Taken as a whole your post contains a deep contradiction. You begin by asserting that comedians are calculating masterminds who try to lead public opinion:

The ability to tap and guide folks into the lowest common denominator is a skill.

Daily kos blog does that all the time. It guides hate and attempts to harness it.

Then you assert the opposite as your conclusion:

When one looks at the backgrounds of the comedians one realizes they aren't qualified to discuss almost anything intelligently - so it shouldn't come as any surprise when they don't.

Voice of the people? Nah, comedians are just another time-waster vying for folks attention so as to command advertising revenues. By using the f-word Stewart and his ilk line their wallets doing the only thing they are skilled enough to do.

The irony is that you're closest to the truth when you say that they're not smart enough to create public opinion. Indeed they're not. What makes a worldclass comedian is not so much intelligence as the gift of listening coupled with the ability to put into words what they hear.

If they and their writers tried to invent humor in a vacuum, the results would be like...well, actually, sorry to say, they'd be like your attempts at political humor. They'd fall flat on their faces and they wouldn't be where they are today. People respond to humor when it resonates with them, when they see their own thoughts and feelings expressed up on the stage by the performer. People even laugh when they're the butt of the joke, as long as they recognize some truth to it; the best comedy inspires the best in people, when they're able to laugh at themselves.

(Did you laugh when I riffed on your straight line about "pictures of pussies"? Most people would. My reaction in that situation is to laugh at myself for saying something so silly and setting myself up for it. "Doh!" is so profoundly human, and humans are profoundly funny.)

Your disdain for the voice of the people suggests that you lack that gift of listening, and the results show up when you attempt humor. A case in point is your ongoing story Inside the Mind of a Liberal. If you were capable of listening, you wouldn't produce that flat, lifeless, cartoon caricature. I'd laugh, SDAITech1, honestly I would, if I saw even a shadow of myself in your stories. But I don't, because you attempt humor in a vacuum, uninformed by empathy.

Humor is far more than a pacifier, far more than the opiate of the masses. It's an expression of a uniquely human gift, that our self-awareness allows us to look at ourselves and laugh. Remember that Vulcans don't laugh; but you're human. Don't shun humor as the enemy of intellect, SDAITech1, embrace it for its proof of your humanity and your connection to humanity. Bask in the warmth of the fellowship of laughter.