With a new shipment of "Daily Show"-inspired textbooks on their way to America's public schools, Jon Stewart and his coterie of fake journalists have embarked on a quest to revolutionize the American textbook industry.
Just kidding.
In reality, "America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction" is a coffee table book that shouldn't be kept on the coffee table. The treatise was released earlier this month, and was penned chiefly by Stewart, the proud winner of four Emmys and a Peabody Award, broadcast journalism's highest honor.
The book is a further testament to Stewart's ability to report the news in a novel fashion. In today's media-infested world of bloggers and twenty-four hour cable-news providers, "America" will undoubtedly fuel the ongoing debate over comedian Stewart's own credentials as a journalist.
Whether Stewart is indeed striving to reshape the rigid world of American history texts or simply aspiring for a good laugh, he rails against the inadequacies and inefficiencies of our venerable democratic tradition.
Yet anything more than a cursory glance of "America's" 220-plus pages promises to reveal an undeniable interest and appreciation for the system, its "quagmires of freedom" and all.
"Plymouth succeeded because its inhabitants did not come to the New World searching for glory," Stewart writes. "Rather, the Pilgrims had come to escape religious persecution, to create a society where they could worship as they pleased and one day, God willing, even do some persecuting of their own."
With a barrage of unabridged truths like this one, "America" tells the entire story of our nation - offering a surprisingly nuanced and exhaustive account of its rearing.
In many respects, it outrivals some very real textbooks, as it refrains from the banal adulation that one might get from a traditional text. Instead, Stewart chooses to examine all players with a vigorous and veracious eye. And like a good Spike Lee joint, "America" makes sure that no group is safe from the almighty joke.
When it comes time to tackle the nation's political story, Stewart effectively highlights important yet simple lessons that our grammar school teachers forgot to tell us.
"Lawmaking is tedious and never-ending," Stewart admits. "To understand the need for a legislative branch in a democracy, we must first acknowledge two central truths: 1. Society needs laws 2. People are busy."
It might be helpful and informative for all citizens to glance at its pages-if only to correct the common misconception that both the congressional incumbent and his/her challenger enjoy similar odds when it comes time for an electoral contest.
Granted, "America" never pretends to be an alternative to your grammar school guide. In fact, Stewart's most obvious contempt seems to be for the publishers of the textbooks that he may or may not have read as an adolescent. In a play on those superfluous and seemingly inane informational boxes that usually come on the bottom corner of a page, Stewart pens a "Were you aware?" column that snickers about how "Did You Know?" is copyrighted by a rival publisher.
And then there are the hilarious but frivolous jokes (or tasteless quips - depending on your sense of humor) that litter the book. When referring to the early powers granted to the chief executive, Stewart includes "room and board, a good salary, and license to rape and pillage." Or how about the feigned discussion question that asks: "Why do you think the Framers made the Constitution so soul-crushingly boring?"
With its title page full of prominent talking heads (who appear, quite literally, as heads) like Chris Matthews and Tom Brokaw, the seventh chapter of the book, entitled "The Media: Democracy's Valiant Vulgarians," devotes itself primarily to the nation's press.
Stewart and the gang's no holds-barred examination of the unofficial fourth branch of American government reaches its zenith with a hilarious and insightful look at a day in the life of a cable news channel:
"Seven minutes: actual news. One hour: forced light hearted banter. One hour: Coming up nexts. 20 minutes: Pop culture minute."
As Stewart critiques the contemporary press, it becomes clear that "America" is not only an exercise in what is wrong with the system, but a recommendation for improving it. Beneath all of the vulgarities and inanities is a blueprint for a better democracy - or at the very least, one for a better textbook.
In fact, the formula works so well that by the end of it all, the reader might find herself asking why Stewart's head fails to appear alongside that of Brokaw and Matthews (resist the temptation).
Sure, "America" can be a little silly but then again, so can the real thing. "America," like the Daily Show, practices an unrivaled form of truth telling even as it entertains.
Stewart's version of American politics is as refreshing as the network's and the textbook's are stale. You can almost hear serious journalists like Dan Rather weeping along with their teleprompters.
