From another report in May, at Reflector.com:

“There’s a way ‘The Daily Show’ approaches covering politics, which is to make fun of politicians, the process and the media,” Morris, a self-described Daily Show fan, said last week.

A study the pair conducted in fall 2004 found that viewers of “The Daily Show” tend to be cynical about individual candidates, the electoral process and the media. Morris, an assistant professor in political science department, and Baumgartner, a visiting assistant political science professor, published “The Daily Show Effect,” a paper on their study’s findings, earlier this month in “American Politics Research,” an academic journal.

Morris and Baumgartner also found that Daily Show viewers, primarily young adults in their late teens and early 20s, tend to trust their own knowledge of politics.

“There is something going on with regard to how viewers see candidates and how they see the process as a whole … whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing, we don’t know,” Morris said. “But ‘The Daily Show’ is not a benign entity out there just entertaining.”

How does cynicism affect “Daily Show” viewers’ political behaviors? Morris and Baumgartner aren’t sure. Alienation could drive the show’s watchers away from polls during election, they said. Discontent could also spawn greater involvement.

Another possibility: As “Daily Show” viewers grow more confident in political knowledge — a byproduct of “getting” Stewart’s humor — they could become more active voters, Baumgartner said.

Today, nearly a month later, Morin of the Washington Post writes:

This is not funny: Jon Stewart and his hit Comedy Central cable show may be poisoning democracy.

Two political scientists found that young people who watch Stewart’s faux news program, “The Daily Show,” develop cynical views about politics and politicians that could lead them to just say no to voting.

That’s particularly dismaying news because the show is hugely popular among college students, many of whom already don’t bother to cast ballots.

After a 2004 election turnout that blew away all other turnouts in US history, and after the authors indicated they didn’t know which way the impact would be felt, Morin condenses it to suggest Jon Stewart sucks.

You know what the greatest disincentive for voting is? The way the Republicans rigged the vote in Florida, Ohio and elsewhere in the last two presidential elections. The whole electronic voting scam. Politicians that practice cronyism. Leaders who torture in our name.

Cynicism is reflective of reality and Stewart didn’t create the reality. And if 99% of America didn’t vote, and Bush beat Kerry 5 votes to 4 with just 9 voters voting, he’d call it a mandate.

That’s not cynicism. That’s a broken political system. Morin would rather blame one of the messengers, instead of writing about the real problem. Reading Morin leads to blindness and a more violent society. Because readers of his columns either want to gouge out their own eyes or shoot a mainstream media hack that couldn’t get the weather report right on a high school rag.

And Morin’s next blurb begins: “Are Republicans stingy but principled while Democrats are generous but racist?”

In Morin’s world view, selfishness is a principle. Republicans were willing to give 9 times $1200 ($10,800 per victim). Democrats and Independents offerred 13 times $1500 ($19,500 per white victim) and $18,000 per minority victim. And the difference in the latter group is the important point he highlights.

Now consider: $10, 712 is the annual earnings of a minimum wage worker right now. That’s where Republicans just refused to budge from, though adjusted for inflation, that’s the lowest minimum wage since 1955. It appears that the Republican principle is to keep the impoverished living on $10,712 to $10,800 whether they work fulltime or have been devastated by disaster. Democrats and Independents varied their aid by $115 per month (less than $4/day), yet provided $3,000 per month more than Republicans. And guess which Morin considers principled.

I won’t dispute that racism exists, even in some Democrats and Independents. But further research might show regional differences that caused that result. And grouping minorities together might cause aberrations like anti-illegal-immigrant sentiment to influence the result.

Clearly Morin has an agenda in his presentations. He chooses to express his partisan bias instead of critical analysis. This can only lead to one logical conclusion for readers: Richard Morin has a teeny tiny penis.

Update: Though several bloggers have mentioned Morin’s column with good reasons to dismiss it, Gloria at All Spin Zone provides some additional polling data that proves Morin’s penis is even smaller than I thought.