"The Daily Show" is faltering.

"The Daily Show" should be at its best this week, as it covers the Democratic Convention. But the funniest thing on the show last night turned out to be the set-up for a completely unfunny punch line. The set-up was a clip of Ron Reagan explaining stem cell research. The whole "Daily Show" audience was laughing at the clip, and we were hysterical at home. What was it about Ron Reagan's overenunciated, pedantic lecture that made it so funny? Surely, it can't be just his opportunistic seizing of the limelight on the occasion of his father's death. That's not that funny.

The show had so much material to work with, and yet they frittered away time with material about their wireless microphones that didn't even refer to anything that took place at the Convention and that seemed like it could have been improvised on the spot by a reasonably smart high school kid. Then Joe Biden appeared and had nothing interesting to say. What could he say? He's pretty much stuck saying whoever spoke at the convention did a great job.

There are times when The Daily Show's support for the Democrats undermines the potential for comedy. That's the sort of media bias I cannot tolerate.

UPDATE: Thursday night's show was an improvement. Skipping the interview was a good move. So was the extended segment analyzing the reactions to Al Sharpton's speech. That was an example of having a specific humor idea and neatly making your point by skillfully editing the news clips of the day. The target of the humor was not the Democrats, though, but the news media.