He already kisses up to Republicans, there are just occasional exceptions. He’s been known to stop the audience from booing a statement they don’t like or cheering when he asks a question they agree with. And again, Bob Dole is a correspondent and John McCain a frequent guest.
And as I’ve said elsewhere, the fact that he has to says a great deal about the show.
My new favorite was the guy this week with discussing Iran. Stewart attempted to launch into his typical, “They hate us, we’re such schmucks” speech. The guy responded, “No, they don’t. The young in Iran love us.”
Now whether he was right or wrong, which is open to debate, it was hilarious to see Stewart stammered half-assed reaction when someone didn’t buy his typical, “We bomb them, try to force democracy on us and, eeeeeyaaaaah [why he makes that sound so much I don’t know] they hate us more,” joke at face value.
It’s somewhat ironic seeing Stewart, whose jokes themselves fall into the “simple one-liner low analysis news” bent, gets called on that issue a bit. Would have been nice if he had been able to respond with something beyond, “I see them burning flags on TV.”
As would I.
“Last year, the Academy voted Lord of the Rings Best Picture. I guess they didn’t have any TASTE!!!”
Ah, nice move. Call him biased, then when I show he makes efforts to avoid bias, call him biased for having to make the effort. :rolleyes:
This is a question of demographics as much as anything else. The show is watched and attended mostly by young people and is filmed in New York City. Republicans dominate the news these days, so that’s who most of the comedy is going to be about.
I think that’s an important point to keep in mind. Since the Republicans are in the majority across the board, there’s more joke fodder simply by force of numbers. 
Now you’re the comedian.
I see. So you, as a conservative, can find him funny even though he usually rags on conservatives. But we liberals and leftists are somehow unable to appreciate humor when it’s at the expense of those on our side of the political fence? It might make you feel better to believe this, but that doesn’t make it true.
Furthermore, we’ve already established that he kisses up to Republicans who come on his show. Recent interviews with Colin Powell and Newt Gingrich was just as tame as any interviews he does with liberals. Going a bit further back, he was also extremely kind to Ari Fleischer.
As for doing mock news stories about Democrats, the fact is that many of the mock news stories focus on national politics, and with the Republicans controlling the White House and both houses of Congress, and effectively controlling the national policy agenda, it’s natural that any comedian looking to make hay from politics would, right now, focus on the Republicans.
I wasn’t watching the show back when Clinton was president, but i’m willing to bet that Stewart took the piss out of Clinton on a fairly regular basis. If any Doper can confirm or deny that, i’d be happy to hear it.
And if/when the Democrats regain control of the White House and/or of Congress, i’ll be quite happy to see Stewart spending more of his time focusing on them. The people who need to be scrutinized most closely are the ones who are actually in a position to make the decisions.
He isn’t necessarily making an effort to avoid bias there so much as he’s trying to keep his show from becoming a joke by having an Arsenio Hall-like audience that makes woofing sounds at, “So did you hear the latest about the conservatives? Did you here this?” and hissing sounds at, “So, although it isn’t all sunshine and roses, it’s possible that Iraq was still the right thing to do.” In other words, he’s trying to prevent his show from losing all credibility.
That’s quite different than genuinely attempting to avoid bias.