[bravura]

On the plus side, all the conspiracy theorists who claimed that Jon Stewart and The Daily Shows were pawns of their parent multinational media conglomerate, and thus wouldn't negatively cover SOPA, these people were wrong.

On the negative side, no one in the news media or whistleblowers and WTF-watchers like Jon Stewart knew what SOPA was until two days ago.

That's even scarier.

[neilk]

More on the plus side: Jon Stewart and his team of researchers and writers can go from knowing nothing about a topic, to absolutely nailing some of the central absurdities, in less than a week.

Either comedy is easier than it looks or these guys are really good at their jobs.

[btilly]

Either comedy is easier than it looks or these guys are really good at their jobs.

I vote for B.

[bcowcher]

I think its a little from both columns. The US government makes Jons job alot easier than it has any right to.. and that scares me...

[jean_valjean]

The US government has been a staple of comedy for many, many years.

See: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Will_Rogers His quotes from 80 years ago still sound timely.

[vijayr]

I dunno who this guy is, but he sure is funny:

This would be a great time in the world for some man to come along that knew something.

You can't say that civilization don't advance, however, for in every war they kill you in a new way.

Politics has got so expensive that it takes lots of money to even get beat with.

[HalibetLector]

I find it unsettling that Jon Stewart and his researchers and writers can go from knowing nothing about a topic to nailing some of the central absurdities in less than a week, but our congressmen and their staff CAN'T.

[bmj]

That's because Stewart and his team want to learn about the topic. You assume that our lawmakers are that passionate about every bill in front of them.

[dasil003]

I'd be willing to bet real money that at least some of Jon Stewart's writers knew what SOPA was before two days ago. It's just a question of when it's prime for a joke.

[scott_s]

Not Jon Stewart himself, though. Check out the beginning of January 11th's episode: http://www.hulu.com/watch/320233/the-daily-show-with-jon-ste... He quite candidly says he has "some reading to catch up on" with regards to SOPA.

[JeremyBanks]

Did you watch the full segment? It didn't look to me like they had much understanding of the issue at all. It seems like they'd read a few articles about it and threw together a segment whose humour didn't require a deep understanding.

I was a little bit disappointed.

[neilk]

I did -- and I agree with you. I didn't say they had deep understanding. I said they picked out the absurdities of the process.

This is what Jon Stewart does. Some people say that the Daily Show is the only real news, but my counterpoint is that no, it may feel like it's coming from the right place, one of intelligent skepticism. But they aren't going out and getting fresh information about topics, they are just commenting on the lameness of existing coverage.

[emehrkay]

I'll put on my conspiracy theorist hat: maybe they just waited until it was safe to say something about the subject matter.

[brandall10]

Colbert actually discussed it all the way back on Dec 1

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/40346...

[rmc]

no one in the news media or whistleblowers and WTF-watchers like Jon Stewart knew what SOPA was until two days ago.

Or they did know of it, but didn't think it was that important. Maybe when they realised that Wikipedia et al. were willing to go dark for a day did they think "Hey maybe this is a big deal after all"

[tlrobinson]

Scary, but on the plus side the blackouts seem to have succeeded in raising awareness.