It's almost a political truism: Young voters get their political news from late-night comedy shows.
But like so many facts that bounce around the media's echo chamber, it's only partly true. A poll released in January by the Pew Research Center did find that 21 percent of voters aged 18 to 29 got their political news from late-night comedy shows - compared to 23 percent who used newspapers, 20 percent who used the Internet and 37 percent who used the cable news networks.
But with a divided electorate and a tight presidential election approaching, what are young people learning as they tune in to late-night comedy. What are they seeing?
Bill Maher, satirist and host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, suspects they are getting superficial, predigested views.
"People form opinions based on not enough information to really have an opinion," he told National Public Radio's Fresh Air last month. "They want to have an opinion; they just don't want to do the work that it takes to have an opinion. So they will adopt the (Jay) Leno opinion or the Jon Stewart opinion, or what they perceive as the opinion there. And that sort of is an incestuous situation because I think the comics take their opinion from what they perceive to be the public opinion."
To help gauge the Leno learning experience from, say, the one on the Letterman show, I've developed a thumbnail analysis of the political jokes and jibes on seven leading weeknight TV shows.
This, then, is the face of political discourse in late-night comedy land - a mostly-white, mostly-male landscape where stupidity is the greatest sin and nothing gets in the way of a good joke. Here's how the top shows stack up:
The Daily Show (Comedy Central, 11 p.m. weeknights):
IMPACT: Despite claiming he has so little political bias he's "a Whig," host Jon Stewart playfully excoriates George Bush's administration as deceptive and evil - particularly taking on Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative columnist Robert Novak for his work serving Republican interests in columns.
WHY PEOPLE TUNE IN: Unfettered by journalism's need to play fair, The Daily Show draws its own conclusions on real events, ridiculing unmercifully. While mainstream journalists were still sorting out the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth ads, Stewart already was slyly noting their many real-life inconsistencies - ridiculing, for example, the idea that a doctor working in wartime could remember minute details of an allegedly minor wound Kerry received to earn his first Purple Heart.
BEST LINE: After replaying a statment by Cheney blaming John Kerry and John Edwards for preventing passage of the administration's energy policy, Stewart noted: "You control the White House, both houses of Congress, the Supreme Court and have closer ties to the energy industry than any administration in history. And these two knuckleheads stopped you? And you call yourself evil?"
Tough Crowd with Colin Quinn (Comedy Central, 11:30 p.m. weeknights):
IMPACT: A former Ralph Nader voter who says he'll likely vote for Bush this year, host Colin Quinn is a gravelly-voiced opponent of anything that remotely smacks of political correctness or social sensitivity. Too explicit and raw to be a straight-up conservative Republican, he often comes off like a Libertarian who hates all the social responsibility stuff coming from Democrats, but also seems fretful the GOP will crack down on the cigarettes, dancing girls and liquor that you just know he's enjoying offstage.
WHY PEOPLE TUNE IN: For viewers who think most mainstream outlets are too PC, Saturday Night Live alum Quinn offers a panel of four acerbic comics who kick around issues ranging from racial profiling to rock stars-turned-political activists.
BEST LINES: Quinn, on rocker Bruce Springsteen's recent op-ed column lamenting how hard it is to see beyond the veil of race: "I dunno . . . Why don't you ask the six black people who have ever come to one your concerts?" Guest Greg Giraldo on the Olympic women's softball competition: "China actually beat America in the qualifying game . . . I didn't even know they had fat lesbians in China."
The Late Show with David Letterman (WTSP-Ch. 10, 11:35 p.m. weeknights):
IMPACT: He's been accused of being a closet Republican, but host David Letterman has an obvious contempt for stupidity and dishonesty that brings sharp jabs at President Bush's lapses. Often, these tweaks come during little film clips Letterman airs with titles such as "George Bush Economic Expert" (he stutters for long moments while trying to ask someone at a rally about their investments) and "George W. Bush Unveils His Plan for Iraq" (a jovial Bush, waiting long seconds for a TV interview to start with an empty grin plastered on his face, says nothing).
WHY PEOPLE TUNE IN: Unlike many journalists who seem bent on proving their smarts, Letterman is a master at asking direct, down-to-earth questions of newsmakers such as former President Bill Clinton and retired Gen. Tommy Franks. "I'm of the opinion . . . that we have seen the worst we're going to see from terrorist groups," Letterman told Franks during a recent visit. "Am I living in a fool's paradise?" Let's see Ted Koppel ask something that self-deprecating.
BEST LINES: "Did you hear, a crowd in Iowa gathered around John Kerry for a half hour . . . before they realized it was a scarecrow?" "President George Bush is very excited to be coming (to New York) . . . because he's absolutely certain when he comes here he'll have no trouble finding weapons of mass destruction." "While the Republicans are here, they're going to go up to Grant's tomb to see what a two-term Republican looks like."
