"WHY JON STEWART ISN'T FUNNY" The Daily Show might not be C-Span, but it's probably fair to say that by presenting news in a way that people can digest more easily, it offers a way in to the process. Yeah, some people might not go beyond laughing at the Brokeback Mountain gags, but others will take the jokes as a starting point to investigate matters more deeply. You're more likely to tempt someone with a half-hour comedy show than a half-price subscription to New Republic.

At the very bottom, in a nation whose TV news output is dominated by Fox, having a show which says "it ain't neccesairily so" can only be considered a public good. Right?

Apparently not: Micahel Kalin, writing in The Boston Globe has decided that he doesn't like the idea of Jon Stewart and his show making questioning the media trendy. Why?

Unfortunately, the rise of mass media and the domination of television news give Stewart's Menckenesque voice a much more powerful influence than critics in previous generations. As a result, a bright leader who may have become the Theodore Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson of today instead perceives politics as a supply of sophisticated entertainment, rather than a powerful source of social change.
Although Stewart's comedic shticks may thus earn him some laughs Sunday at the Oscars, his routine will certainly not match the impact of his greatest irony: Jon Stewart undermines any remaining earnestness that liberals in America might still possess.

We wonder if a guy who would toss a "Menckenesque" into a TV review might be clinging a little bit too hard to his "remaining earnestness" there.

So, Kalin reckons that the Democrats will just dry up because they spend their evening laughing their faces off at Comedy Central rather than painting placards. (He could have a point - since Crank Yankers came on the air, there's been a 37% dip in the number of stunt phonecalls being made across the mid-West.)

But does Kalin have any proof to back up this claim? Well, yes he does: he introduces us to Joshua Goldberg (in case you don't pick up the gentle hint in the name, Joshua is Jewish):

Born in Newton, Goldberg attended Newton South High School where he played an integral role in securing the school's debate championship. His 3.8 grade point average and impressive array of extracurricular activities earned him a scholarship to Vassar, where he majored in political science and joined a Jewish fraternity. Throughout his formal education, Goldberg stayed up-to-date on national politics through nightly coverage on ''The Daily Show" and even led a petition to protest the genocide in Darfur.

Many of Stewart's die-hard supporters might use this persona as proof that ''The Daily Show" engages disillusioned viewers who otherwise could not be reached. This argument, however, fails to consider the ultimate career path of Josh Goldberg: Upon graduation in 2004, he accepted a prestigious job as an analyst at Morgan Stanley. Although he no longer follows Washington's daily political squabbles, Goldberg gives a significant annual contribution to the Democratic Party.

So... watching Jon Stewart makes you turn into a merchant banker? Who knew.

But we know what you're thinking: one guy from the audience shouldn't be taken as typical of the entire audience. But you're wrong.

It's not that Joshua isn't a typical viewer; he's not even an actual viewer - Kalin admits that he just created him as "a fictional composite of the typical apostle of the Daily Show."

We can do that - meet Henry McSquirrel, a fictional composite of Michael Kalin's friends. McSquirrel - a Presbyterian - really likes Kalin, and enjoys hanging out with him. But he can't help feeling that, you know, Kalin is a bit of a knob. He really wants Michael to be a success - that way, he can pay for the bowling lane once in a while - but he doesn't really have much faith in him. So, when Kalin asked McSquirrel to have a look through this article he was going to submit to the Boston Globe, he didn't pay very much attention to it. "Yeah... Jon Stewart... right, dude, send it in." Now he wishes he'd saved his friend from making a bit of a knob of himself in print.