the influence of political comedy has gone far beyond anything we’ve ever seen. The question we must ask ourselves is, are the comedians themselves responsible for this influence? I would argue that the onus is on a news media that has become far more concerned with ratings and infotainment than it is with actually, you know, reporting the news. Americans now have more diversions at their fingertips than at any other time in history and the bi-product of this is a populace with a short attention span and a penchant for quick, easy answers. This makes the pseudo informed persona of Bill Maher seem like a reasonable place to look for stances on political and cultural issues alike.

I don’t believe that there is a sinister purpose behind the plethora of left leaning political comics. For the most part, the tradition of political comedy has been from a liberal viewpoint and none of these shows purport to be anything other than comedy. On the Daily Show, John Stewart constantly pokes fun at the idea that the show is an authority on anything and in interviews seems genuinely aghast at the idea that anyone is looking to his show for their political news. Whenever I see a survey about the droves of college students who see Comedy Central as their primary news source, I find myself wondering how they can possibly get the jokes. Good political comedy, like that of John Stewart or Bill Maher, requires a certain level of knowledge in order to work.

When criticizing a public that relies on liberal comedians for it’s news, it is also important to point out the conservative counterpart. Radio personalities such as Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Mark Levine and especially Rush Limbaugh have made a cottage industry of attacking the left in a way that exploits the political ignorance of our populace. Websites like Media Matters for America have long pointed out the level at which the right wing noise machine is willing to mislead, mischaracterize and outright lie to lead their loyal minions to the alter of so-called “conservative principals.” However, the conservative talk show hosts are still seen by their listeners and, in some cases, the news networks that employ them as legitimate, informed political commentators on the level of George Will or Katha Pollit.

Sean Hannity spent the final weeks before the election raving about Barack Obama’s alleged lack of a birth certificate and his listener believed every word. Never mind that this story has been debunked by numerous fact checking groups. The constant repetition of the story, coupled with an audience that is listening in a vacuum that only includes viewpoints with which they agree, make a ridiculous fabrication seem not only plausible, but actually true.

There is one major difference between the liberal comedians and what I prefer to call conservative radio personalities. The comedians make no effort to convince anyone that they are anything but comedians. They also make no effort to hide that they have an axe to grind and an agenda to further but, at the end of the day, they are presenting themselves as comedic entertainment. The fact that a large segment of the public has assigned them a loftier role is, to be sure, a sad commentary on our lack of an informed electorate but is not an indicator of some sort of conspiracy to win the hearts and minds of young Americans. Limbaugh, Hannity and the others present themselves and are perceived by their public as bona fide political commentators, which is at the very least a disturbing deception.

The effectiveness of right wing talk radio relies on and in fact encourages an audience which mistrusts all other sources of news. If liberal political comedy requires an audience that is at least slightly informed in order for the jokes to work and conservative talk radio encourages it’s audience to look only to them for their news and opinions, which side has a sinister purpose?