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If George Carlin Hosted Meet the Press

By Rebecca Wakefield/MOLI

I miss George Carlin more than Tim Russert, even though before his death, it had been years since I saw him (if you don't count glimpses of Dogma or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure). Check him out in his prime.

The funny thing about that "Seven Dirty Words" bit is that you can now hear every one of them on premium cable and most of them on basic cable, not to mention the biggest TV station of them all — the Internet.

Here is a comedian who believed in the First Amendment enough to fight the FCC all the way to the Supreme Court. And stay funny the entire time. It's a reminder that there are at least two requirements for truly cogent political satire — a willingness to transgress social conventions and the smarts to carry it off.

It makes me wish that there were a comedian on the level of Carlin doing political satire these days. As much as I still like The Daily Show and the Colbert Report, they've jumped the shark, as the saying goes. Jon Stewart in particular is getting a little too comfortable in his role, a little too close to the pundits and pols he's spearing. He is, if I may say, the Tim Russert of fake news.

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