...The Flipside. You can watch the trailer and a sample episode over on this site. The Flipside is by no means the first attempt to create a comedy news show with a conservative bent. Maybe the most popular failed attempt is The 1/2 Hour News Hour, which lasted for about a half a year back in 2007. And Glenn Beck has been airing his own take on a Daily Show-type show called The B S of A on his little private island of a media "empire" for a couple years now, but since that show doesn't have to fight for ratings to survive, it doesn't really count.

I just watched the first episode of The Flipside and it was about what you'd expect. Maybe the most damning sign that The Flipside isn't funny is that the live studio audience doesn't laugh all that much. The jokes earn more polite, supportive rounds of applause than laughter from even the friendliest of friendly crowds. The truth is that the whole show is just staggeringly unfunny. Even legitimate targets for satire, like a central segment about Harrison Ford fighting for climate change when he owns a fleet of private airplanes, suffer from weak punchlines about Ford's earring.

Here's the thing I don't understand about these conservative shows: Does anyone involved in the creation and production of The Flipside actually think that The Flipside is funny? Or do they think that eventually they'll get funny with practice? The history of television is littered with unfunny sitcoms and talk shows, of course, but even, say, The Chevy Chase Show had some air of potential to it. Does the political drive behind The Flipside blind producers and staff to the fact that their show absolutely sucks? Do they consider anyone who doesn't laugh at this show to be a liberal? Because I'm pretty sure that some members of the audience during that taping must've been closeted liberals, then.

(Via Death and Taxes.)