For several years now, Jon Steward and Steven Colbert have not only been hailed as the nation's leading purveyors of news and information for millions of viewers, the fact that they are has been both goggled at and decried. Comedians? Satirists? These are the sources of news for millions of Americans? What the hell is wrong?

Well — nothing. Comedy and satire have long been vital parts of the political discourse, all the way back to the Greeks and probably earlier (go ask a scholar who would know). Aristophenes' "Lysistrata" is a great example, a satire of men's lust for war being thwarted by their disgusted wives who withheld relief to the other great lust until they declared an end to the war. In no uncertain terms, the ancient Greek playwright skewered the ways of his nation's leaders, and he made it funny. (If you ever get a chance to see a production, do so; it really is funny — and wonderfully lewd.)

More recently, and yet over 200 years ago, Jonathon Swift tore apart the politics of his day in "Gulliver's Travels," a novel entertaining enough to be enjoyed today (and amenable to a variety of productions). Will Rogers was famous for his political comment as much as anything: "I'm not a member of an organized political party," he said, "I'm a Democrat" — words that continue to ring true. In the 60s and 70s, some of the most prescient and accurate political commentary in our nation came from comedians: Mort Sahl, Lenny Bruce, James Gregory, the Smothers Brothers (yup; you had to be there). I'd even throw in writers like Ring Lardner, Jr, who wrote the screenplay for M*A*S*H, the best anti-Vietnam war movie of the day.

So Stewart and Colbert are doing nothing new. They are following an ancient tradition, using comedy to illuminate what others try to keep dark. Are they serving as a source of reliable information? Well, that's tricky. In order for their jokes to work, audiences have to know what the hell they are talking about. Many of their pieces require them to show actual news footage — the facts, if you will — before they can hammer the punchline. Of course they can manipulate these clips to make the jokes work, and they do, but if what they were doing was twisting what newsmakers did and said completely out of recognition, audiences would grow tired of the bits. The shows would just be another version of Mystery Science Theatre, the News Edition.

But Stewart and Colbert not only attempt to begin with news items presented fairly, their shows work better because they do exactly that. O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh and the other right-wingers succeed by taking things out of context, by inventing premises that never existed, and by numerous other means of dishonesty. They have nothing of substance on which to stand; they must continually invent something they can sell. Stewart and Colbert know that something as close to the truth as they can make works even better. They let politicians, Wall Street execs, media hacks and the rest hoist themselves by their own, as it were, pitards; the jokes are just waiting to be plucked like low-hanging fruit. But it only works because they present an honest introduction to their jokes: they rely on the truth to be their straight man.