Word comes today that Fox has cancelled the afore mentioned right-wing “answer” to The Daily Show – The Half Hour News Hour created by 24’s Joel Surnow. The pilot episode of this televised train wreck featured Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter as President and Vice President respectively.

The show was critically panned from the start, unfunny and always contrived. What Surnow and Roger Ailes never seemed to learn is that The Daily Show isn’t successful because it makes fun of Bush and company, but because it mirrors truth. Stewart, Colbert and company went after Clinton and other left leaning figures just as vigorously as they do the GOP today. People in power will always be legitimate targets of satire and no amount of canned laughter or pandering to demographics can make something that is forced and awkward suddenly seem hilarious.

Here endeth the lesson.