If anything I see Stewart/Colberts role has less to do with showing that liberalism is "Correct" and more to do with showing how ridiculous politics are when we take a step back and look at them through a different lens. I think it's also quite odd that you don't think that Stewart will happily lampoon a "liberal" in the same way he does with a conservative. Just as an example: I think “chickenshit” is appropriate in this environment. As they say, “They took the beatin’.” You’re sort of baffled by it. They had a very distinct strategy which was: “We’re not going to make any decisions six months out so that we don’t put any pressure on our vulnerable senators from the red states.” So they were basically saying, “We’re not going to try to provoke people that already hate us anyway and are motivated to come out,” so their strategy was a defensive one of, “Let’s go in a crouch and hope they don’t kick us too hard in the face,” rather than going on the offensive and trying to motivate people who would actually care about them and vote for them. Stewarts game isn't "LOL CONSERVATIVES DUMB WE SMART GOOD JOB" it is "Why in the world are we letting these people run our country? How do we make things better?" This polar view of The Daily Show has existed since almost it's inception (Post Kilborn anyway) and it's ridiculous. They are mocking the onslaught of media and entertainment that make up lies and use their authority to declare an opinion fact.It creates a culture of pseudo-intellectualism and a blind belief that liberals and progressives are on the side of history and can't do anything wrong. Let's be clear: liberals have done a lot of damn things wrong. So have conservatives. You won't hear that on the Daily Show. And you certainly won't hear an explanation of why everything is wrong.
We are just coming off the midterm elections, too, where the Democrats got slaughtered. I believe you used the term “chickenshit” to describe the Dems, and “Red Wedding” to describe the midterms.
I guess I'd want to see some sort of longterm analysis of the Daily Show before I would believe what you said. It doesn't square with my memory. If you tote up the numbers, I suspect Stewart has spent like 80 percent of his airtime mocking the Republican/Tea Party agenda. Ditto Fox News etc versus CNN. In any case, the point I wanted to make got a bit lost -- making fun of people at all is never going to fix the country. Teaching teens and young adults to scorn other points of view is a fucking shame. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe Stewart will point out all the massive holes in Obama's "internet as utility" idea, while he's simultaneously mocking Ted Cruz (as he surely will). Maybe he'll have a real, scholarly discussion about the issue, and present all the options. We'll see.
I don't know, he's a comedian, he does comedy things. He's got 22 minutes to make people laugh. 22 minutes vs the 24 hours of fox/cnn/msnbc/etc. The writers on the show usually have a list of news stories, think about what is funny about them, then write a joke and hopefully they can find some old footage they can poke fun at too. I don't think they are even thinking about equal time, because that takes away from the funny. But he is known to have deep discussions with authors, politicians, and pundits which are available on comedy central's websites for interviews that run longer than the show. The ones with Bill O'Reilly are particularly good http://thedailyshow.cc.com/guests/bill-oreilly he's done these with Ron Paul and other Republican and Libertarians too.