Stephen Colbert’s Joyful Return to Political Comedy

During this election cycle, it has often felt as though the country’s politically inclined late-night talk-show hosts have been sitting in the wrong chairs, or else sadly absent altogether. Sure, John Oliver is in the right spot, hectoring gleefully at HBO. But Samantha Bee, who is doing a superhero’s work just once a week on TBS, really ought to be killing it nightly as the host of “The Daily Show.” Stephen Colbert, who for almost a year has been trying to find his footing as David Letterman’s replacement on CBS’s “Late Show,” should be back in character at Comedy Central, satirizing this wayward iteration of the Republican Party with fulsome, ignorant praise. As for Letterman, he’s tending to a beard when he might still be presiding as the country’s elder comedic statesman, wryly brutalizing Donald Trump, whom, in a recent TV interview, he called “despicable.” Speaking of beards, there’s Jon Stewart’s. Save for a cranky appearance on David Axelrod’s politics podcast in May, Stewart has mostly been silent this year, away building an animal sanctuary in New Jersey.

See the rest of the story at newyorker.com

Related:
The R.N.C. on TV: Ivanka’s Weaponized Graciousness
What Does NATO Do, Anyway?
Another Brick in Trump’s Wall