‘Daily Show’ gives Bayh street cred, at least with his kids

It’s not every day that a member of Congress emerges from an appearance on “The Daily Show” glad that he did it.

But Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) told ITK last week that not only did he like going on the satirical sketch news show, but that the biggest benefit was the credibility it bought him with his children.

{mosads}“The best thing about the whole segment, as far as I was concerned, was that it gave me some real credibility with my kids,” said Bayh, who has twin sons. “I could be on ‘Meet the Press’ or ‘This Week,’ and they wouldn’t know what all that was about. But then they said, ‘Dad’s on “The Daily Show”?’ They thought I’m doing something significant after all.”

Bayh appeared on a six-minute interview segment conducted by correspondent John Oliver. Oliver got Bayh to pretend he was “breaking up” with the Senate as if it were a romantic relationship, and asked him to pretend to mail a letter to prove he was ready for life after the Senate.

Bayh said he had no idea what Oliver was going to ask, and that the interview lasted for 45 minutes, which made him curious about which footage the show was going to use.

“I had no idea what was going to happen, but I know the show and I like the show,” Bayh said. “I didn’t mind whatever he was going to ask me. I was just trying to get through it without too much embarrassment. The only restriction I insisted on was that I didn’t want to do anything that was going to embarrass my colleagues or look disrespectful to my colleagues. Other than that, I let him ask whatever he wanted … I thought it was funny; it was fine.”