“We're tuning in to see the one person left who seems capable of calling a train wreck what it really is”

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Steven James Snyder:

As all the composed talking heads on both sides of the equation talk a good game on the cable news channels, I go to The Daily Show for a little of the exasperation that matches the way conversations are actually playing out in my life.

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My daily routine now seems to be: Follow the wire reports throughout the day for the dark news that's breaking in all our various crises, trying to make sense of the developments. Then turn on cable news, only to realize that they are barely scratching the surface, or ignoring the news entirely; and when they do have on someone from BP, it seems more like theater than investigative journalism. Questions are lobbed up, to be answered by talking points. Cut to commercial. Then I go home, flip on Stewart, and get a little of the exasperation-panic I'm feeling – exasperation over the injustices that are not being met with nearly enough indignation, and the dose of panic that accompanies the realization that maybe our government just can't deal with problems of this magnitude any more. In 2010, bipartisanship seems like a naive and archaic concept.

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For a growing slice of the audience, we're not watching Jon Stewart any more to laugh at the silliness of the machinery. We're tuning in to see the one person left who seems capable of calling a train wreck what it really is.