This morning I joined John Fugelsang as he substitute hosted the Stephanie Miller Show. With both of us being liberal political comics, it was natural to discuss the GOP presidential field, Obama's upcoming jobs speech and other headlines ripped from Drudge and MSNBC. What the audience probably did not expect is that we would get into a serious and detailed conversation about Jersey Shore, the MTV show.

As John put it, MTV has finally become as destructive as our parents feared, but it has nothing to do with the music. 

I started watching Jersey Shore as an experiment. I'd just gotten the iPad, and I wanted to test buying and watching TV content on it. When I fired up the store, Jersey Shore was looking me in the face with its over-gelled, fake tanned head. I clicked buy, and found myself watching out of more than a sense of irony. The show was kind of entertaining, and I just loved watching dumb people get paid to do even dumber things. 

I was genuinely amused by "t-shirt time!" and "GTL" (gym, tan, laundry) and part of me enjoyed the minstrelsy of it all at the expense of another ethnic group. Black folks had to deal with black-face. Maybe for Italians, this is pizza-face. 

The main thing that's kept me watching into season four (other than inertia), is the great analysis by Bill Cammack. I've known Bill for a few years. He's blogged about dating and video and sound editing for years, and it's with those eyes that he watches the show. Bill writes things such as "according to the edit,.... [thing x happened.]" His Facebook page explodes with hilarious commentary after each post, so I watch to read and play, much like the child who goes to church not for the sermons but the youth group.

So that's my excuse. Do you consider yourself too good for Jersey Shore but watch anyway? Why?