Comedy Central press. Unfortunately, this is no joke

In what has been a season of jaw-dropping news, the latest bombshell seems like it was ripped from the pages of Mad Magazine.

First, the terrorist group ISIS has now unquestionably emerged as a territory-gobbling group offering the same kind of brutal, merciless murder of men, women and children that Adolf Hitler and the Nazis offered during the 20th century. Hitler had a country to back up and implement his ideological and racist blood lust. ISIS doesn’t have a country — yet.

Next, another shock: It turns out the Ebola virus isn’t limited to Africa and largely contained. Deadly Ebola dominates the news — and fears — of Americans. Now the news media has a genuinely compelling story, and partisans have an issue they can use to point to and blame the other side for enabling or bungling.

And then came a bit of jaw-dropping news that seemed as if it absolutely MUST be from The Onion, or written by news parody genius Andy Borowitz.

NBC was wooing — no joke, not kidding ya, 100 percent for real … really, I’m serious — Comedy Central’s mega-talented Jon Stewart to host “Meet the Press,” the longest running show in American television history. They were willing to offer big bucks to do it and, according to the report that revealed the network’s r-e-a-l mindset, had been talking to Stewart’s agent.

The revelation, stunning to those who still cherish traditional news values, came in a must-read piece on New York magazines’ “Daily Intelligencer” page. Gabriel Sherman wrote: “One source explained that NBC was prepared to offer Stewart virtually ‘anything’ to bring him over. ‘They were ready to back the Brink’s truck up,’ the source said. A spokesperson for NBC declined to comment. James Dixon, Stewart’s agent, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.”

Any journalist knows that when the subject of a story refuses comment it might really mean “no comment,” but it usually means the tidbit is true and the subject hopes the story will go away. Which it basically did.

How unthinkable would it once have been to seriously consider hiring a talented comedian to take over what has long been a solid news franchise?

What next? Could CBS try to get David Letterman to take over for “Face the Nation’s” Bob Schieffer? Could clowns take over for members of Congress? (Wait, that already happened.)

NBC’s choice of Chuck Todd means Meet the Press remains the show that for more than a half century has symbolized the phrase “broadcast journalism.” For now.