With a nod to Andrew Sullivan, Pretentionous Alert.

From a critical essay about "The Daily Show" (!) on the New Republic Web site:

"Laughter is the essence of individuality. Sobs sound alike, so do moans of pleasure and pain, so do terrified screams; but each person has his or her own laugh. A horror of individuation is why Stalin asked a group of Polish communists how Comrade Z was, and when they stared at the ground in silence, he burst into laughter because he and they knew that he had had Comrade Z killed a few days before; it is why the Uruguayan junta called the prison where it tortured and killed suspected leftists Libertad--those were instances of politics pursuing and catching laughter, and then having the Last--the eschatologically last--Laugh. Politics hates the naked unbridled ego that laughter sets free; it hates it with the intensity with which laughter heaps its furies on the naked unbridled ego that hides behind the highflown sentiments of politics."

Just a note to all you editors out there, if someone is writing a review on a show on Comedy Central and mentions Stalin, "Uruguayan Junta's" and "Libertad", it is pretentious. Way pretentious.