Not to be prejudiced or anything, but a short tour around the Internets pretty easily proves that conservatives don’t “get” satire or parody. Why? The answer probably has something to do with “belief in simple absolutes” and “sex shame” and “childhood brain damage,” and research from 30 years ago showed dogmatic people tend to be both dumb and unable to comprehend satire. And that’s why wingnuts don’t understand that Stephen Colbert’s Comedy Central parody of Fox News is, in fact, a comedic parody. MORE »

Democratic politicians appearing on the comedy teevee show The Colbert Report got an average 40 percent bump in contributions in the month following their visit, while Republican politicians got an average of nothing. This just goes to prove that Republicans do not watch The Colbert Report, or if they do, they end up contributing to Democratic politicians. Read a PDF of the research report here. [American Political Science Association]

Here is your Barack Obama in the second, less boring part of his Daily Show appearance last night. The part at the end where he says “I’m calling to find out if you’re happy with your cell phone service” in stentorian, inspiring tones will have all you Obama nuts screaming Yes yes I love Verizon while the rest of us wonder if we’ve been been had by old Hopey. MORE »

A group of New York City communist writers came to Washington the other day, looking for a handout and complaining about capitalism, as usual. The “limousine liberals” from teevee’s Comedy Central want the government to crush free enterprise and “help workers.” We asked Daily Show writer and striking laborist Jason Ross to tell us exactly what happened on Capitol Hill. MORE »

As probably a few of you saw on last night’s Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert announced his candidacy for president in the South Carolina primary. In other news, Stephen Colbert has a new book that he is trying to sell.

Indecision 2008 [Comedy Central]