Late-night comics sock it to democracy, some say  April 13,
2008|By Stevenson Swanson, Tribune correspondent  NEW YORK —
John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a rowboat
out in the middle of a lake. The boat rolls over. Who's saved?
The United States.  Making fun of politicians is as American as
singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the start of a baseball
game. But does the relentless ribbing have a serious underside?
If the late-night talk shows make fun of every politician, night
after night and election cycle after election cycle, is the butt
of the joke no longer the politician but the American democratic
system?  Russell Peterson thinks so. Peterson, a University of
Iowa professor who once worked as a political cartoonist and
stand-up comedian, contends that the cumulative effect of
nightly monologues by Jay Leno, David Letterman and Conan
O'Brien is corrosive. If all politicians are corrupt, laughable,
puffed-up egomaniacs, what difference does it make who gets your
vote, or whether you