Late Night with Conan O'Brien (WFLA-Ch. 8, 12:35 p.m. weeknights):
IMPACT: Like an impish class clown, host Conan O'Brien goes for anything that will get a laugh. Politics-wise, that often means unleashing Robert Smigel, the mind behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog and Saturday Night Live's cartoons; superimposing his moving lips over pictures of Bush, Kerry, Teresa Heinz-Kerry and others, a technique which first appeared in the little-known 1959 cartoon, Clutch Cargo.
WHY PEOPLE TUNE IN: Fans can count on an ideology-free romp; in one recent bit on casting a movie of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, O'Brien suggested Saddam Hussein be played by Geraldo Rivera and Sen. John Warner be played by Sam the Eagle from Sesame Street.
BEST LINES: Smigel as a carefully dense Bush, speaking after a terror alert inspired by information years old: "Don't panic folks, but we have credible evidence there are imminent plans to break up the Spice Girls . . . Seinfeld may be going off the air . . . (and) a hopelessly unqualified man may become president." Smigel as a bawdy, party-boy Clinton mangling the first line from Kerry's nomination acceptance speech: "My name is Bill Clinton, and I'm reporting for booty! Yee haa!"
The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (WFLA, 11:35 p.m. weeknights):
IMPACT: Because of his close association with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger - who announced his candidacy to replace California Gov. Gray Davis on his show - Leno also has been tagged as a closet Republican. But, as host of the highest-rated late-night show, his allegiance seems more to Hollywood and the prevailing images of any candidate. In Leno's world, Kerry is boring and inconsistent, Bush is dense and manipulated, Clinton is oversexed and unprincipled - no deeper meanings involved.
WHY PEOPLE TUNE IN: Using crude lookalike actors to spoof politicians, Leno transforms the morass of presidential politics into a rush of stereotypes and mannerisms. Like Letterman, Leno skewers the absurdity and stupidity of modern politics; unlike Letterman, Leno brings no anger.
BEST LINES: On terror alerts based on old information: "You know what happened on this date four years ago? Whatever it was, the Department of Homeland Security just found out about it." When the Kerrys had a gourmet meal delivered from a yacht club after a photo-op dinner at a Wendy's restaurant, Leno cracked, "the only thing Mrs. Heinz-Kerry recognized at Wendy's was the ketchup." And on the GOP convention coming to New York: "Apparently, they have a plan for going into New York, they just don't have a plan for getting out."
Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO, 11 p.m. Fridays):
IMPACT: Often described as a Libertarian and former Nader voter, host Bill Maher seems to have grown more liberal and anti-Bush as the election grows closer (he recently fell to his knees during a show begging Nader to drop out of the presidential race.) Among other things, the comic blames Bush for squandering America's post-9/11 unity and driving toward an irrelevant war in Iraq.
WHY PEOPLE TUNE IN: Maher, who describes himself as a "premature elaborator," is fearless about speaking his mind on any issue, faulting the American people for "electing a guy president who didn't have the experience to be president. . . . Excuse me, he was drunk until he was 40."
BEST LINES: On losing his ABC show Politically Incorrect after making politically incorrect comments following the Sept. 11 attacks: "Isn't there something wrong when I'm the only guy in the country who got fired for 9/11?" On the kind of protests he hoped to see in New York during the Republican National Convention: "If anything with Trump written on it is standing after September 3rd, you're a bunch of (wimps) who aren't worth the hemp in your Timberland shoes. I want to see cab drivers so nervous they stop picking up the white people."
Dennis Miller (CNBC, 9 p.m. weeknights).
IMPACT: Once a seemingly liberal comic, host Dennis Miller now features right-leaning, post-9/11 diatribes on a show that also offers chatty discussions with conservatives such as Ben Stein (a former staffer for Richard Nixon who called the former president "the greatest peacemaker ever,") and conservative columnist Michelle Malkin, an American of Asian descent who makes the case that World War II-era Japanese internment camps weren't all bad.
WHY PEOPLE TUNE IN: Cribbing from his days as a faux-news anchor on Saturday Night Live's "Weekend Update" segment, Miller offers his own acerbic take on the day's headlines, along with a monologue-style rant similar to what he offered on his HBO show. With a gift for bridging classic and pop culture, Miller has compared liberal America to the Eloi, the blissfully ignorant humans kept as cattle for carnivorous keepers in H.G. Wells' classic novel The Time Machine.
BEST LINES: On John and Teresa Heinz-Kerry touring the Southwest to solicit Hispanic votes: "At times, his wife Teresa thrilled the crowds by speaking the few words of Spanish she knows, including, "Manuel, the pool needs cleaning,' and "Guadeloupe, you missed a spot.' " On Iran's development of nuclear technology: "Iran has insisted that its nuclear program is solely for the production of electricity. Which is odd, considering electricity won't be invented in Iran for another five centuries."
