Jon Stewart | featured news

Letterman has a big week; Stewart has a bigger month; and Leno still has the biggest season.

Just three days before pivotal midterm elections, comedians Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert threw a "sanity" rally that organizers insisted wasn't about politics. But there were political undertones to Saturday's event that blended laughs, activism and a call to civility for the huge throng that stretched along the National Mall.

In its first taping of the week in Washington, "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" went straight for the capital's funny bone -- by making a slew of jokes at the expense of NPR, which created controversy last week by firing news analyst Juan Williams.

White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer says Obama is taping an appearance on Oct. 27, just days before the Nov. 2 elections.

CNN today fired anchor Rick Sanchez a day after Sanchez assailed The Daily Show host Jon Stewart as a "bigot" and suggested that CNN and the other networks are run by Jews. Sanchez made his rant Thursday on the Sirius XM radio show "Stand Up! with Pete Dominick". CNN acted within 24 hours. "Rick Sanchez is no longer with the company. We thank Rick for his years of service and we wish him well," the Time Warner cable news channel said in a statement. Sanchez recently lost his afternoon show on CNN Rick's List, which is being replaced by CNN Newsroom. The Daily Show considered Sanchez an intellectual lightweight compared to CNN stars Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blizter and made him the butt of jokes, which Sanchez resented and thought was racist. (He's Hispanic.)

'The Daily Show' event is planned as a comical response to Glenn Beck's recent rally — but politically minded fans are taking it, and Stephen Colbert's 'March to Keep Fear Alive,' seriously.The moment Shawna Riley heard Jon Stewart lay out his plans to hold a "Rally to Restore Sanity" on Oct. 30 on the National Mall, she raced to get online and book her hotel and airline tickets.

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are taking their political feud to Washington and plan to hold opposing political rallies on the National Mall just before the midterm elections.

NBC Universal CEO Jeff Zucker leapt to the defense of CNBC this morning, describing Comedy Central host Jon Stewart's evisceration of the network and Mad Money host Jim Cramer as "incredibly unfair to CNBC and the business media."

"CNBC is a spectacular organization and in particular Jim Cramer," he said.

In the first three days of this week, CNBC's Business Day programming block was down 10 percent in the key demographic of adults 25-to-54 versus the same period the week before, and down 11 percent among total viewers. Meanwhile, Mad Money was also down 10 percent in the 25-to-54 demographic, but only 4 percent among all viewers -- suggesting that maybe some of those bored college kids who watch Jon Stewart did, in fact, tune in to find out exactly what is the deal with this Jim Cramer character.