Dan Kois thinks The Daily Show with Jon Stewart might not survive the Obama presidency because, after all, it's hard to make jokes about Obama…and Stewart's staff may not even be that eager to try. I think this is a ridiculous thesis. It's hard to make jokes about any president when he's new and untested. It was some time into the Bush presidency before he became enough of a caricature that cartoonists could draw him and impressionists could mimic him. Besides, does anyone think the Obama administration won't have mistakes and shortcomings and screw-ups?
And even that isn't as significant as this: Mocking the mistakes of our elected officials is Job Two at The Daily Show. The program is only incidentally about that. Its higher purpose is to ridicule the dumb and disingenuous things said in our public discourse, primarily by the media and pundits. No matter what kind of job Obama does, there will never be a shortage of inane news reports, pompous columnists, party hacks of all stripes uttering drivel, etc. Most of what The Daily Show attacks is not what people do but what they say. And even when things are going well, there's always someone out there saying something really, really stupid. Mr. Stewart will be fine.