News Watch: This may be the best promo I've ever seen

"In Season 2 he's changing everything up. . . .
Maybe he'll add a pony . . . a crime-solving pony."

Says John, "We were just really assuming the show was going to be basically the same." The good news: He gets to keep his glasses.

by Ken

This promo was actually first posted about seven weeks ago, and we're already three weeks into the season it was promo-ing. But it's still maybe the best promo I've ever seen for anything. I don't know how many times I've seen it, but it delights me as richly as it did the first time.

At the end of the promo John expresses speaks rather forlornly about his hopes for this "one more year." After Episode 2 of the new season aired, HBO announced that Last Week Tonight will be around not just for the season-in-progress but for two more, of 35 shows apiece, in 2016 and 2017. Let's hand it to the HBO programming people for getting this call triumphantly right. The Last Week Tonight team has consistently managed to make the show among the funniest and the most informative broadcasts we've had.

Of course John was a pretty thoroughly known quantity by the time the show debuted, thanks to his years remarkable work on Comedy Central's Daily Show with Joh Stewart, including his well-deserved stint as substitute host during Jon's leave. What wasn't known was just what sort of show he and his people would be putting together at their new address.

The format they came up with is simple but durable; it just depends on the huge amount of work and wit it takes to stuff it with content. First there's a roundup of relatively short items plucked from the week's strange-but-true events. Then the latter two-thirds or so of the show is given over to a really extensive look at a single subject.

I would think that even the most casual observer can see how much research and screening and writing and rewriting and materials collection that half-hour broadcast entails. Still, the point seemed to be lost on Charlie Rose, as I discovered when, in order to see John, I broke my standard no-Charlie-Rose rule (which can be stated roughly, in case the point needs clarifying: "No Charlie Rose!"). Charlie, apparently genuinely surprised to hear John say that no, there's no way he could do LWT on a = nightly basis -- like, you know, The Daily Show. Of course it's possible that our Charlie, for all his seemingly sincere aura of fandom, had never actually watched either The Daily Show or Last Week Tonight. The fact remains that he seemed sincerely confounded by the idea that the way the shows are produced is different in any way except the number of times a week each is produced.

The big challenge for the LWT team, obviously, is the "big" segment of each show: finding subjects that lend themselves to their kind of treatment at 18-or-so-minute length, and then putting together a segment that fills those 18 minutes at peak news and comedy value. I think it's pretty extraordinary how many such subjects they've imagined and executed so successfully, coming up with an astounding array of information, most of which is genuinely shocking -- and side-splitting, often at the same time. One obvious result is that each episode of LWT has enduring rather than merely topical value.

I can't think of a better example than the "Tobacco" segment from this season's Episode 2.

Ep. 26 Clip: Big Tobacco's Still At It

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Barney Frank-- As Usual-- Is Willing To Call A Spade A Spade: Accuses Republican Congressmen Of Rooting For Economic Failure

When Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck root for failure, they get their followers all riled up. But when Members of Congress root for failure, they can take votes to back up their rooting. And that's the basis of the unbelievable spate of Republican-- and conservative-- obstructionism that has plagued the Obama Administration from the time it took office. In the video above, of Charlie Rose interviewing Barney Frank (D-MA) about passage of the Wall Street reform legislation last week on PBS' News Hour Barney comes right out and says it for everyone to hear:

... I am very disappointed in the Republicans. I think some of them are rooting for failure. Not to go forward with unemployment compensation, not to give money to the states so they don't add to unemployment-- yes, we have a long-term deficit problem that we have to begin to work on this year-- but to choke off these counter-cyclical measures like unemployment compensation sends and aid to the states to keep people working... that plus the turmoil in Europe has clearly slowed down the recovery and the sad thing is, I think some of my Republican colleagues-- I have to be honest-- don't mind that because they think they'll benefit from it in the congressional elections.

Although neither was as outspoken and direct as Barney, Harry Reid said much the same thing last week and yesterday President Obama brought it up in his weekly address to the nation. It's great they're talking about it. But they all left something out-- conservative Democrats who vote with the Republicans as a default position (like Ben Nelson and Blanche Lincoln in the Senate and the Blue Dogs in the House).

The last time I saw Barney in person, he told a gathering of progressive activists that if we were serious about real change, we'd be putting our energy into primaries. Blue America, of course, does. But for all Obama's complaining about how Republicans are obstructing his legislative program to rescue America from decades of conservative misgovernance, he hasn't been helping any progressive challengers to the reactionary Democrats who vote with the GOP. And in some cases-- like Blanche Lincoln's and Jim Matheson's-- the party organs he controls, the DNC and OFA, have actually helped the perps win!

Many of the worst Blue Dogs in the House, like Bobby Bright (AL), Travis Childers (MS), Walt Minnick (ID), Glenn Nye (VA), Frank Kratovil (MD) and Joe Donnelly (IN) have no primary challengers. But some conservative Democrats still do. This Tuesday corporately-funded, cowardly Blue Dog John Barrow (GA), faces off against progressive ex-state Senator Regina Thomas. At least Obama hasn't endorsed him this year. Barrow has an extremely conservative voting record-- especially for a congressman representing a Democratic district. Obama took GA-12 with 54%-- even better than his nationwide total (53%). For his entire miserable career in the House, Barrow has a 55.16% ProgressivePunch score on the close votes where he was needed, a fairly terrible score. Interestingly, his score dropped precipitously the day Obama became president. Since then, it has sunk down to 40.91%, one of the two worst of any Democrat representing a district Obama won. Barrow has refused to debate Regina and spends all his time from Republicans (like Don Chambers, Al Kennickell & David Padison who put on a GOP fundraiser for him), lobbyists and corporate executives.

A week from Tuesday, another excruciatingly bad Blue Dog, Boehner-boy Dan Boren (OK), comes face to face with Oklahoma's most progressive populist state legislator, state Senator Jim Wilson. All the most corrupt sources of GOP money-- like Big Oil-- have opened their flood gates to Boren. He's their ace-in-the-hole inside the Democratic caucus. Obama and the House Democratic leadership? Mumsville...